Direction of Government

Debate between Matt Bishop and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will take on that challenge and ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to consider what the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon. These changes do benefit from having the maximum consensus. On the Thatcher Government, we will probably have to agree to disagree, but I make one observation: we have a public housing stock that has 1.5 million fewer homes than in the ’80s and ’90s, and we now have 1.5 million people on housing waiting lists up and down the country. I would put it to him that that is a cause of further public cost, in terms of the number of people who are in a crisis situation. I think we can do better. I have been prepared to criticise the Government that I was in; maybe one day he might criticise the one that he was in, and then we will be able to find some solutions.

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister to his place and associate myself with all his comments about the two police officers sadly killed up in Cleveland. I speak with first-hand experience when I say that any police officer will start a shift not expecting to be able to go home at the end of it. It is really important that we recognise that. In that spirit, I ask the Prime Minister to give the commitment that the Government will always have our police officers’ backs, and to ensure that police forces are properly funded, so that my former colleagues can look after communities up and down this country.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I point to my record as Mayor of Greater Manchester: I had the back of all the thousands of officers who were out serving, keeping Greater Manchester safe, day after day. I pay tribute to the families of those officers we lost in Middlesbrough in the line of duty, sacrificing themselves for their community.

I also want to assure my hon. Friend that I heard the voice of PC Andrew Harper’s family before making my decisions on early release. Before I was here, this House passed Harper’s law. The spirit of that legislation really should have been honoured in that early release scheme, and it now will be. It always should be that this House gives the maximum recognition to those who put themselves at risk for our safety and that of everyone else.