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.

Civil Service Pensions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The failure of Capita to meet the 30 June deadline is deeply disappointing, but, sadly, not surprising. Behind it sit 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want peace of mind that the pension they have earned through decades of public service will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity. Capita’s repeated failures are causing distress and uncertainty for people who deserve better, including several of my constituents, such as Sue from Romiley, Tracy from Offerton and Christopher from Marple.

The Public Accounts Committee did indeed warn that Capita risked not being ready to take over full administration back in December, and it raised serious concerns about weak contract management and poor oversight. Those warnings have now come to fruition as thousands of retired civil servants have experienced delays or complete failures in pension payments since Capita took over. How will the Government restore confidence for the 1 million-plus current and former civil servants who simply want reassurance that their pensions will be administered competently? What assessment has been made of the systemic failures in the administration of this scheme, and what lessons have been learned for future contracts of this kind? How can the Minister ensure that this failure is given sufficient weight should Capita have the brass neck to bid for any future Government contracts in this are or wholly unrelated ones?

The Minister has rightly called the thousands of unresolved bereavement cases harrowing. These grieving families are being denied closure. Will he commit today to ordering Capita to prioritise all bereavement cases as a matter of particular urgency, and will he guarantee that this specific backlog will be zero by a certain date?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

To take the hon. Lady’s final point first, yes, bereavement cases are being prioritised. Capita’s current working assumption is that the remaining backlog of over 6,700 quotations for past retirement dates and the 4,100 actionable bereavement cases will be systemically cleared through the rest of July and August, and I hope this House will hold it to that timetable.

More broadly, the hon. Lady is absolutely right about learning the lessons from this situation and robustly holding Capita to account. That is why, as the House will be aware, I took the decision to end, for example, its contract for the Royal Mail pension scheme. The House can be assured that I will not hesitate to take robust action.

On the hon. Lady’s other point, which I think is a central one, I am always very conscious—contrary to what the shadow Minister says—of the operational position week to week in order to ensure that I am still driving the improvement of this pension scheme to the level it should be at.

MPs’ Second Jobs: Prohibition

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western, and I really congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important and very timely debate, which he opened very well.

Being a Member of Parliament for my constituents in Hazel Grove is an enormous privilege, but it goes beyond that; it is a full-time job, with knobs on. I must declare that early in my time here, I was also an elected councillor, representing the wonderful people of Bredbury Green and Romiley. That was classed as a second job under our current rules, so I declared the allowance that I received for the couple of months before I stood down as a councillor, and the details can be seen in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The people who voted us here did not do so just so we can use Parliament as a launchpad into a media career, a consultancy or corporate boardroom; voters send us here to work for them. Yet in this Parliament we have seen some Members treat their responsibilities to their constituents as, at best, a part-time concern. Other Members have already given the detail of some of the work undertaken by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I have indeed let the hon. Member know in advance, Mr Weston, that I planned to mention him and his grifting.

The hon. Member for Clacton has been here for 300 sitting days since those of us in the 2024 intake were elected. When I was preparing this speech, I realised that if I added together the hours that he has declared as having worked elsewhere, he has spent more than 140 days on various other jobs since he was first elected. That might be understandable if, like many other Members, he had spent the time when he is not here on constituency work, or on fighting for those who elected him. However, there were reports in the Daily Mirror earlier this year flagging up how many of his constituents felt that he was not around enough. He has spent hundreds of hours presenting on GB News and taking speaking fees for cryptocurrency platforms such as Blockworks.

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I just remind Members about their choice of language? It is okay to use certain vocabulary in general—in non-specific terms—but when they are speaking about particular Members, I ask Members to be very careful about the use of language such as “grifting”.

[Lisa Smart]

I welcome your advice and guidance, Chair.

I will move on to talk about those Members who receive payments for posting on social media. Members of the UK Parliament should not receive payments from platforms such as X. I also note the entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe)—I have also advised him that I will mention him in this debate. The details of his most recent donation show that he has received over £70,000 from X since his election to this place.

Given the international nature of social media companies’ revenue streams, the role that Elon Musk has attempted to play in US politics and the views that he has increasingly expressed about UK politics, we should ensure that there are limitations in place to prevent potential income from social media platforms from unduly influencing politicians. We know the way that the algorithms that these platforms use push content that evokes more feeling, because it drives engagement. Therefore, the more divisive and hate-filled the content, the more some of the algorithms allow it to be seen. I have tabled some amendments to the Representation of the People Bill that would address that issue and I would really welcome Government support for them.

It is also worth noting the number of times that various Members who have already been mentioned today have spoken in this place in their role as an MP. For the hon. Member for Clacton, it is fewer than 50 times in two years, including points of order and supplementary questions—considerably fewer than any other party leader.

