Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 14 July includes:

Monday 14 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill, following which the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.

Tuesday 15 July—Opposition day (9th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Wednesday 16 July—Second Reading of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a motion relating to the Committee on Standards’ third report of Session 2024-25 on register of interests of Members’ staff, followed by a general debate on giving every child the best start in life.

Thursday 17 July—General debate on the global plastics treaty, followed by a general debate on ageing community and end-of-life care. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 18 July—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 21 July will include:

Monday 21 July—General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan.

Tuesday 22 July—The Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the summer recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 22 July and return on Monday 1 September.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman]

I am not going to let this moment pass—I am sure no colleague would wish me to—without again reminding everyone present that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings. On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed in four separate attacks and 700 more were injured, many of them grievously. I know that the whole House will want to join me in mourning the victims of these dreadful crimes and in sending all our best wishes to their families and loved ones.

While we are on the subject of anniversaries, the House will need no reminding that 2025 is 760 years since Simon de Montfort convened the first representative Parliament. Perhaps even more significantly, this year marks 800 years since the year 1225, when the charter we now know as Magna Carta was agreed as a statute and, indeed, became the first of all our statutes. To that extent, it is 1225 and not 1215 that should be recognised as the birth date of Magna Carta. [Interruption.] I am pleased to hear that wide array of support from the House—thank you. I thought it was an important point to put on the record.

For the Government, of course, the past week marks an anniversary of a somewhat less glorious and happy kind: their first full year in office. As a House, it falls to us to ask how the Government have done. It would be right to focus in the first place on their shockingly negligent and abusive treatment of our Northern Ireland veterans, but that is the topic of a Westminster Hall debate next Monday, so let us focus on wider issues.

Labour pledged to deliver the highest economic growth in the G7. In reality, UK growth has failed even to beat the G7 average. Labour promised to meet NHS waiting list targets for 92% of patients, but the current figure stands at 59.8%—just one percentage point better than a year ago. Labour vowed to smash the boats and the boat gangs, yet small boat migrant numbers are up by almost 50% compared with this time last year. Perhaps we can forget the pledges.

How, then, is the UK economy actually doing? Well, we know that the Office for Budget Responsibility has cut its growth forecast to just 1%, inflation is higher than a year ago and unemployment stands at its highest for four years. So diminished is the Government’s standing in international markets that the Institute for Fiscal Studies recently pointed out that the UK now faces higher borrowing costs than almost all comparable countries. It is two full percentage points higher than Germany and higher even than Greece and Italy.

I am afraid to say that the Government have stored up more pain to come. The junior doctors have now voted in favour of further strikes through the autumn and into the new year. They had a 22% increase last year, the House will recall, and they are now looking to their Labour brothers and sisters for a scarcely believable further 29%. That is before we include their pensions. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has, as the wildly overrated Aneurin Bevan said in 1948, “stuffed their mouths with gold”, and they are already coming back for more.

What has the media reaction been to all this? Internationally, The Economist described the Prime Minister’s first year as “wasted”. Time called it “a catalogue of errors”. The normally sympathetic New York Times commented that Britain’s Prime Minister is

“fading away before our eyes”.

Even supportive British newspapers have not been able to disguise their dismay. The Financial Times has bewailed Labour’s “drift”, and The Guardian its “lack of vision”—not my words, but those of some of the most respected newspapers in the world.

Finally, what do the poor, suffering public make of all this? We know what a laser focus those in 10 Downing Street keep on the polls, and it will not have escaped their notice that the Prime Minister’s approval rating is now at -35. No Government in recent times have ever lost public support after an election faster than this one. How mortified the Prime Minister must be to be wrenched back almost weekly from the perfumed chanceries of Europe to the grimmer realities of domestic politics.

We need not dwell on the pieties and pomposities of Labour’s pronouncements about stability and trust before the July 2024 election. These are the facts, they speak for themselves, and they say only this: must do better—a lot better.

[Lucy Powell]

May I join the shadow Leader of the House in marking the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings? We all remember that day well, and I am sure that the whole House will want to remember all those who died and those who were affected by it.

May I also take this opportunity to welcome the newly announced new director of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, the highly qualified Miriam Minty, who will be starting in September?

As the shadow Leader of the House said, this week we welcomed the French President to the UK for a state visit. I thought his address to both Houses on Tuesday was excellent and historic, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, your team and all those involved in organising it. I thought that it underlined the deep and enduring relationship between our two great countries. The visit concludes today with a summit, and I will ensure that the House is updated at the earliest opportunity on any agreements that we come to as part of that.

I have to say it is a bit galling that, week in, week out, the right hon. Gentleman raises the proposed strike action by junior doctors, which is extremely disappointing. We do not think strike action is necessary, given that the NHS is finally moving in the right direction. Strikes would put that recovery at risk, affecting patients and letting down our collective obligations to those we are here to serve. We have delivered a very generous pay settlement, but we are keen to work constructively. The Health Secretary’s door remains open—he will be in the House shortly.

Our approach is very different from that which the Conservatives left us. They left the NHS on its knees, with waiting lists at a record high, and with over half a million appointments and operations cancelled due to strike action in just one year. And it was not just the doctors; the rail strikes cost the economy over £1 billion, the teachers’ strike lost 600 teaching days in one year, and the Conservatives went to war with public sector workers week in, week out. I did notice, though, that the Leader of the Opposition is today giving a speech in which she will talk about the “ticking time bomb” that has been left. Too right there is a ticking time bomb—it is the Conservatives’ ticking time bomb. We all know that they left mines all over the place, and we are having to sweep them out.

The right hon. Gentleman wants to know how our first year in office is going, and I am happy to tell him. We promised 2 million extra NHS appointments, and we have delivered a million more than that. We said that we would get waiting lists down, and they are coming down month on month. Interest rates are coming down. Net migration is coming down from a record high under the Conservatives. We have secured three trade deals—trade deals that they once hailed but never delivered, and we have got them going. We have created nearly 400,000 new jobs since the election. We have recruited an extra 3,000 new police officers. We have built nearly 200,000 new homes, established Great British Energy, extended the warm home discount to 6 million more households, expanded free school meals for half a million more children, and opened free breakfast clubs. We have banned bonuses for water bosses who have been polluting our rivers, and wages grew more in our first 10 months in office than they did in the Conservatives’ last 10 years in office. I am happy to debate him any time on our record, and I thank him for the opportunity to do so today.

I do feel slightly sorry for the shadow Leader of the House when, coming here week in and week out, it is just going from bad to worse for the Conservative party, is it not? Perhaps that is why he goes so deep into history in his questions, because he does not want to talk about recent history. He is one of the first up this morning after—let us be honest—a big defection overnight, the latest in a long line of those fleeing the sinking ship. Personally, I would not put have put Jake Berry—best friend of Boris Johnson and former chair of the Conservative party—down as a likely defector. It really is that bad for the Conservatives. However, I could not have put it better myself, when Jake said

“we’ve got a Conservative Party that doesn’t seem to know what it stands for any more… the Conservatives have lost their way. They’ve abandoned their principles. They’ve abandoned the British people.”

He is right, isn’t he?

Having said that, and we cannot pass this by, that defection does not make up for what has been a terrible week for the Reform party, especially when it comes to, shall we say, HR matters. The bigger story for Reform this week is that it really is becoming the party of sleaze and scandal, and of dud and dodgy personnel. I do not think this is really the right moment for it to start ditching its vetting procedures. Even though it has only a handful of MPs, its Chief Whip seems to have had a busier week than ours, and that is saying something. I am not sure if Reform will welcome our partnership with the French on tackling the small boats this week, but it is already enthusiastically implementing a policy of one in, one out.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 7 July is as follows:

Monday 7 July—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill.

Tuesday 8 July—Remaining stages of the Football Governance Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 9 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.

Thursday 10 July—General debate on the attainment and engagement of boys in education, followed by general debate on children’s health. The subjects for these debates was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 July—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 14 July will include:

Monday 14 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill, following which the Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration.

Tuesday 15 July—Opposition day (9th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

[Jesse Norman]

I am sure the Leader of the House and all Members will want to join me in recognising this year as the 81st anniversary of the announcement by the Government of a national health service, by Sir Henry Willink in 1944.

Most of us wishing to celebrate an anniversary would probably have a bit of a party—maybe get a few friends round, order in some pizza and put up decorations. Only the Labour party would seek to celebrate its first year in office with the kind of Charlie Foxtrot multidimensional legislative omnishambles that we have seen in the past few days.

