Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Sewards Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is just all talk. What did the Conservatives actually do? They cut defence, from 2.5% to 2.3%, in their 14 long years. And what did they do on welfare? They put the bill up by £88 billion, so we will take no lectures from them. They failed in the first duty of Government, and they will not defend their record, will they? Never do they stand here and defend their record, because they cannot—14 years of failure. They do not get up and apologise, which is what they should do, because they would have to admit what we all know—how much they failed—so they just sit there pretending it did not happen. Well, it did happen. You hollowed out the armed forces; we are correcting that now.

I will tell you what else. When we came into power, public services were on their knees. Today we have seen the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years. When I became Prime Minister, we inherited a broken economy. Today we are outperforming the other G7 economies. When I became Prime Minister, our international alliances had been shredded. Now other countries are looking to us to lead on defence and security—foundations of a stronger and fairer country. Britain is in a better state than we found it. That is the difference a Labour Government make.

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

Q3.   Two of my constituents, Cody and Liam Townend, and another mum from Leeds, Zoe Ward, all lost babies in different tragic circumstances, but they all went to the same funeral director, who did not treat their babies’ bodies with the dignity, care or respect that they deserved. I will not repeat the shocking details here—the BBC, for its part, published what it could last year—but more shocking still is the fact that the police found nothing actionable in either case, because there is no regulation of the funeral industry. The individual in question is still operating in Leeds today. Given that the Department of Health and Social Care is due to make a decision about changing the law in this area, possibly before the Prime Minister leaves office, will he speak to Ministers and officials in that Department to ensure that when they consider the question of whether to regulate the funeral industry, their answer is yes?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this case; he has been a committed campaigner on this issue. I have seen the details of that particular case, and he is right not to repeat them in this Chamber—they are horrifying. The lack of dignity and compassion is unacceptable, and I simply cannot imagine the pain that Cody, Liam and Zoe experienced and are still experiencing. The status quo here is not working for families, and people deserve to know that their loved ones are treated with dignity and compassion. We are going to consider this issue closely, and I thank him for raising it. I do want stronger standards and oversight. I think that is absolutely needed, particularly in the light of appalling cases like this.