Strengthening Community Resilience

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Let me place on record our thanks to the emergency services, volunteers and communities who respond to civil emergencies, be they storms, floods or wildfires.

I welcome the announcement of the Be Ready campaign, and agree that every household that can be ready to look after itself should be ready to do so, for at least three days. During the first covid lockdown, I raised an eyebrow when my other half stockpiled enough bottled water to keep us going for weeks, but today he has been proved right, and I fear that I will never hear the end of it.

The Security Minister rightly mentioned the importance of volunteers. I wonder if he has spoken to our Finnish allies, for example, to learn from their experience of establishing a formal civil volunteer reserve. Its members would receive non-military training, and could be called on in an emergency, just as community first responders can attend medical emergencies.

As the Minister said, not everyone can stock up for three days. People relying on food banks, older people and people with mobility difficulties are often the least able to prepare and the most exposed. The priority services register can work well only if it is accurate, so what more can the Minister do to ensure that it is kept up to date? Can he say specifically what co-ordination is in place with the utility companies, so that information can be shared about their lists of vulnerable customers?

It is not just weather or climate change that we need to be prepared for; the number of nationally significant cyber-threats has doubled in the last year. The Liberal Democrats have called for a digital sovereignty strategy to ensure that critical national functions are powered by technology that the UK can control. Can the Minister update us on any progress being made on digital sovereignty?

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Member has made a series of important points. I join her in thanking the emergency services for the extremely important work that they do in communities throughout the country. She was right to mention volunteers. I am aware of the very good work being done in Finland and Scandinavia, which have taken a more forward-leaning approach to campaigns of this sort than the United Kingdom, but I will look more closely at her specific point about how things are working in Finland.

I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of the priority services register. We are working with utility companies to ensure as much awareness as possible, at household level, of the need to sign up for the register. As I said, the criteria are quite broad, and I urge Members to encourage their constituents to check their eligibility.

The hon. Member made an important point about sovereignty. I work closely with colleagues across Government—from the Cabinet Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and elsewhere—to ensure that our digital infrastructure and critical national infrastructure are as resilient and as protected as they can be. As she knows, we face a range of threats on that front, and it is important that the Government are properly geared up to stand against them. We work closely with our international allies to that end.

Civil Service Pensions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement and for the briefing last week. Since the last ministerial statement in July, Capita is reported to have met its own September target on priority cases, but as the Minister has said, that does not match lived experience and hon. Members have heard promises of improvement before.

Capita missed both its April and June targets, and months later it is being propped up by a Cabinet Office taskforce. I welcome the news from the Minister that Capita is improving its technology, and I am glad that it has been deploying additional resources to support improvements to its dashboard so that it can get through more cases. Time will show us if that work actually results in Capita working through its backlog—there are still too many people across the country waiting.

My constituent, Diane, who lives in Offerton, applied for retirement at the end of August last year. She finally received her formal quote this month—a full 14 months after applying. It was a whopping £14,000 less than she was informally quoted, which may well have changed her decision to retire had the quote been received in a reasonable timeframe. There are 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want to know that their pension will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity. I heard the Minister’s statement on holding Capita to account, but will she say, in terms that our constituents will relate to, exactly how she is planning to do that and what the impact will be on families around the country?

I note the Minister’s comment on debarment, but, given the absolute shambles Capita has made of this situation, can she truly say that she would be happy for it to bid for future Government contracts? Will the Government finally commit to inflation-linking payments for all outstanding cases in order to ensure that those affected by Capita’s mistakes do not pay even more for Capita’s delays?

[Sally Jameson]

I am sorry to hear about the experience of the hon. Lady’s constituent, Diane. It is just one of many, many cases that we have heard about where the outcome is totally unacceptable. The Chief Whip was on the phone to me this morning about her constituent, Lisa, who is also facing similar problems in getting anything out of Capita.

The hon. Lady asked what I am doing to make sure that Capita lives up to its promises on the most recent rectification plan. As I said, Cabinet Office officials are now in the Capita systems every single day, which has given us the ability to challenge the organisation in a way that we have not been able to do before. If we do not start to see progress each fortnight, as we publish those results, I will have the Capita CEO back in and I will continue to hold Capita’s feet to the fire. All options remain on the table contractually. It is in Capita’s interest, frankly, to pull its socks up and do a better job.