Given their three massive reverse ferrets of recent weeks, I must say I had thought that the Government had perfected the art of the U-turn. After all, they had had U-turns on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap—each, in its own way, a little masterpiece of slow-motion dithering and indecision. But then, the other day, the Government upped their game significantly by executing a comprehensive 180° U-turn on their decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, having repeatedly said that it was not necessary. Brilliantly, the Prime Minister managed to U-turn at the same time on his own speech about the UK being an island of strangers.

I naively believed that that was the state of the art—the Government had maxed out on U-turns and nobody could be more bewilderingly incompetent than that. How wrong I was. On Tuesday, we saw something that was almost unheard of in the 750 years of our Parliament—a Minister pulling out his chainsaw and disembowelling his own Government’s flagship welfare Bill in mid-air on live television from the Dispatch Box. Really, Mr Speaker, that outstrips my poor powers of description. We need the pen of a Shakespeare or a Thackeray to do it justice; it is the quintessence of cock-up.

But, actually, Mr Speaker, this past week has been much worse even than that. Just as Nick Clegg was defined by his U-turn on student fees, so the Prime Minister will be defined by this moment: a new and supposedly reforming Government with an enormous majority have been unable not to cut, but to reduce the rate of increase in public spending on benefits, let alone make any serious actual reforms to protect people.

There has been a remarkable complacency about this Government and this past week has shown it up. They regard disagreement as something to be ignored or crushed: they do not answer questions at the Dispatch Box; they obfuscate on written questions; they try to ignore the Opposition; they dismiss the House of Lords; and they spurn their own Back Benchers.

Loyal Labour MPs, concerned about disabled people, have been trying to get a hearing on this issue for months, only to be repeatedly rejected, and this has been the result. Three things follow from it. First, there are the immediate consequences. It will be next to impossible now for the Government to achieve meaningful reform of the welfare system. They have shown that they have no ability to make savings. Taxes will go up while the economy continues to stall. Little wonder the gilt market exploded during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday.

Secondly, the Prime Minister has opened the door to future rebellions. Indeed, he has gone further than that; he has written the playbook for them. Doubtless, he will have a reshuffle sometime soon. Loyal dissenters will be punished, the talented cast out, and Select Committee Chairs bought off, but that will make no difference. There will be others—the Select Committee Chairs have shown that they are a powerful new force in Labour politics.

Finally, the Prime Minister has massively damaged his own reputation. He has endlessly harped on about the need for professional competence and moral seriousness, but this has been a year in government that started with a host of undisclosed personal gifts received and has ended with utter political humiliation. He has shown that he is in office, but not in power. What is the point of this Government? No one knows, not even the Prime Minister.

[Lucy Powell]

I start by sending all our condolences to the friends and family of Liverpool football club star, Diogo Jota, following the shocking news of his and his brother’s death in a tragic car accident. It came only two weeks after his wedding and after winning last season’s premier league. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with his family, friends, Liverpool teammates and former Wolves teammates. I also send my best wishes to the Lionesses at the start of the Euros.

Tomorrow is Action Mesothelioma Day. I commend all the campaigners who continue to fight for justice for those who have died or are ill as a result of asbestos cancer. My dear friends and former colleagues, Tony Lloyd and Paul Goggins, sadly no longer with us, were real champions of this cause and I pay tribute to them.

May I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker—I would rarely do this—to put on record how proud I am of my friend, the first female Chancellor, who has been doing a very difficult and formidable job. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Quite honestly, she has more class than most Opposition Members—including, I am sure, some on the Front Bench. As the shadow Leader of the House has asked me to do so, may I update the House on the universal credit Bill, as it will soon be renamed? I completely acknowledge that how this business was managed was not the way that it should have been. The process did not live up to the standards to which I and the Government hold ourselves. However, as I said last week, we value the contributions of Members, especially those with particular experience of and interest in these issues. Critical to any good legislation is that it reflects parliamentary opinion, and I believe the Bill now does that. I think it is actually a good thing that we are prepared to listen and change, but Members should rest assured that we will take stock and reflect on how we can do things better going forward.

The Bill as amended, and the Timms review alongside it, now reflect the reform and safeguards that the House wants to see, and we will consider its remaining stages next week. The Bill’s title will become the Universal Credit Bill, as it will be narrower in scope. It will focus on ending the perverse incentives in universal credit, protecting the incomes of those currently in receipt of the universal credit health element and ending the reassessment of those with the most severe conditions, and clause 5 relating to personal independence payments will be deleted. Any future changes to PIP will come only following the Timms review, co-produced with disabled people and the bodies that represent them.

We can all agree that the welfare system needs reform and needs to be sustainable. The Conservatives should quite frankly be ashamed of their legacy, which needs addressing. It is a legacy of one in 10 working-age people on sickness or disability benefits; a legacy of a generation of young people with no mental health support and too few opportunities; a legacy of over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, many unable to work; a legacy of stagnant growth and no plan for job creation. It is this Government who are tackling those long-term challenges.

The shadow Leader of the House wants to talk about the Government’s anniversary. I am really happy to talk about our anniversary, because I am proud of our first year in office: our 10-year NHS plan coming out today, and waiting lists coming down month on month; a new, ambitious industrial strategy, creating job opportunities around the country; mental health support and the skills revolution; British jobs for British workers, with decent pay and conditions; the biggest investment in affordable and social housing in 50 years; finally clearing up our rivers and seas; bringing the railways into public ownership; creating GB Energy and getting bills down; half a million more children getting free school meals every day, and new free breakfast clubs; wages going up, and the biggest ever wage rise for the lowest-paid workers. That is the change that people voted for, and that is the change that we are bringing in.

Tomorrow is another anniversary—one that the Tories do not want to talk about: their worst ever election defeat. They were utterly rejected, and one year on, it has got no better for them—it is just getting worse and worse. They have not learned, they have not reflected, they have not apologised. The shadow Leader of the House talks about U-turns, but no one knows more about changing position and changing direction than the Conservatives. They changed Prime Ministers three times in three months! They went from austerity one month to spaffing money up the wall the next. One moment it was levelling-up, and the next it was funnelling money into the shires—from Brexit opportunities to Brexit disaster. One day they had an industrial strategy, the next they ripped it up. They were for net zero, then against it. They could not even cancel HS2 properly. In 14 years they have had more positions than the Kama Sutra. It is no wonder they are completely knackered.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I shall. The business for the week commencing 30 June includes:

Monday 30 June—Second Reading of the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill.

Tuesday 1 July—Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.

Wednesday 2 July—Consideration of Lords message to the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 3 July—Debate on a motion on financial redress for 1950s women impacted by Department for Work and Pensions maladministration of state pension age changes, followed by a general debate on mobile phone thefts. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 July—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 7 July will include:

Monday 7 July—Second Reading of the Pension Schemes Bill.

Tuesday 8 July—Remaining stages of the Football Governance Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 9 July—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.

Thursday 10 July—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 11 July—Private Members’ Bills.

[Jesse Norman]

I am afraid to say that the past week has been another horror show for the Government. This is Armed Forces Week, as the House will know. It is a time to celebrate and champion all those who serve and have served in our armed forces, and nowhere more than in my own county of Herefordshire. We must also note that, far from celebrating the armed forces, this Government deliberately opened the door last year to unfair and vexatious prosecutions of veterans who served decades ago in Northern Ireland, and they have kept that door open.

What else? The original Abortion Act was debated for more than a year, but the Government allowed no notice for public debate on the abortion amendment last week, and they gave just two hours of debate in the Chamber on the biggest change in abortion law in nearly 60 years. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the issue, that is a scandalously bad way to make legislation.

What else? Defence Ministers were left out of the loop on the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and were unable to say whether they supported this action by our closest ally. A Government Whip resigned, expressing her deep concerns over the welfare Bill, and the Government have promised to bring the Bill forward next week, as we have just heard—let us see if they do.

Talking of U-turns, the Government, having only just U-turned on the winter fuel payment, and again on grooming gangs last week, have prepared themselves for a U-turn on the two-child benefit cap less than a year since they suspended seven Labour MPs for voting against the cap.

This is just one week. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister’s personal reputation has continued to plummet? Only yesterday, The Times of London said:

“Not quite a year has passed since his landslide general election victory and already his political stock is trading at junk status, akin to a Zimbabwean dollar or Weimar papiermark.”

Mr Speaker, you may recall from your intimate knowledge of German history that the papiermark was a monetary instrument that led to hyper-inflation and political collapse. That is coming from The Times of London.

Shall we dig a little bit further into one specific reason why the Prime Minister’s reputation might have fallen so much? Following the record pay settlements of last year, the junior doctors have announced that they are “excited” at the idea of six months of strike action. Meanwhile, hospital consultants are balloting to see if they will strike as well. Doctors received a 22% increase last year after Labour took office, and now the junior doctors are apparently demanding a further pay increase of 29%. These are eye-watering numbers and, of course, we will all end up paying if the increases are granted, but I am afraid this is exactly what we would expect from a Government who have taxed and splurged the cash since the election.