As others have already mentioned today, some MPs have a second job related to a previous career. Within these walls, there are people with vastly different career backgrounds, from veterinarians to police officers. There is a vast difference between being an MP who maintains a medical licence, continues to practise at the Bar or keeps up their professional registration in nursing or social work, and being an MP who treats this Chamber as little more than a platform for personal enrichment. We should be honest about that difference, because members of the public already are.

The Lib Dems do not feel that there is a strong enough argument for a blanket ban on MPs taking second jobs; we do not believe that that would be the right answer. It would force NHS doctors, care nurses and legal aid barristers to surrender their professional registrations to serve in Parliament—that would be a concerning and counterproductive unintended consequence. We do not want a Parliament made up exclusively of career politicians.

However, the people of Hazel Grove did not elect me to pop in here occasionally while moonlighting for a string of corporate sponsors. Many of my constituents rightly expect high standards and some of them have raised concerns about the conduct of politicians. Most recently, Neil from Hazel Grove wrote to me about reports of a £5 million gift to an MP from a foreign-based billionaire. My constituents elected me to do things such as fighting for Stepping Hill Hospital to get its £138 million repair bill sorted, pressing for better rail services, and holding this Government—any Government—to account. That is what every MP should be doing for the people from their patch.

We saw scandal after scandal under the last Conservative Government, from the resignation of Owen Paterson to partygate. Public trust in politics has been corroded, and as a country we are still paying the price for that failure. Although there are currently some restrictions in place, they do not go far enough—for example, MPs are strictly banned from acting as parliamentary strategists, advisers or consultants, That clearly recognises that having a second job can contradict our role as MPs, but it is not a full solution. The Liberal Democrats have long supported broader reform to the rules for MPs’ conduct. We should not end up in a situation where MPs are marking their own homework.

I welcome the aims of the Modernisation Committee, but it was established almost two years ago. Indeed, I made my maiden speech in a debate on the motion that established it, yet the Government have so far failed to deliver the modernisation that is sorely needed, including in relation to second jobs. I welcome any update from the Minister on when we might expect some progress.

Those who sit in this House of Commons must remember that we are representatives for our areas and our constituents. This is not a part-time role, and that is the standard that this House should expect of everyone who sits in it.

Cabinet Office

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Born ready, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Earlier this year, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that

“we are not at war, but we are certainly not at peace either.”

Just over the two years since this Government took office, there have been many reports of instances of foreign espionage and interference. Earlier this year, it was reported that Chinese spies use LinkedIn and other recruitment platforms to target UK officials and military staff. A tracker was successfully placed on the Prime Minister’s car, and—as has been mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) and for West Dorset (Edward Morello)—there have been attacks on the Prime Minister’s home and car. Also, people with links to a sitting MP were arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence agency. It is therefore no surprise that the Government say that national security is their first responsibility. They are right to do so.

I am lucky enough to be a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme this year. I have been fortunate enough to meet some of the remarkable people who serve in our military, from the most junior to the most senior, and the key message I have taken from those interactions is that, as a society, we are not scared enough and we are certainly not prepared enough. When talking about preparation, the thoughts of many will instantly go to physical safety and defence spending. I understand why, but there needs to be a whole-of-society approach that goes beyond our armed forces to include national security, resilience, civic preparedness, food security, economic security, cyber-security, energy security and so on. This point has already been raised by other Members, but when the Minister responds shortly, I would be grateful if she could update the House on the Government’s plans to increase the awareness of the British people—including my own Hazel Grove constituents —about the role we must all play to keep our country safe and to prepare should the worst happen.

After looking at the estimates, I have one specific question for the Minister. As I understand it, the security spending under the “Keeping the country safe” subheading is rising largely because the integrated security fund has been moved across to the Cabinet Office, not because Ministers have found new money to meet new dangers. Could the Minister tell the House how much of that uplift is new investment in our resilience, and what changes are happening to that spending as it comes under the Cabinet Office?

We cannot have national resilience if the public can no longer trust the integrity of our democracy. The National Cyber Security Centre dealt with more than 200 attacks on our critical national infrastructure in the past year alone, and around three quarters of those attacks were traced to hostile states, primarily China, Russia and Iran. They reach into hospitals, our energy supply, and the public services that many across the country depend on. That is why the Liberal Democrats tabled an amendment to the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill that would have required the Government to publish a digital sovereignty strategy. Had it been put in place, that strategy would clearly have set out how the Government would assess, manage and mitigate risks to the security and resilience of critical network and information systems arising from foreign interference and reliance on foreign technology. Additionally, our strategy would place a focus on strengthening Government procurement practices, which would ensure that the Government lay out how they intend to reduce strategic dependencies on foreign-owned service providers and commit to prioritise domestic tech. We would ensure that critical national functions are powered by technology that only the UK Government or UK companies could control.