On debarment, I really cannot comment on anyone that may or may not be subject to consideration or investigation under the Procurement Act. However, I think that most hon. Members would recognise that Capita has done a pretty poor job. It is not its first rodeo either—I will leave that there. I will take away the hon. Lady’s point about inflation-linking and write to her, and I am happy to meet her to discuss it further.

Church Appointments (Repeal of Discriminatory Provision) Bill

Lisa Smart Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Liberal Democrats have long advocated for modernisation and improvement across the Houses of Parliament. We continue to support legislation that modernises, and hope to see many more moves towards ensuring that Westminster is representative of the country as a whole.

For almost 200 years, the law has said that a Roman Catholic Minister, or later a Jewish Minister, may not advise the monarch on appointments in the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. Those restrictions never applied to people of other faiths or no faith at all. They were aimed squarely at two communities and are rooted in the anti-Catholicism and antisemitism of the age in which they were written. The Prime Minister has called this an “antiquated and archaic anomaly”, and of course he is right to do so. It cannot be acceptable in 2026 that someone who holds the confidence of this House should be barred from part of their job because of their faith. We are told that Church House is content with the change, and the National Secular Society has said that the ban is

“increasingly difficult to justify in a modern liberal democracy”.

It is rare to find that much agreement on a question involving Church and state, and the Government are right to make this change in the law.

Liberal Democrats believe in freedom of belief. Everyone should be able to practise their faith, or none, without fear of discrimination or state interference. That principle should apply at the very top of public life as much as anywhere else. Removing this bar sends a message that the highest offices in our country are open to people of every background. But I note that this is the very first Bill brought under this Prime Minister. It is a sensible fix to a problem he faces personally, but there are more widespread problems with how our democracy works—problems that affect every one of our constituents—and they still await action.

Take the other place. Liberal Democrats have long called for a House of Lords with a democratic mandate—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I urge the hon. Lady to stay within the scope of the Bill. The previous speaker, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), escaped me leaping to my feet by carefully tying his comments to the provisions of the Bill; I trust she will do likewise.

[Lisa Smart]

I am always grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for guidance on what is in and out of scope, and I am always pleased when we are able to talk about modernisation, as this Bill does. I encourage the Government to go further, faster—an encouragement that the Liberal Democrats always give when they are on their feet talking about political and constitutional reform.

On prime ministerial advice and appointments, which I hope you will agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, is very much in scope, these appointments often ingrain patronage and reinforce elitism, which causes many people to lose faith in politics. We would encourage the Government to get to considering proposals such as the Burns report, which looked at cutting the House of Lords to 600 peers. We think the Government could do far more, but that is perhaps for another debate on another day. None of the changes that we Liberal Democrats would encourage, whether it is putting the ministerial code into law or ensuring a fairer voting system, are terribly complicated. All they do is restore trust in politics.

We support the Bill. Discrimination on grounds of faith has no place in our law, and I am glad to see the change come in today, but I hope the Minister will very much treat this as a starting point, rather than the limit of his ambitions for political and constitutional reform. If the Government are serious about modernising our institutions, they should go further, faster, and the Lib Dems will keep pressing them to do exactly that.

House of Lords Reform

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Thank you, Sir John. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) both on the way he opened this debate and on how he chairs the all-party parliamentary group on House of Lords reform.

The Liberal Democrats have called for a democratic second Chamber for decades. We simply believe that those who make the law should, at some point, be accountable to those who have to obey it. In the other place, that link does not exist. People across the country understand that; they see a Chamber filled by prime ministerial appointment, where a seat in our legislature can follow years of party loyalty or a generous donation. That system ingrains patronage. It feeds the sense that politics is run by and for a small elite and it is one of the reasons why so many people have lost faith in our democratic institutions.

In her excellent speech earlier, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) mentioned the Lords Spiritual—the 26 Church of England bishops who take their seats in the other place. It is not an excessive understatement to say that that arrangement feels a bit outdated. Britain today is a country of many faiths and none, and nobody should have a hand in making our laws simply because of the religious office they hold. It is surely long past time to modernise.