It is hardly surprising that the unions now think they have an open door to extract money from the Treasury, and the Government have actually made the situation even worse through their rolling programme of nationalisation, and by abolishing NHS England. Whatever else it may have been, NHS England acted as a firebreak on union lobbying, because it operated semi-independently of Ministers. By abolishing it, the Government have now removed one of the few means they had to face down extortionate demands for more pay and more restrictive practices.

The same is true with the railways: as each one is nationalised—including South West Railway only last week—so the obstacles to the unions’ demands are progressively being removed. The House will recall the massive pay settlements given to the rail unions last year, with no attempt to negotiate any efficiency gains. It is only a matter of time before those unions come back for more, as the doctors are doing. These are not pay bargains; they are an abject surrender. Of course, Ministers themselves do not mind—after all, 90% of them are reported to be union members. As far as I can see, the Leader of the House is an exception: she is not a union member, and all credit to her for that.

[Lucy Powell]

I am!

[Jesse Norman]

Ah, okay. I am very sorry to say that the Leader of the House has corrected me. She is, in fact, a union member and therefore fully complicit in the same problem.

The Treasury itself is now the only hold-out against union demands. Little wonder the Chancellor has looked so unhappy and out of sorts—and that was before the Deputy Prime Minister started leaking memos calling for billions of pounds a year in tax increases. The unions know the Government are vulnerable, and they have come back for more. Labour Back Benchers also know that the Government are running scared and, led by their Select Committee Chairs, they are starting to get organised. Can the Leader of the House positively and personally now confirm that the welfare Bill vote will take place next Tuesday?

[Lucy Powell]

May I start by wishing two Deputy Speakers a happy birthday? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

As the right hon. Gentleman said, this is Armed Forces Week, when we thank and show our support for the men and women who serve, or who have served, in our armed forces over many years. It is nice to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place again this week, because we have missed him quite a bit recently, but I might gently suggest that if he had been here last week, he could have asked last week’s questions last week instead of asking them this week.

He asks me about the welfare Bill. As I have just announced to the House, the Second Reading of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill will take place next Tuesday, and the remaining stages of the Bill will take place on the Floor of the House the following week. I want to reassure colleagues that we take parliamentary scrutiny and the process of Bills extremely seriously. That is what our parliamentary democracy is all about: Bills are introduced; principles are considered at Second Reading; and the details receive robust debate and discussion, and are often amended in Committee, before we consider Third Reading. As the House would expect, the Government actively engage with parliamentary opinion throughout a Bill’s passage, as we are doing intensively with the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.

I am sure that the whole House can agree that our welfare system needs reform. Too many people are consigned to benefits for life without support to work and to get on. During the pandemic in particular, the number of those on sickness and disability benefits rose significantly, and the previous Government did nothing to re-engage people with the labour market afterwards. One in eight young people are now not earning or learning. Many post-industrial communities have been scarred over generations by worklessness and little job creation. As constituency MPs, we have all seen the inadequate and, frankly, degrading nature of disability benefits reassessments.

Addressing these deep-seated problems is at the core of our Labour principles and what we are trying to do with our welfare reforms. I just remind colleagues that these include: the biggest permanent increase to the standard out-of-work benefit since 1980; an end to reassessments for all those with serious health conditions; creating a more holistic and professionally-led assessments process; the biggest back to work programme in a generation; the right to try work; and ending the era of consigning people as unable to work.

To be clear, it is the Conservatives’ legacy that this Government now have to sort out—their legacy of one in 10 working-age people on sickness or disability benefits; their legacy of a generation of young people with no mental health support and poor skills; their legacy of over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists; and their legacy of inaction on welfare reforms over years and years. Quite honestly, the right hon. Gentleman has a brass neck, because the Conservatives have written the book on Government chaos, have they not? There were three Prime Ministers in three years; they sent the markets into chaos, with Budgets done on the back of a fag packet—they really did write the book on that one—there was by-election after by-election for misconduct; over 40 Ministers resigned in a single day; billions were wasted on crony covid contracts; public services were left on their knees; and industrial action was sweeping the country, costing us all dear. All of that left ordinary people paying the price with higher bills, higher mortgages and longer waiting lists.

However, this is not just about welfare reform; it is also about the context in which this sits in, and that is what this Government are getting on with doing—this Government’s mission to create good, decent, well-paid jobs in every community; this Government’s mission to bring down waiting lists and deal with the deep-seated health inequalities in this country; this Government’s mission to tackle child poverty; this Government’s mission to build more affordable and social housing, giving people a bedrock in life; and this Government’s mission to revolutionise skills and opportunities for young people. That is this Labour Government, with our Labour values, getting on with the job and delivering for people.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I will speak to the motion and specifically to the amendment in my name on the Order Paper.

As the Leader of the House has said, successive Administrations, in collaboration with the House, have supported across this Chamber the development of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. It was initiated in 2017 under the then Conservative Government, and it has always been developed on a collaborative and cross-party basis.

In that context, it is surprising, disappointing and a pity that the Government should table a motion on the business of the House when it has not been agreed in that collaborative and cross-party way. Indeed, they are whipping their own Members; that is highly unusual for a motion on the business of the House. Our position has always been that these matters should be worked through together, through the usual channels and with other senior bodies of the House in a spirit of consensus. In that spirit, I will not press the amendment in my name to a vote.

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

I am very concerned that the amendment tabled by Opposition Front Benchers would fly in the face of the body’s independence, so I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman will not be pushing it to a vote. Will he confirm whether his party supports an independent process and the ICGS? If his party were in government, would it make changes to the scheme or even scrap it?

[Jesse Norman]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for the question. Of course, it is a Conservative body in the first instance, developed on a cross-party basis. As far as I am aware, there is no desire in my party to make it anything other than a continuously independent body to suppress and prevent the abuses that occurred before it was brought into being—abuses with which we are all familiar.

In many ways, the ICGS has not been without its problems—it is in the nature of the House’s deliberations and the secrecy and privacy associated with these things that we do not always hear about those problems—but broadly speaking, it has been successful. That means, however, that in the context of the point of conflict between my side of the House and those on the Leader of the House’s side, there is no problem that the motion as drafted seeks to address and cure. Let me explain in more detail.

The motion frames the issue as supposedly not one of policy, but of procedure. As it sets out, the assurance board has many members. It is not simply composed of parliamentarians; it includes the Clerk Assistants of both Houses, Members of both Houses—but on a nominated basis, rather than elected—the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, a lay member of the House of Lords Conduct Committee, and members of the human resources teams of both Houses. The proposal before us is that this body should be able to set rules for Members of this House without the House itself having any say in the matter, so this is not about the nature of the board; it is about the question of what say the House has over rules that are being set for everyone affected by the ICGS, but for Members of this House in particular.

It is nonsense to suggest that laying a motion before the House, as we have suggested, would be difficult or need to involve any delay. Our position is extremely simple: there should be a motion before the House to approve or disapprove any decision taken by the assurance board. Such motions can be laid before the House in a very short period of time—literally in a day or two, and perhaps even overnight in some circumstances. There can be no proper suggestion of a delay in the implementation of decisions made by the assurance board, and therefore no reason—at least in my judgment and that of my colleagues—why this should not be a matter for the House to decide.

[Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

It is extremely surprising that the right hon. Gentleman is taking this position, given that his party is generally associated with deregulation and removing bureaucracy. Does he not agree that the proposal he is describing would create additional bureaucracy around an independent organisation?

[Jesse Norman]

No, that is not true. The motions of this House are not traditionally regarded as a form of bureaucracy; in fact, in many ways they cut through bureaucracy, because they allow us to get to a democratically ratified decision very quickly and transparently. The trouble comes when decisions are made without that transparency, simplicity and speed of action, which is what we are opposed to.

As I have said, the present proposals draw a distinction between policy and procedure, and would mandate the assurance board to act on its own behalf in matters of procedure. Of course, the board contains only one Member of the House of Commons, and as I have said, that person is nominated rather than elected by the House. In other words, the assurance board potentially has wide-ranging and coercive powers, which are to be exercised almost entirely by people who are outside any direct framework of democratic accountability. It potentially has the power to overturn decisions that are ultimately made by an MP’s constituents at the ballot box. The House has rightly been concerned about the exercise of such powers for at least 400 years.

The motion, too, draws a distinction between policy and procedure. Of course, contrary to the suggestion that has been made, procedure includes important substantive matters. Indeed, Paul Kernaghan’s review set out an illustrative table of potential changes, which included changing whether somebody may be accompanied to an ICGS interview. As I have pointed out, this is an issue of powers as well as procedure; the assurance board has the ability to empower people who are under review by the ICGS to bring another person along to an interview, or to prevent them from doing so. In turn, this reflects a tacit or explicit policy decision about what may be fair or just under the circumstances. It is not simply a matter of procedure.

