Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, because he has given me an opportunity to highlight exactly how effective my Government and that of Keir Starmer have been since we came into office. More than 50% of asylum hotels are closed and knife crime has gone down by 10% in the last 12 months. The IMF has just raised our growth forecast. We have approved 110,000 grants to help people buy new electric vehicles, and we have increased the number of secondary school, special school and further education teachers by 4,000. Over 1,300 schools have joined the free breakfast club programme. The NHS waiting list is at its lowest level for three and a half years. Some 11 million renters have stronger rights and 56,000 illegal immigrants have been returned to their countries. We have brought in 30 hours of free childcare per week for parents and the minimum wage has gone up. I will take that every day of the week.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the way in which she is addressing this Statement. Seeing her pile of papers and the number of Post-it notes attached, it is clearly an impressive task for any Minister to deal with.

Much has been made of the use of WhatsApp. I suspect I am not alone in your Lordships’ House in confessing that I use WhatsApp. I also have a number of conversations in which disappearing messages are used. There has already been criticism of the use of disappearing messages in WhatsApp, not just in the discussions that have been revealed as part of this but right through the previous Government, particularly during the Covid period. Perhaps my noble friend can confirm that.

Secondly, while I deplore the use of WhatsApp for any formal decision-making, disappearing messages are an entirely sensible proposition where WhatsApp is being used. I checked my mobile phone this morning, and the largest use of memory on it is by WhatsApp—so, in fact, for colleagues in the other place, colleagues here and colleagues on the other side of this Chamber to use disappearing messages is entirely rational. Does my noble friend agree?