Perhaps the sharpest threat to our democracy is the money flowing into it from outside. British politics is being targeted by powerful interests beyond our shores who would happily see our democracy weakened, and the loopholes that let them in remain far too open. Opaque, foreign and dark money can still find its way into our political parties, our campaigns and our online conversations, and the Government have not yet done enough to prevent that money from entering our democracy. They commissioned the Rycroft review into political finance, but to date, they have committed to just two of its 17 recommendations. We Liberal Democrats ask that the Minister give serious consideration to the other 15 and commit to all of them in full very soon.

The elections strategy paper published last summer and the Representation of the People Bill are both welcome steps, but there is an Elon Musk-shaped hole running right through the middle of them. They contain nothing to stop social media platforms paying elected representatives to post increasingly divisive and incendiary content, and nothing to shut the back door through which foreign money reaches our politics. Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to the Representation of the People Bill to fix exactly that. Our amendments would ban payments to MPs by X and other platforms and bar people who have served foreign Administrations from donating to political parties, campaign groups and think-tanks, and we would implement the Rycroft review’s recommendation of banning foreign-funded online political ads altogether.

Given the scale of potential foreign interference, we believe that the Government should go one step further and launch an investigation into US interference in our democracy, including financial support by this White House for those in the UK who—and I quote—share their values. I urge the Minister to further consider how we can best ensure that the Department’s budget is used effectively to limit the reach of foreign interference in our political system, because our democratic security is our national security.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

This week marked 10 years since the EU referendum vote, and the world has changed since then, with an unreliable Trump in the White House and Putin bombing schools in Ukraine. Labour’s red lines are holding Britain back. They are hurting the British people and playing into the hands of those who seek to divide us. It was made clear to me in Brussels last month that the ball is in the UK’s court and that there is real openness to Liberal Democrat plans for a sensible, pragmatic and deliverable plan for closer working. Will the Paymaster General commit to urging the new Prime Minister to drop Labour’s red lines and back Lib Dem plans for a new UK-EU growth and defence partnership to make the UK safer, stronger and richer?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

We have been building a growth and defence partnership, and we do not have to move the red lines to do it; it is what I have been doing every single week with the democratic mandate we have from 2024. The hon. Lady makes the argument for a customs union. This Government have managed to secure free trade deals with India and the Gulf Co-operation Council and an economic deal with the United States. Perhaps she might want to send her message to workers at Jaguar Land Rover, whose jobs have relied on the Government’s trade negotiation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

We will soon have our seventh Prime Minister in 10 years. My commiserations go to the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who I see has bowed out of the race gracefully—I am sure he has many irons in the fire.

The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is known to be committed to proportional representation. What plans does the Cabinet Office have to enable any new Prime Minister to move quickly on making our voting system fit for purpose—if he does not change his mind? Has that come up in access talks?

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The infected blood scandal, and the 30,000 or so people who were infected with HIV, hepatitis or both, have been discussed in this House many times, but the numbers—the sheer scale of the scandal—are still hard to comprehend. The hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) laid out the background compellingly at the start of this debate, and I congratulate him on securing it.

Other Members have spoken of perhaps the most horrifying element of the scandal: children were subjected to unsafe and unethical clinical testing in the 1970s and ’80s. This testing—this experimentation—continued for more than 15 years. It involved hundreds of people and infected most with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV. The trials involved children with blood clotting disorders, when families had often not consented to their taking part, and the majority of the children who were experimented on are now dead. It is not just about those who were infected, of course; the number of those affected by the scandal is far higher. Although we welcome the steps that the Government have taken in progressing the compensation scheme, it is clear that the job is not yet done.

The changes that the Government have brought in will mean more compensation for those who have been impacted by the infected blood scandal. Payments will be sent out to victims as part of the wider £11 billion-plus allocated by the Government in the 2024 Budget to compensate victims, but in the last two months to June, just 217 people have received compensation payments. At that rate, far too many victims will not receive their compensation by the 2029 deadline. The pace must increase—a point that has been well made in this debate by the hon. Members for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) and for Newport East (Jessica Morden), as well as others.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the improvements to the scheme that the Government set out earlier this year. These changes will hopefully deliver some of the justice that victims have been calling for, but there is clearly a strength of feeling that the scheme still does not go far enough, and the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst laid out some of the well-founded concerns in opening the debate.