Mr Kernaghan’s review also included, as an illustration of what he called procedure, changing the timing of when the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is notified of a misconduct complaint—whether that is before or after an initial assessment. Of course, that too reflects a tacit policy judgment about what a just process would be. Such tacit policy judgments show that there is no hard and fast distinction to be drawn between policy and procedure, and underline that these are not matters for officials—for unelected people—but for Members of this House acting through this House.

I remind the House that the ICGS sets rules not merely for members of Parliament, but for more than 15,000 passholders, and even—although this is slightly unclear, and in my judgment has not properly been resolved—for tourists and visitors to the Palace of Westminster. It is not accountable to any other body. Today’s decision to reject amendment (e)—of course, we are not moving that amendment, so that will be the decision—will be a one-off decision to give up powers of scrutiny, and it will be hard, if not impossible, to reverse that, once those powers are yielded. This is happening at a time when more and more decisions are being taken by people who are not accountable in any direct, genuinely democratic way, through the emergence of what people have often thought of as a kind of bureaucratic or legal sludge. That is absolutely deplorable. All that we in the Conservative party have said is that any decision of this type that is taken by people who are not Members of Parliament should be placed before this House, in line with its constitutional status and the Bill of Rights 1689. It has always been our procedure in this House not to recognise a superior, let alone a bureaucratic or non-democratically elected superior, and we should not do so on this occasion.

[Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I should note for the record that I am proud to serve on the Modernisation Committee, and in my previous role before coming to this place, I gave evidence to Paul Kernaghan.

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman carefully, and I am struggling slightly to understand his argument. I point to what might be the latest version of the constitution of the Conservative party—I cannot be sure about that, because unlike the Labour party, the Conservative party does not regularly publish its constitution online. I am looking at a version from 2021. The section dealing with ethics, disciplinary investigations and so on says that the governing committee of the Conservative party has empowered an independent ethics and integrity committee to determine matters of conduct, and whether rules have been broken. The committee is made up of a host of independent KCs and the chair of the 1922 committee. This goes to the point that he was making, because paragraph 82.1 says that

“The Committee will be the master of its own procedure”.

If that principle is good enough for the Conservative party, why should it not apply to us in this House?

[Jesse Norman]

I do not know in what capacity the hon. Gentleman gave evidence to Paul Kernaghan, but that is an extraordinarily misconceived idea. This House is a democratically elected Chamber, and it has been the constitutional doctrine of the United Kingdom for hundreds of years that it should have no superior. That is what we are contesting now. What may or may not be the case in some other body that the hon. Gentleman has dragged into this conversation, in a way that rather breaches the spirit of this cross-party discussion, is completely irrelevant. I am surprised that you have allowed that point to be made, Madam Deputy Speaker, since it is so obviously irrelevant to these discussions. That body is not the legislative body democratically elected by the people of this country.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 16 June—Motion relating to the House of Commons independent complaints and grievance scheme, followed by a general debate on Windrush Day 2025. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 17 June—Remaining stages of the Crime and Policing Bill (day one).

Wednesday 18 June—Remaining stages of the Crime and Policing Bill (day two).

Thursday 19 June—Motion to approve the draft Licensing Act 2003 (UEFA Women’s European Football Championship Licensing Hours) Order 2025, followed by general debate on incontinence, followed by general debate on water safety education. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 20 June—Private Member’s Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 23 June will include:

Monday 23 June—General debate on Pride Month.

Tuesday 24 June—Estimates day (2nd allotted day).

Wednesday 25 June—Estimates day (3rd allotted day). At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

Thursday 26 June—Proceedings on the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No. 2) Bill, followed by general debate on Armed Forces Day.

Friday 27 June—The House will not be sitting.

[Jesse Norman]

As the House will know, we have incoming news of a terrible disaster involving a flight out of Ahmedabad in India. I know that the Leader of the House will want to say a few words, but, from the Conservative Benches—I am sure that I speak for the whole House—let me wish everyone involved and their families the very best.

It would be a bad day this week if I did not mention the fantastic news of the knighthood of Sir Billy Boston—it is nice to be able to do that. I hope you will admire my restraint, Mr Speaker, in not mentioning your birthday and therefore not giving any incentive to any other Member of the House to mention it in their remarks either.

I had the dubious pleasure, as you did, Mr Speaker, of listening to yesterday’s spending review in this Chamber. It brought to mind President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal line about managing to compress the greatest number of words into the smallest amount of content. I am afraid that the statement was somewhat worse than that. It was, in both its design and delivery, an exercise in distraction and sleight of hand—a document not of economic strategy but of political evasion.

We should be clear from the outset that this was a spending review, not a Budget. Unlike a Budget, it was not subject to scrutiny by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Chancellor’s figures have, therefore, not been externally verified. Her assumptions have not been stress-tested, and her projections have not been independently reviewed. She was not required to publish the full fiscal implications or to give the embarrassing numbers in her own remarks—and, of course, she did not.

Even within the confines of departmental budgets, the presentation was, I am afraid, somewhat disingenuous. A final year outside the actual spending review period was included, filled with speculative figures designed to suggest rigour and restraint in budgetary control. This is the illusion of discipline without the reality of delivery. In case any Member is interested, this is on page 13 of the document. Elsewhere, baseline figures were conveniently shifted; most comparisons began from the year 2023-24, not the current year, which had the effect of inflating the apparent scale of any increases.

Sizewell C is a classic example. The document trumpets a near 16% increase in investment. In truth, spending over the period is falling by 3.7%. That is on page 44. Similarly, on police funding, the Chancellor was very careful in her language to say that there would be an increase in “police spending power”, but what she meant was that there would be an increase in the local authority precept: in plain English, a tax rise.

The same obfuscation was at work with overseas development aid. The Chancellor has always said that ODA cuts were needed to fund defence, but the reality is that defence increases are almost entirely in capital spending, while ODA is a cash line. Far from funding our national defence, what has actually happened is that overseas development aid has been cut to prop up other Departments’ day-to-day budgets.

The most obvious case is defence spending: we were told in grand rhetoric that it would rise to 2.5%, and later 3%, of GDP at some undefined moment when fiscal circumstances allow. In fact, it is unlikely that even 2.5% will be reached this Parliament. The 2.6% quoted includes the single intelligence account, which suggests that the number is below 2.5%. The defence investment plan—the plan that will release the money—is unlikely to appear until the end of the year. That is nearly 18 months after the 2024 general election—this at a time of war in Ukraine, and with China potentially positioning itself for conflict over Taiwan by 2027.

On Monday NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, echoed yesterday by no less than Lord Robertson, said that unless NATO members raise defence spending to 3.5%, with an additional 1.5% in wider support, we may as well “start learning Russian”. That is the strategic context. The Government’s response has been to dither and delay.

The Chancellor’s U-turn over the winter fuel payment badly damaged whatever credibility she ever had. Yesterday’s statement has compounded the problem for her and the Government. No mention was made of the estimated 5% annual council tax increases now expected, as flagged by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. No admission was made that the review will add £140 billion in new borrowing. That is an extra £10 billion a year in interest payments, at current rates, by the end of the period. Meanwhile, the supposed efficiency savings of nearly £14 billion are widely regarded as illusory.

As the Chancellor herself said about the spending review, these are her choices. But the truth is plain: there will be a tax cut for the people of Mauritius. For the rest of us, the spending review was a gigantic speculative splurge of spending, presented via smoke and mirrors, which will end up, as it always does with Labour, with higher taxes, and British taxpayers will have to bear the impact.

[Lucy Powell]

I start by saying that the thoughts of the whole House and the Government will be with the families of those travelling on flight AI171 from Ahmedabad in India to London Gatwick, which has reportedly crashed. This is an unfolding story, and it will undoubtedly be causing a huge amount of worry and concern to the many families and communities here and those waiting for the arrival of their loved ones. We send our deepest sympathies and thoughts to all those families, and the Government will provide all the support that they can to those affected in India and in this country.

I congratulate Billy Boston on receiving a knighthood for his services to rugby league—during your birthday week, Mr Speaker. I know that as a former patron of rugby league, you felt very strongly indeed that it was about time rugby league was recognised in this way, and you might want to mention that later.

Given that I know it is of great interest to the House, I am pleased to update colleagues on the ratification of the BBNJ—biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction—oceans treaty. Our oceans are dying, and without urgent action they will be irreversibly destroyed. I am proud to confirm to the House today that this Labour Government will introduce legislation before the end of the year to ratify the high seas treaty and protect marine life around the world. We were all shocked by Sir David Attenborough’s film about the destruction caused by bottom trawling, which this Government will ban in protected British waters.