Peers may also be appointed because they are seen to be experts within a field. However, as there is currently no time limit on how long they sit within the Lords, someone could indeed have been an expert in something 40 years ago, but the field has moved on vastly. Yet they still legislate in that area and are viewed as a specialist.

Some say that this issue is not a priority; it does not come up often on the doorstep. But a quick look at my inbox shows that some of my Hazel Grove constituents do indeed care about it enough to contact their MP. I have had constituents write to me about this, including most recently Kellie from Offerton, who argued powerfully that we should have an elected second Chamber. I agree with her.

The Lib Dems supported the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. Nobody can seriously defend a place in Parliament being handed down through a family line.

[Andrew Rosindell]

On that basis, would the hon. Lady abolish Royal Assent for Bills? Does she accept that our constitution is the King in Parliament—the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons? Is she actually arguing for the abolition of the monarchy?

[Lisa Smart]

The hon. Gentleman has extended himself several times this afternoon—and I, for one, am here for it. There are many things I would change about the way our country runs. If we were designing a country from scratch, I do not think we would have a Parliament or a monarchy like this. The monarch and the royal family do an important job in all sorts of ways, but I would very much change the relationship between Parliament and the monarch. To answer his question, yes I would.

Removing the remaining hereditary peers on its own does not go anywhere near far enough. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) tabled an amendment to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to replace every unelected Member with a fully elected Chamber. Sadly, neither the Labour nor Conservative party supported that, which feels like a missed opportunity to begin the transition. We continue to see events that highlight why we should have an elected and accountable second Chamber. The Mandelson scandal has shown how poorly the current Chamber copes when a Member appointed for life has lost the public’s trust.

According to an Electoral Commission study from 2025, only 14% of respondents trusted politicians. We must all work to improve that level of trust; increasing accountability in Parliament feels like an important place to start. In February, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), called for legislation to strip Peter Mandelson of his peerage. Ministers told the public that reform was urgent and that they were talking to other parties. The Removal of Peerages Bill was included in the last King’s Speech, yet we are still to see any wide-scale reform. Can the Minister confirm if, and when, we should expect to see legislation to produce reform in the House of Lords—including, but not limited to, the Removal of Peerages Bill?

The Representation of the People Bill could have been a good place to start to make vital reforms to the way the second Chamber works. It contains welcome measures including votes at 16, steps towards automatic voter registration and a U-turn on the independence of the Electoral Commission—all changes that the Lib Dems have campaigned for. But it says nothing about the Lords or proportional representation, and far too little about the money that flows into our politics.

We want the Government to stop tinkering at the margins and to make the real changes needed to fix the broken political system in which we currently operate. They could take steps now: implement the 2017 Burns report; bring the House of Lords down to 600 Members; introduce the retirement age for peers that Labour promised in its own 2024 manifesto; put the ministerial code into law so that Ministers—

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Snell]

I should declare an interest: my wife is the Deputy Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords. As the hon. Lady will know, the Taylor report is bringing in mandatory House of Lords retirement at age 80, so things are progressing.

[Lisa Smart]

I look forward to seeing that happen at pace; I am sure that is what is going on.

The Government could also move at pace to move power out of Westminster and Whitehall. But none of the steps I just mentioned is a substitute for the end goal. Our second Chamber needs the legitimacy that only a democratic mandate can give it. The Lib Dems will keep making that case until it has been won.

International Update

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend puts it so well, because he knows these issues so well—because of the travel times to market. If only Opposition Members had the level of understanding he has just demonstrated, we would be in a better place.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I note the Prime Minister’s remarks concerning Russian interference in some recent and not so recent elections, which raise serious questions for all of us who worry about the integrity of our democracy. Will the Prime Minister commit to reviewing whether campaign finance rules—both those in place at the moment and the welcome but limited steps being introduced in the Representation of the People Bill—sufficiently guard against foreign interference through political donations? In particular, may I encourage him to look at a cap on political donations to limit the influence of ultra-wealthy individuals and potential foreign interests?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State is leading a task and finish group on cleaning up politics, and I am sure that she would be very pleased to hear from the hon. Member on her proposals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report rightly argues that our transparency rules are stuck in the past. Influence is being exerted in ways that just did not exist a few years ago. There are Members of this House earning more than their salary as an MP for posts on X—a platform that actively incentivises divisive content. Indeed, the Register of Members’ Financial Interests shows that the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) has declared earnings of over £108,000 since his election to this place. Does the Minister agree that our current laws on what constitutes lobbying are too narrow, and that when an MP is financially rewarded by an algorithm for their political output, it crosses the line into financial influence? Will he update lobbying and ethics rules to tackle that loophole?

