Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Chris Bryant

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

As my hon. Friend says, the Post Office leadership oversaw wrongful convictions. That is one of the reasons why we have had multiple changes, and this is just the latest to ensure that we get the right leadership in place. [Interruption.] I know that some Opposition Members are dealing with this properly, but we can see from the heckling that many of them came here thinking that they could score political points, and I am not allowing that to happen.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Many Members are of course angry and impatient about trying to get compensation and exoneration for all of the postmasters as soon as possible. If we are all honest, we as a whole Parliament should have been much more impatient much earlier. There are some rare exceptions to that, including my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who spoke earlier, and obviously Members on the Government side of the House as well. May I just clarify something about the process of Mr Staunton’s dismissal? As I understand it, he found out about it from Sky News. I think the Secretary of State just added a piece of information, which is that she then rang Sky News, before ringing him I think, to try and get them to stop running it. So she knew that this had already been leaked to Sky News, presumably from somebody in her Department. What investigation did she go through to find out who leaked it, and is that person still in post, because otherwise one might just worry that it might have been she herself who leaked it?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I knew that someone would ask that question. I in fact have evidence to show that I asked Sky News not to run the story. Of course I did not leak it—because if I had, that would have created legal risk if Mr Staunton had found out on the news before I had had a chance to speak to him. We have no idea how Sky News found out the information—several thousand people work in the Department for Business and Trade, and many more work at the Post Office and UK Government Investments. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) is heckling, but the point I am making is that leaks are incredibly damaging and harmful; they create legal risk for the Department. I did not do so; I made multiple efforts with at least two media outlets to make sure that they did not create problems for Mr Staunton, and it is one of the reasons why it was very disappointing to see what he did in The Sunday Times at the weekend.

Gender Recognition

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. It is a good one. This is one of the things that came to light as we looked at Government policy across the board and it is an example of how the law needs updating. The reason that we have this is not that the Government supported self-ID but that before the same-sex marriage law came into being we wanted people to be able to change their legal documents so that they could get married. Now that we have a law that has fixed that, we should again look at some of the measures we put in place earlier, and that is why my hon. Friend is right to raise this. It is a Home Office issue, but I will raise it with the Home Secretary and see what we can do to repair it.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I will say this as gently as I can. As a gay man, I feel less safe today than I did three years or five years ago. Why? Sometimes it is because of the rhetoric used in the public debate, including by the Minister. [Interruption.] I am afraid we are not able to have a debate. Let us have a debate; I would be very happy to debate. I am just making the point that many of us feel less safe today, and when people over there on the Government Benches cheer, as they just did, it chills me to the bone—it genuinely does.

I will ask the Minister two very simple questions. First, how many people does she think today’s decision will affect—a precise number? Secondly, she will know that there are lots of people in the UK who have entered into a same-sex civil partnership or marriage and would like that to be recognised in other countries around the world, so that they can live their lives there, wherever it may be. What has she done since being in power to ensure that more countries recognise same-sex civil partnerships and marriages?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I, too, will speak very gently. The hon. Gentleman says that my rhetoric chills him to the bone. I would be really keen to hear what exactly it is that I have said, either in this statement or previously, that is so chilling. I will tell him what chilled me. In May 2021, against official advice—I stress that officials said, “You should not have this meeting”—I met a young lady called Keira Bell, a lesbian, who told me of the horrific experience she had had at the Tavistock clinic. It was an eye-opening experience. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) talked about “transing away the gay” in his speech in Westminster Hall. We are seeing, I would say, almost an epidemic of young gay children being told that they are trans and being put on a medical pathway for irreversible decisions, and they are regretting it.

This is what I am doing for young LGBT children: I am making sure that they do not find themselves being sterilised because they are being exploited by people who do not understand what these issues are. I am saying this on the advice of clinicians and academics, because clinicians from the Tavistock clinic have been whistleblowing, talking about what these issues are. The hon. Gentleman says that he is traumatised; we are traumatised by what is happening to young children, and we will run away from this issue no longer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. The Department for Education will have done an equalities impact assessment on any new policies that it will announce. Those will be taken into account to make sure that people who are most at risk and most vulnerable are not prevented from taking up education in any way.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Children from poorer backgrounds are four times more likely to suffer a serious brain injury by their fifth birthday and again in their teenage years than children from wealthier backgrounds. That obviously limits their opportunities in life. What will the Government do about that?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am afraid that I do not have an answer specifically on what we are doing on brain injuries, but I will get the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Member and provide the appropriate information.

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Chris Bryant

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Yes, absolutely. We will look very closely at the health inequalities aspects of the report. That is part of the work that I am going to be carrying forward.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) for what he has just said, because it is what I was about to say—although I am not going to sit down just yet, if that is all right. It is a simple fact that my constituency, the Rhondda, has one of the highest death rates per 100,000 head of population in the country, and therefore in the world. Being poor is certainly an early death sentence—by some 20 years compared with richer parts of the country—and that is because it is the people who are subsisting on poor wages, few hours and unsafe labour in difficult working conditions, without proper protection, with miserly benefits, with statutory sick pay that does not enable people to put food on the table, relying on food banks, who are dying. Surely, one lesson that we must learn from coronavirus is that we must pay our key workers properly so that they can put food on the table and not rely on food banks.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I do not think anyone in the House can disagree with what the hon. Gentleman just said, and I do agree with him. We are putting forward policies to address some of these things. We are looking at some things in the short term that relate specifically to coronavirus, and he and I can have conversations about medium to long-term interventions in future.