I am really happy, as ever, to debate the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on the economy. He used to be a Treasury Minister and he is well read. He knows, I am sure, what every economist in this country knows, which is that for many, many years, the UK economy has been defined by low growth and stagnant living standards, because of our comparatively low productivity. That is because we have had years and years of under-investment in our infrastructure, in our services, in our regions and in our people. This Labour Government are finally putting that right with a 10-year renewal plan to rebuild Britain and address the productivity gap. I am not sure whether the Conservatives really understand basic economics, because they are showing no sign of it.

In my part of the world and yours, Mr Speaker, that has been particularly true. Towns and cities across the north and the midlands have been held back by woeful transport infrastructure that would be unacceptable to people in the south; held back by the lack of job opportunities near where they live; held back by poor, insecure and costly housing; held back because they are not getting the training and skills they need; and held back because their life chances are lower as a result of deep-seated inequalities.

That cannot be addressed overnight, and we are not pretending that it will be, but we have a long-term plan for renewal. That includes the biggest investment in affordable and social housing in 50 years; nuclear and renewable infrastructure transforming communities around the country; the north finally getting the rail connectivity it deserves; and every community getting better buses. Schools and hospitals are being rebuilt for the 21st century, based not on fictional budgets and economics but on actual plans to deliver them. We are addressing today’s cost of living crisis, too, with our warm homes plan to bring down bills, by extending free school meals and free breakfast clubs, with more free childcare, with a cap on bus fares and by increasing the wages of the lowest paid—with wages going up more in the first 10 months of this Labour Government than they did in 10 years of the Conservative Government. Finally, we continue to boost the NHS, which has already resulted in waiting lists coming down month after month.

The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about choices, so let us talk about those choices. We would not have been able to set those things out if we had not made the difficult changes to taxes that we made in the Budget last year. He seems to want more spending for the police and defence—I think that is what he was saying—but he does not want to make the hard decisions about where the money will come from. He mentions yet again the 2.5% of spending on defence, which this Government are delivering, but he might want to remind himself of when defence spending reached 2.5% in the last 20 years. Was it in any of the 14 years for which his Government were in office? No, it was not. It was only when Labour was last in government that we reached the heights of 2.5%.

In contrast to the Conservatives’ fantasy economics, yesterday’s spending allocations were all within the envelope that we set out in the Budget last year, so we are really clear where the money is coming from. As ever, their economic argument is utterly incoherent. On the one hand, they say that we are spending too much, and on the other that we are not spending even more on police and defence. They criticise us on growth, yet they do not want the investment to turbocharge our productivity and, therefore, our growth. We are the party with a plan—a plan to renew Britain, a plan to raise living standards in every part of the country, a plan to get our public services back on their feet and a plan to give people the security they need in their homes.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I shall. The business for the week commencing 9 June includes:

Monday 9 June—Remaining stages of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (day one).

Tuesday 10 June—Consideration of a Lords message to the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords], followed by remaining stages of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (day two).

Wednesday 11 June—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will present the spending review 2025, followed by Second Reading of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill.

Thursday 12 June—General debate on the distribution of SEND funding, followed by general debate on the fifth anniversary of the covid-19 pandemic. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 13 June—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 16 June will include:

Monday 16 June—Motion relating to the House of Commons independent complaints and grievance scheme, followed by a general debate on Windrush Day 2025. The subject for that debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 17 June—Remaining stages of the Crime and Policing Bill (day one).

Wednesday 18 June—Remaining stages of the Crime and Policing Bill (day two).

Thursday 19 June—Motion to approve the draft Licensing Act 2003 (UEFA Women’s European Football Championship Licensing Hours) Order 2025, followed by a general debate on incontinence, followed by general debate on water safety education. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 20 June—Private Members’ Bills.

Colleagues may also wish to be aware that on Tuesday 24 June and Wednesday 25 June the House is expected to debate estimates.

[Jesse Norman]

Today has a great double significance. As the House may know, it is World Environment Day, when we celebrate the natural world and recommit ourselves as a Parliament to seek to protect it; and it is also the putative date of birth of Adam Smith, one of my great heroes, who did as much as anyone has ever done to explain the world in which we live. If I may move from the sublime to the sublimely incompetent, this week has otherwise been one disaster after another for the Government.

On Monday, we had to drag the Leader of the House to the Dispatch Box yet again, and she had to apologise—yet again—for the Government’s flagrant disregard for this House of Commons in briefing out the strategic defence review over the weekend. There is no more important issue than the defence of the realm. It is a UK-wide, long-term, all-party matter and has always been treated as such, yet the Government chose to share the document not only with their friends in the media, but with the industry, at least six hours before it came to this Chamber or to Opposition parties. It is a matter of deep embarrassment for the Government and raises serious questions about the private sharing of financially sensitive information. The Leader of the House and the Defence Secretary are both honourable people, and I have no doubt that she has made the case every week in Cabinet for doing such communications properly. It is just extraordinary that these two members of the Cabinet are being hung out to dry every week by the 12-year-olds in 10 Downing Street.

You could have granted an urgent question every single day this week, Mr Speaker, such has been the deluge of important announcements prematurely made outside this House. Today, it is free school meals. Yesterday, it was the reannouncement of Northern Rail spending. The only mitigating factor is that the Government have been so incompetent in handling their slow-motion U-turn on the winter fuel allowance that no one has noticed anything else—though we still await a statement to the House on that issue as well.

What about the strategic defence review itself? We should start by thanking the reviewers for their hard work over many months. I know everyone in this House will want to do that, but if we look at the hard substance of the review, matters become more difficult. First of all, many of the announcements largely repeat the decisions of previous Governments—for example, on submarines, on AUKUS and on warheads. Secondly, and most crucially, where is the funding? Government Ministers have tied themselves in knots over the last few days as to whether the 3% of GDP target is “an ambition”, an aim, or simply to be undertaken “when fiscal circumstances allow” or “in the next Parliament”.

Luckily, General Richard Barrons, one of the SDR reviewers, was more honest, saying that the SDR’s financial profile—the assumptions against which the reviewers were working—assumed that defence will get 2.5% of GDP in financial year 2027-28 and 3% of GDP by no later than 2034. The great irony is that, not three weeks from now, we will have the NATO summit, which will call not for 3%, but for 3.5% plus 1.5%. We are light years away from that commitment. The awful truth is that real money will not begin to flow into the armed forces until the defence industrial strategy and the defence investment plan are announced later this year, hopefully in the proper way to this House. That will be 15 months after the Government took office. It is lucky that we do not have a war in Europe.

Thirdly, where is the threat to our adversaries? No extra cash means no extra commitment, no commitment means no credibility and no credibility means no increased sense of threat to those we face. What do we know? We know that there is a war in Europe in which Russia is moving men and matériel not merely to push on in Ukraine, but to threaten the Baltic states. Ukraine had a glorious victory in the past few days, but we cannot rely on such victories, and we must support it in its struggle against Russia.

What do we know? We know that Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army to develop the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027, and we know that NATO allies, who have a collective responsibility to each other, in some cases have a long way to go before they are even at 2% of GDP, let alone 3.5%. Instead of giving real leadership, and putting cash on the table, our own Government are talking about readying the country for war while in reality they continue to dither and delay.

[Lucy Powell]

Mr Speaker, I understand that today is Press Association parliamentary editor Richard Wheeler’s last day in the Gallery. He has covered our proceedings for 12 years, and I am sure we can all agree that that is quite a shift, with Brexit, covid, six Prime Ministers and many interventions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), all having been covered by him.

As I have announced, on Monday 6 June we will debate a motion in my name to implement the recommendations of last year’s independent Kernaghan review of Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. The ICGS was set up in 2018 in response to many serious incidents of bullying, sexual harassment, unacceptable behaviour and poor culture. Through its work and its existence, strides have been made in addressing our reputation and improving working culture. However, we must continue to do better and to respond. That is why I have tabled proposals from the independent review to strengthen and improve the processes of the ICGS. I have asked its director for a fuller briefing, which, upon receipt, I will place in the Library ahead of the debate so that Members can consider these issues more fully.

I thank the shadow Leader of the House for wanting a replay of the urgent question on Monday. Following some of the questions that were put to me then, I did say that, with your permission, Mr Speaker, I would come back to the House on some of the issues that were raised. Without going through the whole thing again, I want to be clear about some of the things that did and did not happen. The Government were endeavouring to act in good faith and to follow the procedure and practice for many previous SDRs—and I have looked at all of the procedures and practices for previous SDRs.