[Mark Ferguson]

We will, of course, consider that as part of the response to the EIC. I take very seriously, as I am sure Members across the House do, the issues of outside earnings by Members, and particularly potential undue influence. With regard to X, I share the hon. Lady’s concerns; personally, I do not use it.

[Mr Speaker]

I presume the hon. Lady let the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) know that she was going to mention him.

[Lisa Smart]

indicated assent.

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

2. What steps her Department is taking to improve national resilience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Last week, Channel 4 showed senior figures from Reform UK discussing how money from an American donor could reach the party through his UK-based son. Do the Government agree that covert overseas finance represents a clear and present threat to our national security? Do they accept that measures in the Representation of the People Bill do not go far enough when it comes to stopping foreign money being funnelled into our democracy and that the best way to reduce the options for those who seek to exert undue influence through big money is to put a cap on all political donations?

[The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the important points that she raises and for the constructive conversations that we have had about these matters. She will note the work of the Rycroft review, and I know that she understands the important work we do through the defending democracy taskforce. As the chair of that taskforce, I have always believed that this is a shared endeavour across the House.

We will assemble a new cross-Government task-and-finish team to identify next steps for tackling the issue of megadonors in UK politics and putting politics under public control. Many hon. Members will have seen the programme to which the hon. Lady refers and will share her concerns. She will understand that there is now a live police investigation, so there is nothing more I can say about it.

EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) on securing the debate and on the vim and vigour with which he introduced it. Ten years on, we can now see the devastating impact that the referendum had on this country—not just on our economy, but on the integrity of our democracy and political debate. Since June 2016, we have had seven Prime Ministers in a decade. We have had a Parliament that could not resolve the question in front of it, a Government who prorogued this House unlawfully to get round it and a public who have watched the whole spectacle and drawn the obvious conclusion that our political system is broken.

The Conservatives put a question to the country that they had not thought through. They lost control of the answer and then spent years arguing among themselves about what it meant while the rest of the country paid for it. Into that vacuum walked the people who benefit from it. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) has built an entire career on a promise he never had to deliver and now takes no responsibility for. He and others like him told the public that leaving would let us take back control of our borders. Since then, over 200,000 people have crossed the channel in small boats. Before the referendum, there were no small boat crossings. They created the conditions, and they now travel to Dover to be photographed pointing at the result.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Lisa Smart]

I will willingly give way on whether 2016 was before 2018.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The referendum was in 2016, but all the legalities of membership of the European Union, including the Dublin convention, applied until 2021. The small boat crossings were rocketing before Brexit. They have nothing to do with it.

[Lisa Smart]

My point is that there were no small boat crossings before the 2016 referendum. I think the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me on that.

British GDP is between 6% and 8% smaller than it would otherwise have been. Investment has been reduced by between 12% and 18%. Employment and productivity are each down by 3% to 4%. Estimates from the House of Commons Library, those well-known doughty remain campaigners, put the cost to the Exchequer somewhere in the region of £90 billion a year in tax revenue that is simply not there. Every Minister who stands at the Dispatch Box and says that money is not available is describing a hole that has been enlarged as a result of Brexit. That is £90 billion a year that could be used for projects across the country to support our constituents. It could be used to fund renovations to my Stepping Hill hospital, the rail services my constituents wait for every morning or cleaning up our waterways so that sewage stops being pumped into the Goyt or the Mersey.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) mentioned the nearly 2 billion extra pieces of paperwork that now sit on British firms—enough to wrap around the world 15 times. Tighter border restrictions with our European neighbours devastated our hauliers, with more than double the number of insolvencies seen between 2021 and 2025 than in the previous five years. In our food and farming sector, exports to the EU have fallen by 22% since 2018, which is close to £4 billion in lost trade.

The question for the House is, “What do we do now?” Ministers know that the relationship with Europe is the biggest lever available to them. Their response so far has been to make small adjustments around the edges of a bad deal. They have ruled out the single market and a customs union, drawing red lines around two things that would make a material difference.