The failure to deliver the Hillsborough law has been raised by many Members from across the House, and they are right to do so. It would extend the duty of candour to all public officials, and it was a manifesto commitment from this Government. It is also a promise that has been repeated by the Prime Minister and several other Ministers since. Despite repeated talk of an “unwavering commitment”, this vital reform has still not been delivered, and we do not know when it will be. I would welcome any update that the Paymaster General could give on the progress that we might expect and when we might expect it.

With this scandal, as with too many others, the inability to deliver both timely compensation and complementary legislation extends people’s fears of a culture of cover-up. In so many instances we see the breakdown of trust between the people we represent and our politics, so delivering compensation at pace, and delivering the Hillsborough law, would be a statement of intent to change our political culture. It is one of the vital building blocks that can start to repair this House’s fractured relationship with the public—an essential step to recover trust. That is more vital today than at any other point in my lifetime.

Many Members have spoken of their constituents who have been impacted by this scandal. My constituent Catherine from Marple Bridge is one of so many who provided testimony to the compensation authority. She is a daughter handling the estate of her father, who was infected, and she is affected. Catherine’s thorough, detailed testimony was calm, thoughtful and delivered with remarkable clarity. It was testament to her strength of character. Last year’s damning report on compensation showed that not enough lessons had been learned, and survivors such as Catherine continue to be left out in the cold.

The impact of course extends to those who have lost family members to contaminated blood, such as Angus Lacey-Stewart, who contacted my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller). Angus’s dad and granddad both died due to health conditions caused by infected blood. Angus lost his dad prematurely, but he also told my hon. Friend how his dad’s infection at the age of 14 changed his dad’s life and robbed Angus of the relationship he might have wanted with his father, who suffered from poor mental and physical health. Angus understands that there are many claims and supports the prioritisation of infected claimants, but he cannot understand why he has been told not to expect payment until 2030. Angus told my hon. Friend that he

“feels let down and ignored by the Government”,

and he will not be alone.

The Liberal Democrats have been consistent in urging the Government to end the record of failure of successive Governments, and finally answer the needs of victims. We committed, along with others, in our 2019 manifesto to act on the inquiry’s recommendations,

“ensuring a just settlement for victims and their families”,

and we have voted in favour of legislation when it has been brought to this House. We encourage the Government to be as effective and visible as possible in the way they deliver the promised compensation scheme for the all-too-many victims. After so many years of secrecy, deceit and delay, the Government must deliver on the start they have made to ensure full transparency on the progress of the scheme and open, ongoing and effective communication with all those affected.

I close my remarks by paying tribute to the victims and their families, and particularly the doughty campaigners who have worked for decades for the compensation and justice they deserve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I thank members of the ISC and the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) for their work on this matter. I acknowledge again the women and girls who found the courage to come forward about the abuse that they endured at the hands of rich and powerful men. As we continue to discuss this matter, we must remember that those women are owed justice.

When Peter Mandelson was appointed, UK Security Vetting advice was overridden. The then permanent secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office suggested that he was subject to constant pressure, and there is a line in today’s files suggesting that senior people expressed interest that the vetting process go smoothly. Given the Minister’s repeated assurances that there was no pressure from Government relating to vetting, what does he think that line refers to?

We now know that Cabinet Ministers were privately praising and flattering Mandelson from before his appointment all the way until after his dismissal. Senior Ministers showed a staggering lack of judgment. Will the Chief Secretary explain why so much business relating to one of the most controversial public appointments in recent years appears to have been conducted over WhatsApp? It was private, informal and outside the official record. Government by WhatsApp, which the Lib Dems have continually called for an end to, must end, because informal messaging outside official channels creates accountability gaps that should trouble us all. Does the Chief Secretary agree that Government by WhatsApp must come to an end?

Documents released today display concerning evidence that Peter Mandelson lobbied Ministers on behalf of his clients. That would appear to be a serious breach of the code of conduct for the other place, yet an initial reading of the files seems to suggest that many Ministers were pliant and responded warmly to him. Will the Minister confirm whether any Ministers reported their concerns about this seemingly egregious lobbying?

The Government have outlined their plans for the removal of peerages Bill. At first glance, it is a narrow and woefully unambitious Bill that completely fails to rise to the moment. Will the Minister outline what it will take for the Government to make meaningful reforms to the second Chamber?

Senior Cabinet Ministers asked Mandelson for advice on a range of issues, despite many of those issues falling outside the scope of his role. Issues of how we run this country stretch far beyond this scandal. The ministerial code, which should strongly inform the conduct of those who hold the highest offices in the land, continues to exist as guidance rather than the law. Ministers who breach it face no legal consequences. The Prime Minister can choose whether to act on the findings of independent advisers, which means that accountability is optional, and it is far from clear what consequences follow when rules are broken. Will the Government use this moment to bring forward legislation to enshrine the ministerial code in law?