We recognise that there is room for improvement—there always is—but I want to let the House know that advance briefings were offered to all Opposition spokespeople, the Chair of the Defence Committee and a select few from the defence community. An embargoed copy of the full SDR was provided to the Select Committee Clerk shortly after 10 am, and hard copies were provided to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespeople 90 minutes before the statement. As I reiterated on Monday, the full document was laid first in the House in the afternoon. I have spoken with you, Mr Speaker, and the Defence Secretary, who I am sure the whole House will agree takes his responsibilities to this House incredibly seriously. He wants to draw up a clear process for this Government and future Governments to follow, so that the expectations of all concerned are clear.

I really will not be taking advice from the right hon. Gentleman about respecting Parliament. He was a Minister and a Member of Parliament under the previous Government, whom the Supreme Court said had acted illegally by proroguing Parliament. There could be no greater disrespect to this House than that. He also served under the former Prime Minister who was found to have misled Parliament. Again, no worse crime than that could be committed.

The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about defence spending, but the Conservatives had 14 years in government to get to the 2.5% target. Did they get to 2.5% in any one of those 14 years? No, they did not. When was the last time this country spent 2.5% on defence? Oh yes, it was the last time Labour was in government. That is what we are doing again now, so he might want to look at his own record on that.

I see that today we have had a big move on the economy from the Conservatives—yes, a big move. They want to draw a line under Liz Truss. But where is the apology, because I did not hear one? They finally seem to recognise that crashing the economy was “a big error”, but they do not seem to understand that it is the ordinary working people of this country who are still paying the price for their actions. The Conservatives should be apologising for that, yet the right hon. Gentleman wants to go around spending more money. He does not seem to have got the memo on that.

Let us just be clear. It is really important that we are clear about why we took the decisions we did at the start of this Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman’s Government left no fiscal responsibility—something they now want to try to retain—and they left huge, gaping black holes in the public finances. Borrowing costs were at record highs and there was a cost of living crisis crushing ordinary people. When markets lose confidence, which is what they did under his Government and what they were potentially doing at the start of this Parliament, and the economy crashes, it is those on low, fixed incomes, such as pensioners and families living in poverty, who see the cost of living going up. It is they who pay the heaviest price when the economy crashes. That is why this Labour Government put economic stability first. That was our first priority, because we recognise who pays the heaviest price when that goes wrong.

I welcome the recognition from the shadow Chancellor today, but it does not seem like everybody got the memo. The right hon. Gentleman seems to want to spend even more money from the Dispatch Box, without saying where it will come from. The shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), seems to want to get rid of some of the tax increases from the Budget, again without saying where the money will come from.

Now that we have stabilised the economy, we are putting our values into practice further. We are seeing huge investment in the north and in the midlands on key transport infrastructure, investment in the jobs of the future, bringing down waiting lists month after month after month, and 3 million more NHS appointments. The right hon. Gentleman did not want to mention this, but today we are announcing the biggest expansion of free school meals in years, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty. That is the difference a Labour Government make: securing the real incomes of ordinary working people, putting our public services back on their feet and lifting children out of poverty.

Government Announcements

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

(Urgent question): To ask the Leader of the House if she will make a statement on Government announcements outside the House of Commons.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I hear your statement, Mr Speaker. I responded to an urgent question on a similar matter on 14 May. I reiterate the commitments I gave then. The “Ministerial Code” is clear:

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.”

That is an important principle that the Government stand by and uphold.

Since that last urgent question on 14 May, the Government have made a number of important oral statements to the House, on the infected blood inquiry, on the cross-Government review of sanctions implementation and enforcement, on the charging of individuals under the National Security Act 2023, and on the legal aid cyber-security incident. The Prime Minister has updated the House on the three trade deals that we have struck in the national interest, the Foreign Secretary has updated it on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Justice Secretary has responded to the sentencing review, and the Defence Secretary has made a statement on the future of the Diego Garcia military base.

This afternoon, the full conclusions of the important strategic defence review will be published and laid before this House first, with a significant statement from the Defence Secretary to follow. I am satisfied that this Government are coming to the House regularly to keep Parliament informed. [Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman]

Is that really the best that the Leader of the House can do—an “I speak your weight” autocue recitation of points that she has made in her three previous attempts to deal with occasions when the House has been embarrassed and disregarded over the last three weeks alone? It was a hopeless miscue of a response that bordered on a contempt of Parliament itself—yet another attempt to change the subject, blame others and distract attention from the latest fiasco. Evidently the defence of the realm is not important enough to merit making its way up the list of priorities in the Government’s media handouts. Lord Robertson himself, as you have said, Mr Speaker—and I am amazed that you had to intervene on the Leader of the House during her own remarks—would be ashamed and embarrassed to think that this was being done in his name.

Just three weeks ago, the Leader of the House had to be dragged to the House over the Government’s briefing on the immigration White Paper outside the House. That came just days after they had done the same in respect of prisoner recall, the UK-US trade deal and, of course, the Chagos islands. That followed instances involving tuition fees, planning reforms and even the fiscal rules, on which you, Mr Speaker, had to reprove and chastise the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now we have seen the unhappy sight of the Secretary of State for Defence, no less, extensively briefing the media on the decisions to deploy airborne nuclear weapons and build the next generation of submarines, before coming to the House. Perhaps, as I have said, they were not important enough to merit a mention beforehand.

Journalists have been able to read the strategic defence review since 10.30 am, while the Opposition were prevented from seeing the document until five minutes ago, precisely in order to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. All this is manifestly in breach of the ministerial code, the Nolan principles and, of course, Labour’s own manifesto, demonstrating the Government’s arrogance and complacency and their disdain for the House and for democratic accountability, and this from—the clue is in the title—the Leader of the House, whose job is to protect and safeguard the House and its Members. Unfortunately, her obvious floundering just now made the point far better than I can.

When did the Leader of the House know about these announcements, and what steps did she take to prevent the media briefings and ensure that the announcements were made to the House of Commons first? Will she now apologise for yet another high-handed Government decision for which she alone is fully responsible, in this instance, to the House?

[Lucy Powell]

It is nice to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place and respecting Parliament today—that is not always the case.

As I have said before, I believe strongly that the Government should be and have been making the most important announcements to the House when Parliament is in session. We have made more oral statements than the previous Government did in their entire last Session—we have made 154 statements in 140 sitting days, compared with their 72 in 101 sitting days—and we have made many written statements and answered parliamentary questions. We had the statement on Diego Garcia on the day that the deal was signed, despite difficulties with the timing. We had a statement on the US economic deal on the day that it was signed, and the Prime Minister updated the House after the EU trade deal.

As I have said, the SDR has now been given to the Opposition and is being laid before the House. There will be time for colleagues to scrutinise it and to question the Defence Secretary on it this afternoon. The Government responses to the sentencing review and to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report on the women’s state pension age, as well as many other major announcements, such as the upgrade in defence spending, were all made to the House first.

I am curious to know whether the shadow Leader of the House raised these important issues with the previous Government when he was a Minister or a Back Bencher, because I remember many, many occasions when they disrespected this House, and I do not remember hearing his voice at the time. I remember when the Procedure Committee, I and many others wanted the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, to be accountable to the House of Commons. The previous Government did nothing about it, and I do not remember the right hon. Gentleman saying anything about that. I recall the then Culture Secretary announcing the end of the BBC licence fee and, separately, the privatisation of Channel 4 on Twitter, with no intention of coming to the House to explain those major policy changes.

The previous Prime Minister, on the first day of a very long recess, announced that he was scrapping the Government’s net zero targets—he did not come to the House to explain that. He also announced the scrapping of High Speed 2 during a conference recess and never came to the House to account for it. During covid, one of the Conservatives’ many Prime Ministers announced major changes to our way of life to the media and not to Parliament, such as the 2020 winter lockdown—he did not come here to talk about that—and the covid vaccine roll-out. When he closed the borders and then reopened them, he announced it to the media and not to Parliament. Let us not forget that the Supreme Court found that Parliament was illegally prorogued by the previous Government. Do you remember when the former Prime Minister was found to have misled Parliament? There is no greater disrespect to Parliament.

Rather than upholding the ministerial code, the previous Government ignored breaches of it time and again, with reports sitting on the Prime Minister’s desk and nothing being done about them. We, by contrast, have strengthened the ministerial code. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) laughs from a sedentary position, but we have given the independent adviser on the ministerial code the power to instigate his own investigations. Therefore, we have strengthened it.

Not only did the previous Government disrespect Parliament; they did not have enough for Parliament to do. They had a threadbare King’s Speech, with banning pedicabs the pinnacle of their ambition in their last year in government. Now that they are in opposition, they seem to be carrying on the same and hardly turn up for work. They could have used any one of their Opposition days to raise these issues, but they did not. They have many other parliamentary devices at their disposal, and they do not use them. They were a zombie Government, and now they are a zombie Opposition. The next time they bring forward an urgent question, they might want to check their own record before giving us lectures.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the future business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I shall. The business for the week commencing 19 May includes:

Monday 19 May—Second Reading of the Mental Health Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 20 May—Second Reading of the Victims and Courts Bill.