On fisheries, the Government have made things worse. The EU came asking for a five-year extension to the arrangements in the 2020 trade and co-operation agreement, and this Government agreed to 12 years. That is a loss worth around £6 billion over the period at today’s prices, down not only to the previous Government but to this Labour Government. Being timid is a political choice, and it has political consequences. When mainstream parties refuse to name the cause of a problem, the field is left to those who offer easy answers and no substantive solutions.

The Lib Dems are offering something different. We want a growth and defence partnership with Europe. That would mean joining the single market and a UK-EU customs union, so that our businesses can trade again without drowning in red tape. It would mean a proper UK-EU defence pact. We currently sit outside EU decision making and outside funding streams such as the European Defence Fund and the Security Action for Europe loan programme, at the precise moment when Vladimir Putin is testing this continent’s resolve and the White House is reneging on international commitments. We want a new European security council, British participation in SAFE and a European rearmament bank to support collective rearmament. Our security does not stop at Dover, and it never has.

We are also calling for the UK to join the EU’s migration and asylum pact, so that we can return people who arrive by small boat to the first EU country they entered, and so that we can see the biometric data that tells us whether someone has already been refused asylum elsewhere. That is how we actually take back control of our borders, rather than shouting about it on a beach.

Finally, we should fix the politics that produced this. A system that hands total power to a party with a minority of the vote and then dares it to govern for everyone will keep generating exactly this kind of instability. The Liberal Democrats want proportional representation through the single transferable vote at local and general elections. We want a second Chamber with a democratic mandate. We want the big money taken out of politics. We want the Electoral Commission protected from ministerial direction and serious measures against foreign interference in our elections and referendums.

From the cost of living to our broken public services, the result of the 2016 EU referendum stands in the way of making things better, and we have to fix it. Ten years on, it is clear that it has negatively impacted the UK, and I would be really grateful if the Minister could tell us today just what it would take for this Government to move their red lines.

Rewiring the State

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the First Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement, and warmly welcome her to her place. The Liberal Democrats strongly agree that the political system is overly centralised. We believe that the best decisions are taken closest to the people they affect, but renewing communities must also mean giving councils the powers and resources that they need to revitalise our high streets, support independent businesses and improve local public services. After years of severe financial pressure, devolution cannot simply mean transferring responsibilities from Whitehall without the funding necessary to deliver them.

The First Secretary mentioned national resilience. That is about whether the lights stay on, whether the shelves stay stocked, and whether a family in Hazel Grove can get through a week or more of serious destruction without losing their livelihood. The covid inquiry was blunt: it found that we were ill prepared for an emergency, never mind a pandemic. Those failures cost lives, and people deserve to know that lessons have been acted on, rather than filed away.

There is certainly progress to welcome. We have the resilience action plan, the UK Resilience Academy, and Exercise Pegasus, which was the largest pandemic exercise this country has ever run. Those are steps that my party has long called for, but announcements are not preparedness. I would welcome hearing from the First Secretary what plans she has to improve public awareness and understanding of what the whole of society needs to do to be ready. We are in an increasingly uncertain world, so will the Government think again on digital sovereignty, so that the critical systems that our constituents rely on are not dependent on suppliers that this country cannot control?

 I strongly agree with the First Secretary that this country has a broken political system. Later this afternoon, we will debate the Representation of the People Bill, which is meant to fix that. It takes some steps in the right direction, but fails to rise to the moment. Does she agree that there is still so much more to do, starting with halting the scourge of big money that is poisoning our democracy by capping political donations and bringing in a fairer voting system? We need to fix our politics so that we can get on with fixing the country. I have heard her talk previously in this House about moving fast and fixing things. I urge her to crack on.

[Louise Haigh]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I can confirm that my motto of moving fast and fixing things is still firmly in place. She is absolutely right that in order to deliver devolution effectively and deliver the growth and improved public services that we need, resource and revenue are needed. We have committed to allowing strategic authorities to take a share of income tax and business rates, so that they are incentivised to grow their economies, and can take their fair share to reinvest in those economies.

