Oral Answers to Questions

Lola McEvoy Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that at the last Budget there was a record settlement for Scotland—£50 billion a year. He talks about support. We have just won the Norway frigates contract. That is 15 years of shipbuilding in Scotland. The SNP First Minister has said what about that since Sunday? Absolutely nothing. I know we have another SNP question in just a moment. Perhaps that will be the opportunity to welcome the deal that we have won, and the jobs now for Scotland.

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

Q10. Prime Minister, last year, my online safety forum of children and young people from every secondary school and college in Darlington found that 71% of our year 10s and 12s had been contacted by a stranger online, a shocking failure that our Online Safety Act will hopefully prevent going forward. Will he join me in calling on the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), and all opposed to this vital Act, to pick a side? Are they with us, parents and child protectors, or are they with the predators harming our children online?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is not here to represent his constituency in the House that he was elected to. No, he has flown to America to badmouth and talk down our country. It is worse than that, Mr Speaker: if you can believe it, he has gone there to lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country that will harm working people. You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. It is a disgrace. The Online Safety Act 2023 protects children from material on suicide, self-harm and online predators. Reform says it would scrap it. When its leader was asked, “Well, what would you replace it with?”, his answer was:

“There needs to be a tech answer. I don’t know what that is”.

You cannot run a country on “don’t know” answers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lola McEvoy Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will of course look at the specific document that the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to. He also referred to the important consent vote taking place in the Northern Ireland Assembly next week. This Government support the Windsor framework. That is why, when we were in opposition, we voted with the then Government to support it. We are committed to implementing it in good faith, and that is what this Government will do.

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

Public procurement is a vital lever for delivering our growth mission, and growth must be felt by people in every part of our country. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that when taxpayers’ money is spent on private contracts, the key workers delivering the contract and local communities such as mine in Darlington maximise the benefits of that public money?

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for the time she spent with me last week setting out the opportunities of procurement and the needs of her community in Darlington. We have heard from the whole House today how important it is to back small and medium- sized enterprises that have roots in communities, and we are determined that the new national policy procurement statement will do that.