Wednesday 21 May—Opposition day (8th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism.

Thursday 22 May—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a general debate on access to NHS dentistry, followed by a general debate on dementia care. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 22 May and return on Monday 2 June.

The provisional business for the week commencing 2 June will include:

Monday 2 June—Second Reading of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords].

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the Leader of the House for her remarks. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, this week saw the tragic and untimely death of Sir Roy Stone. We had a brief moment of recognition of him earlier in the week, but I am keenly aware that many Labour colleagues were not in the House at the time of his flourishing. As such, I wanted to mention in the Chamber today how much we all respected him, and give the Leader of the House the chance to say something about him if she wishes.

More widely, we have had a week of mixed economics, with growth slightly up, weak wage growth, a spike in unemployment—as everyone had predicted in the case of national insurance—and fiscal strains highlighted just today by a former Treasury civil servant. We have also had an immigration policy launched with echoes of Enoch Powell, and a Prime Minister who appears not to know the difference between capital and current spending in relation to hospices that are seeking to support people day to day across this country—people who are literally at death’s door.

I would have moved on from the politics of the week at this point in my remarks, but for the extraordinary series of interventions by Mr Speaker only a few minutes ago on the Government’s failures to announce their policies in the House. Mr Speaker rightly sought—and was eventually given—an apology by the Minister, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), for their latest failure, but the irony is absolutely extraordinary. That announcement came just hours after the Leader of the House had to be dragged to this Chamber to answer questions on this very topic. She failed to apologise to this House yesterday; I wonder whether she will take the opportunity to do so today. Whether she does or not, I hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as Mr Speaker and all the Deputy Speakers, will insist on maintaining the primacy of our parliamentary democracy and demanding that Governments are held to account.

Today, I come to the Chamber not to ask about a particular item of policy, but to offer a positive policy idea; not to focus on what may be passing from day to day in the Government’s policies, but to focus on the longer term and to celebrate. I do so in relation to a personal interest of mine—indeed, a mini-obsession, as the House probably knows—which is growth, development and innovation in higher education. This week, we saw the graduation of the first students at our new university in Hereford, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering. It is the first greenfield university in this country for 40 years, a specialist, technical engineering university teaching students of every age and background —especially those from less well-off families—in a very intensive and immersive way. It teaches them the hand-on skills of an apprenticeship, but also the rigour of a master’s degree. Its students work in teams, building work habits and working closely with partner companies in defence, security, energy, construction, food and agriculture.

I mention that university now because it highlights what could be considered a lack of ambition in the way that we as a country have thought about higher education over the past 50 years, or possibly even longer. NMITE is an institution that is not just focused on marginal educational gain, but on transformational improvement. It aims to take a person—male or female, young or old—who might never have thought of going to university at all and help them to find their passions, head, hands and heart, and take them as far as they can go. It aims to reinvent not just what students learn, but how they learn, with theory and practice tied together in real-world challenges, forging professionals through immersive and intensive work with a sense of mission and purpose. It aims to build the right habits and prepare those students, not just for the world of work, but for a world of work that is constantly changing.

Above all, the university seeks to keep the benefits of being small in size—something we have lost in so much of higher education—with agility, accountability, personal engagement, teamwork and friendships and a sense of belonging and community, so that our students grow as morally serious human beings who can readily and resiliently deal with complexity and uncertainty, and who are deeply aware of the power and responsibility that comes with being an engineer. Does it work? These students are studying for a masters in engineering, certified independently as being of very high quality. The first cohort are going into jobs at a rate of almost 100% in companies such as Balfour Beatty, Kier, Cadbury, BAE, AWE, Safran and local companies at an average salary of £34,000, drawing national needs and local needs together. It is the small modular reactor of British higher education.

I raise this example because I want to invite the Government and Members from across the House to consider whether we could not do it elsewhere. There are at least 50 small cities and large towns in this country that lack higher education and higher economic growth. There is a huge need for specialist science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. We have vast amounts of talent deprived of opportunity, and this can be part of the solution. I do not know whether any colleagues would like to be involved, but each could be, in their own area and their constituency, leading on the creation not just of a campus, but of a new university designed for local people, local businesses and national economic opportunity. That is the opportunity. I invite the House and the Government to consider it.

[Lucy Powell]

I will take this opportunity to also pay tribute to Sir Roy Stone, the former principal private secretary to the Government Chief Whip. He was very much known as the “usual channels”, and I think he embodied that with distinction. I did not know him personally, but I know of his reputation and of the love and esteem in which he was held by many Members across the House. We send our thoughts to his family and friends again at this time.

The thoughts of many across the House will also be with those living in Gaza. We see the intolerable suffering, death and starvation on our screens most evenings, and it must stop now. Food is not reaching starving people, airstrikes are killing civilians and hostages are still being held. I know that this whole House wants to see a change of course, meaningful aid getting in, an urgent ceasefire and a path to a durable peace.

I also heard Mr Speaker’s statement this morning about the Government giving statements to this House in a timely fashion, and I absolutely hear what he says. As I said yesterday in the House, I will ensure that that message is relayed, as I do on many occasions, to our Cabinet colleagues. I just remind the House that the Lord Chancellor laid a long written ministerial statement yesterday afternoon, as did the Home Secretary earlier in the week, but we can and we must do better. The right hon. Gentleman, as I said yesterday in the House, should remember that we have given 146 oral statements in just 133 sitting days, and that far outstrips what happened under his Government when, frankly, they disrespected Parliament time after time. I will not be taking any lectures from him on that.

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about the new technical university in his constituency in Herefordshire. It sounds like an important and good innovation to provide technical education and engineering pathways, particularly for people from certain backgrounds who might not otherwise access such education. My eldest son is currently studying engineering at one of the universities that I represent—Manchester Metropolitan University—and I hope he and many others have a pathway into work. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that when higher education joins much more closely with the place of work and the skills that are needed for the jobs of the future, that is when we get much more bang for our buck, and our young people have the opportunities in life that they need.

I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman did just about mention the economy again this week. He did not seem to want to welcome the good news on growth figures out this morning, and he did not mention the interest rate cut last week either. Nor did he mention the 200 jobs that we have created since the election. I do not know if he noticed what the former Chancellor, George Osborne, said last week about the stance of the Conservatives under their current leader: that they are more interested in culture wars than in having a serious economic plan. He is right, isn’t he?

The right hon. Gentleman talks about getting figures wrong, but what a way for the Leader of the Opposition to get her figures wrong during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday—by a factor of 100. I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman wants to set the record straight on that. She also did not seem to grasp the importance and value of the trade deals that we have struck in the last week or so, and of the billions of pounds that they will bring into the economy. Thankfully, though, there are still a few true Conservatives on the Back Benches who really understand the core conservative idea of free trade. His former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), welcomed those trade deals. His former Brexit Secretary, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), welcomed them too. Even Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Chancellor, said that the US-UK deal is a success. George Osborne is right, isn’t he? The Conservatives have no idea where they stand on the economy, and they have no plan. We have a plan for growth, a plan to improve living standards and a plan to put money back in people’s pockets, and people are starting to see the fruits of that today.

Ministerial Code: Compliance

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for raising this urgent question. As she has highlighted, there is a consistent pattern of failure to report first to this House, as is required by the ministerial code. She has rightly drawn attention to the farcical scenes that we had with the Trade Minister being required to deliver a statement, then having to be UQ’d the following Monday. He tried to give the same statement, without any recognition, and was rebuked by Mr Speaker for not knowing the difference.

Back in October we had the embarrassing sight of the Chancellor announcing intended changes to the Government’s fiscal rules to the media before informing Parliament, and having to be publicly rebuked by Mr Speaker for doing so. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North has mentioned a number of other cases. I would highlight the Secretary of State for Education announcing tuition fees to the press before Parliament in November, the Deputy Prime Minister announcing planning reforms before the final national planning policy framework update was publicly available, and a Ministry of Defence leak on the global combat air programme in December.

As we all know, the ministerial code—the Government took great credit for seeking to strengthen it on entering office—makes very plain what the rule is. It does not say, “Judgments are to be made.” It says, “The first announcement must be made to Parliament when the most important announcements of government policy are made.” It does not say, “By the way, you can prioritise these things.” Does anyone seriously think that an announcement on trade, on planning, on tuition fees or on the global combat air programme would not be of the first importance to this House? No, because every single one of those would be vital.