On digital sovereignty, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Artificial Intelligence is looking at that, through his taskforce. It is one of the important workstreams that he is considering with colleagues across Government. I am sure that he will update the House in due course.

As the hon. Lady says, we will debate the elections Bill this afternoon. She and I absolutely share a commitment to stopping big money, and foreign money in particular, interfering in our politics. I will work with colleagues across Government through the defending democracy taskforce, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Security Minister, to look at what further steps we can take beyond the Bill.

Finally, on preparedness, my predecessor announced in July that we will deliver a campaign to raise awareness of the simple steps that households can take to keep themselves safe during everyday emergencies, like extreme weather. We will announce more information and begin that campaign later this year.

Sovereign Grant

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The sovereign grant does not provide personal income for the King, the Queen or any member of the royal family. It funds the work of the institution, and the largest part of it funds buildings. Between 2025 and 2026, £67.5 million went on property maintenance alone, including the Buckingham Palace reservicing programme and the installation of more energy-efficient heating. These are heritage sites carrying a maintenance backlog that has built up over decades, and the purpose of the reservicing work is to stop a serious risk of fire and flood. We should, of course, take the action that is needed to protect these national heritage assets.

The grant is also funding green infrastructure across the estate and better cyber-security, which, in the current international climate, is not an optional extra for any national institution. However, we should treat the increase as temporary in nature, and it is right that the sovereign grant will be readjusted once those projects have been completed. The Government have already committed to legislating for exactly that when the reservicing works finish.

That brings me to a key issue: transparency. The taxpayer is funding this grant. Taxpayers are entitled to see where their money goes, and as the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) has already mentioned, Parliament is entitled to hold the Government and the Treasury to account for it. Some of that framework already exists, and it works. Under the Sovereign Grant Act, the royal household’s accounts are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and laid before this House, and the royal household sits within the National Audit Office’s value-for-money remit. But that is not the whole picture.

We have an institution spending more than £130 million of public money a year, and its published accounts are the beginning and end of what the public can ask for. If one of my Hazel Grove constituents wants to know how a figure in the report came to be, there is no route for them to find out. May I encourage the Minister to let us know whether he has any plans to review the reporting requirements attached to the grant, so that Parliament and the public get spending detail at a level that allows genuine scrutiny? It is right that taxpayers will have questions about where and, importantly, whom this money goes to.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor holds no title, no office and no public role; as far as the state is concerned, he is a private citizen. As such, not a penny of this grant should reach him. Neither should any other taxpayer funding, and that has to include what happens at the end of his life. Frequently, members of the royal family have received publicly funded funerals, having either ceremonial funerals or state funerals. For context, the Queen Mother’s ceremonial funeral in 2002 cost more than £5.4 million, of which £4.3 million was spent on policing. Can the Minister confirm that no public money from the sovereign grant or any departmental budget will fund a ceremonial funeral, a lying-in-state or state honours of any kind for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor?

Direction of Government

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a doughty campaigner for improved services on our high streets, particularly pointing out the risks of the “aim to permit” regime, which has allowed the proliferation of adult gaming centres, for instance, in some of our more deprived communities. My whole approach will be to create an incentive regime that supports the businesses that are bringing good things to our high streets—hospitality businesses and others that give people a place to go and bring communities together—and to take action against those who do harm. In the summer we announced tougher action on vape shops, alongside adult gaming centres and other gambling venues. She deserves great credit for the campaign she has run, and I am pleased that she feels we can now begin to turn our high streets around.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I was encouraged to hear the Prime Minister talk about his support for political reform and, indeed, looking at the voting system, but can I push him to be a tiny bit more specific? He could bring in a change to the voting system ahead of the next general election if he wanted to—we would strongly back him—but if he does not want to do that, will he at least commit to kicking off a national commission on electoral reform?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady, who I know well, for that question. She may have heard me speak before about leaving this place 10 years ago, standing for the first time under a proportional system and seeing how it changed the conversation on the doorstep, where all of a sudden there was an incentive to look for a point of agreement, rather than to score points, as I have been saying. That experience changed me. Where I disagree with her is in saying that we should do that ahead of any general election, because I believe there needs to be a mandate to make that change. There are different views in this House, but I believe that we will need to get a consensus at the next election, and if there is that consensus, a change can be made in the next Parliament.