It is not just a matter of the ministerial code and ministerial accountability. These decisions are made in breach of the Nolan principles of openness and the requirement for accountability, and they are made in breach of Labour’s own manifesto promise to

“restore confidence in government and ensure ministers are held to the highest standards.”

Will the right hon. Lady encourage the independent adviser to make an inquiry, and will she look to the Cabinet Secretary to do the same with civil servants? Will she and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, look to Mr Speaker for adequate enforcement of the present rules, which are being widely flouted?

[Lucy Powell]

I gently remind the right hon. Gentleman that the ministerial code says that

“when Parliament is in session”,

announcements will be made to this House first. I also remind him that announcements can be made via written ministerial statements and other things as well. There is a balance to be struck, and we try to do that in the best interests of the House.

The right hon. Gentleman describes this as business question bingo. I will give him bingo: I am not going to take a lecture from him on these matters. This Government have done twice as many oral statements as his Government did in the same number of sitting days. We are ensuring that there is proper time to scrutinise Government bills—something that they did not do. We are answering significantly more written parliamentary questions than his Government ever did.

I have to remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government illegally prorogued Parliament when they could not get their own way—something that he went out and defended to his constituents. The Conservatives had a Prime Minister who was found guilty of misleading this House—something that the right hon. Gentleman also defended. When an MP broke the standards rules, the Conservatives tried to change them. They had to be dragged here time and again. This Government respects Parliament. We stand up for the rights of Parliament. His Government traduced them.

Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The business for the week commencing 12 May includes:

Monday 12 May—Remaining stages of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

Tuesday 13 May—Opposition day (7th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Wednesday 14 May—Consideration of Lords message on the Great British Energy Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by motion to approve the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

Thursday 15 May—General debate on solar farms, followed by general debate on long-term funding of youth services. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 16 May—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 19 May will include:

Monday 19 May—Second Reading of the Mental Health Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 20 May—Second Reading of the Victims and Courts Bill.

Wednesday 21 May—Opposition day (8th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

Thursday 22 May—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 22 May and return on Monday 2 June.

[Jesse Norman]

This is of course the 80th anniversary of VE Day, when all Britain rejoiced at the defeat of fascism and the end of the war in Europe. I am sure I speak for the whole House in putting on record once again our profound thanks and our celebration of the immortal memory of that extraordinary generation who—through their courage, their selflessness and their sense of duty—made victory in Europe possible. Let us all pray that we can be worthy of their memory.

If I may turn back from the sublime sweep of history to the mundane business of our politics, the Government have made valiant efforts to crowd the airwaves on trade this week, but the unfortunate truth is that they have had another dire week in office. The financial facts of life have not changed: growth is stagnant, as a nation we have to raise defence spending rapidly and the Government have made themselves a prisoner of their fiscal rules. Before the Leader of the House starts in on the local election results, may I remind her that, for all the horrors of last week, the Opposition still ended up with three times as many council seats as the Government?

Let us look at those cost pressures a bit more closely. Just eight months after a 22.3% increase in pay for junior doctors—an increase described at the time by the British Medical Association as

“a good enough first step”,

the House will recall—the BMA has now announced it will ballot its members to strike for more pay.

Meanwhile, the somewhat unlikely pairing of Tony Blair and Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB trade union, have both denounced the Government’s decision to ban offshore licences in the North sea. Blair described it as an “irrational” policy “doomed to fail”, the backlash to which threatened to “derail the whole agenda”. He said it was caused by Ministers afraid of being cast as “climate deniers”. He is not talking about the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, of course; he is talking about all the Ministers and MPs on the Government Benches who know better, but are too frit to say so.

Gary Smith said that “climate fundamentalism”—that is the Secretary of State for Energy—would

“accelerate the decline of domestic oil and gas production and increase our dependency on gas imports”,

directly contrary to the Government’s supposed growth strategy. As he pointed out:

“Across society, bill-payers will question why they are subsidising a domestic clean power sprint that is offshoring UK jobs and value.”

Only today, we have had the news that Ørsted is mothballing its giant new offshore wind farm, as it has made it clear it is holding out for even greater subsidies, knowing that the Secretary of State has no choice, and has in effect said that he has no choice, if he wants to hit his targets. We all want a just and rapid energy transition, but does the Leader of the House not think that the words of Tony Blair and Gary Smith are simple common sense?

There is one other issue that I think we should highlight. The Leader of the House has received universal condemnation for dismissing concerns about grooming gangs as “dog-whistle politics”. In response, she put out a tweet that conspicuously did not contain an apology for what she had said. The Secretary of State for Health said that her remarks were “indefensible”, but the truth is that she has talked in the same way about grooming gangs from the Dispatch Box, when she accused people of jumping on bandwagons on 9 January this year in business questions.

I hope we can agree now that this is an extremely serious national issue and that no one, whether or not they hold public office, should be deflecting or denying its seriousness. I hope that in her response now, the Leader of the House will put aside party politics, avoid criticising others and speak from the heart. So I ask her: has she now watched the Channel 4 documentary, and if so, how does she feel about it? Does she agree that the dismissal of these entirely valid concerns has been one of the factors behind what even today remains a huge continuing national scandal. Will she now back the call of many victims for a comprehensive national inquiry into grooming gangs. Finally, would she like to take this opportunity to speak directly to the hundreds of vulnerable women involved, and say sorry?

[Lucy Powell]

Mr Speaker, further to your statement, talks on the US trade deal developments continue at pace. With your permission, the House will be updated later today. I will come on to VE Day shortly, but may I first address the remarks of the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman)?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising what I said on an episode of “Any Questions” last week, so that I can be absolutely clear with the House today, and especially to the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and grooming gangs, that I am very sorry for those remarks, as I made clear over the weekend. I, and every member of this Government, want your truth to be heard, wherever that truth leads. Your truly appalling experiences need to be acted on, for those responsible to be accountable and face the full force of the law, and for justice to be served. I would never want to leave the impression that these very serious, profound and far-reaching issues, which I have campaigned on for many years, should be shied away from and not aired—far from it. No stone will be left unturned.

What the victims want, first and foremost, is for action to be taken and for the many, many recommendations from previous inquiries to be implemented in full, including mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, for which I have called for nearly a decade. Shockingly, those recommendations remained sitting on the shelf until we came into government last year. Baroness Louise Casey, who conducted the no-holds-barred inquiry into Rotherham, is carrying out an audit on the scale, nature and characteristics of grooming gangs. She will be reporting soon. It will include the questions on ethnicity. Every police force in England and Wales has been asked to look again at historic grooming gangs cases. They will be reopened, where appropriate, to get the perpetrators behind bars. I hope the House is left in no doubt about my commitment to these issues and my apology to those victims for any distress I have caused them.

I was surprised to hear the shadow Leader of the House try to claim some success in the local elections for his party. I am not quite sure that that is what those on the Conservative Benches are feeling.

Let me address the issue of our need to move to being a clean energy superpower. I am afraid that yet again at the Dispatch Box the right hon. Gentleman and his party are showing a serious misunderstanding of the economics and the reality of the transition to net zero. We face the worst cost of living crisis in generations, because his party left this country exposed to international fossil fuel markets as a direct result of their failure to invest in clean energy. It is only by investing in clean energy that we will bring down bills in future. He might want to remind himself of what his former Prime Minister, Theresa May, said about this issue:

“the sceptics say that the green transition will cripple business, we say they could not be more wrong.”

This is a global race for the jobs of the future, to get bills down, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The right hon. Gentleman should know better than anybody that new oil and gas in the North sea will not take a penny off bills, because oil and gas is traded on the international markets and therefore we are locked in. The only way to decouple that is by investing in cheaper renewable energies, as the Government are doing. It was a previous Conservative Energy Minister who said in 2022:

“more UK production wouldn’t reduce the global price of gas.”

The right hon. Gentleman might want to remind himself of that.

We have all come together in the Chamber today to honour our veterans and all those who played their part in securing peace and victory in Europe and ending the second world war. Today, we mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, and will shortly recreate the procession of Members from the Chamber to a service of thanksgiving on 8 May 1945. In addressing the House on that day, Winston Churchill conveyed his

“deep gratitude to this House of Commons, which has proved itself the strongest foundation for waging war that has ever been seen in the whole of our long history. We have all of us made our mistakes, but the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form.”—[Official Report, 8 May 1945; Vol. 0, c. 1869.]

As we represent our parliamentary democracy today, these words ring as true now as they did then. We will never forget the sacrifice, bravery and spirit and the millions of lives lost in defeating fascism.

Today, we also remember Her late Majesty the Queen, whose youthful, joyous celebration symbolised VE Day, and whose long reign shaped the peace and prosperity that followed it. Today and every day, we remember the immense contribution of the second world war generation and thank them for their service.