Lord Mandelson

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I have been waiting for three hours to speak in this debate, and I wanted to talk about consensus, but it seems that my speech comes just one place too late in the list.

I will start by following on from the point that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made about recovering Mandelson’s pay, or at least stopping the pay being awarded to him. My constituents in Edinburgh South West want to go further and recover Mandelson’s pension, too. I thank the Opposition for bringing forward this debate. It is right that we debate these issues; people in my constituency certainly expect us to.

On consensus, I think where we are at is that the SNP, the Greens and the Lib Dems back the original Humble Address. I am not sure whether Your Party backs it —perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was just speaking on his own behalf. The Conservatives seem to accept that their Humble Address was a little reckless, and they want to support the involvement of the ISC. The Government have now shown leadership and brought that in. I think that is where we are at. [Interruption.] Members can feel free to correct me. Do they want to correct me? I am happy to take an intervention.

I expected to hear a little more today about what Mandelson may or may not have been getting up to during the era when Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown were trying to save our economy. I have huge respect for Gordon Brown. He is a man of real integrity. Alistair Darling is a predecessor in my seat, and he was a man of great integrity and someone whom I really respected. I think we can all agree that Mandelson was the complete opposite of those two great men and political leaders of my era. I do not doubt that once the criminal investigation is completed, there will be the public inquiry that some people are talking about.

It is right that we have focused on Mandelson’s links with Epstein today. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) made absolutely clear why that is so important.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that he thinks it is absolutely right that this House focuses on Peter Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein, and I welcome him for suddenly coming to that conclusion. Can I therefore ask him why the Prime Minister felt it necessary to appoint Mandelson as the US ambassador when—we know this after this afternoon’s revelation—the Prime Minister knew that Mandelson still had a relationship with Epstein?

[Dr Arthur]

That is why I am here, in this debate. I want these documents released, so that we can understand what decisions were made.

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[Dr Arthur]

I am grateful for the correction. Perhaps I was not listening quite as carefully as I should have, so I really do thank the hon. Lady.

I end by thanking our Front Benchers for listening to the arguments of Members from right across the Chamber, for showing a bit of leadership, and for hopefully bringing us together with some consensus.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman’s speech is coming across to me as quite miraculous, and not in a good way. He is claiming that his Front Benchers have shown leadership this afternoon. Let us remind the House exactly what has happened: his party’s leadership and Front Benchers have changed their amendment to the motion, because they knew that Government Members would not have voted for it.

[Dr Arthur]

Can we just reflect for a second? The original Humble Address was reckless. It was going to put information in the public domain that would have damaged our country. It could be argued that the original amendment was an overreaction to that, but we are getting to a good place now; we are reaching consensus.

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[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I am certainly not going to make any accusations about her owing anything to Peter Mandelson’s patronage. From what she says, it seems that she is going to join those of us in this House who are independently minded and express our views in a straightforward manner, but it is obvious that a lot of Labour Members who were elected in 2024 were chosen by panels that included Mandelson. This is not exclusively a problem for the Labour party; we must recognise that in our democracy the people who choose the candidates have enormous power, and if those people are corrupt—as has now been established was the case with Mandelson—that places in grave doubt the credibility of our democratic institutions.

[Paul Holmes]

According to reports, it is worse than that: Peter Mandelson had his fingertips throughout the whole of the Labour party, but also the Government. There are reports that after the Prime Minister had realised he had had a continuing relationship with Epstein, Mandelson was in No. 10 during the Cabinet reshuffle of 5 September, so he had a direct role in appointing half the Cabinet, has he not?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

These revelations keep coming, yet answers come there none. I hope that in due course we can pursue these points further with the Prime Minister when he next appears in the House.

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[Saqib Bhatti]

My right hon. Friend’s exasperation is exactly the exasperation that the British public will be feeling as they read the headlines. That is how they have felt as the stories have unfolded over the last few days and months.

This speaks to a fundamental point: the toxicity at No. 10. The rot starts at the top. Labour Members have the authority and the power to do something about this. The relationship that Mandelson was obvious to all of us. It was obvious to us when the Prime Minister appointed him to one of the most important positions in our country—and to a position in one of the most important capitals in the world—but the Prime Minister did it anyway, because he thought it was a risk worth taking.

[Paul Holmes]

In response to the intervention from my right hon. Friend Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), there is a key difference between this Prime Minister and former Labour Prime Ministers, in that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair appointed Peter Mandelson without knowing some of the connections that he had. The key difference is that this Prime Minister knew and still did it. There is still a Labour Prime Minister with integrity, and that is Gordon Brown, who actually took things to the police. This Prime Minister did no such thing.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard my earlier comment that it is a matter not for the Chair but for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards if he has failed to declare interests during the debate.

[Paul Holmes]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Forgive me for detaining the House, but may I ask for your clarification on whether a Member saying that somebody in this House has been bought and paid for is in order?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I did ask the Member to withdraw his comments. He now has the opportunity to do so.

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[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

“Liberation Day!”—that was how Mandelson described the day of Epstein’s release from prison for procuring children to be trafficked and raped. His next message was, “How is freedom feeling?” Epstein replied,

“she feels fresh, firm, and creamy”.

Mandelson’s next reply: “Naughty boy”.

We had not seen those emails, I admit, when the ambassador was appointed, but let us look at what we did know when he was appointed ambassador. We knew at that point that he had consoled this paedophile on his being found guilty and convicted of just one of the many crimes he committed. We also knew that while he was Deputy Prime Minister of this country and Business and Trade Secretary, and while he was carrying the flag of our great nation, he stayed in a convicted paedophile’s flat while on an official visit to New York. How dare he do that while representing this country! Did no one in the Cabinet Office or the Department for Business and Trade—no civil servant or political appointee —know that he had said, “No, I don’t need a hotel, thank you ever so much. I’m going to stay at my friend’s Epstein’s house. Oh, by the way, he happens to be in prison, but I’m going to stay at his house anyway”? There are serious questions about why he was not pursued for misconduct in public office at that point. No one can say that the Labour Government did not know, because I have been a civil servant; I knew where my Ministers were staying when they were abroad. I am not sure that they always wanted me to know, but I knew, and none of them would have ever done that. That is at the heart of the issue with the judgment of the Prime Minister.

On Monday, a Government Minister said that nobody objected when Mandelson was appointed. Look at Hansard: I remember objecting very clearly and repeatedly, because it was clear at that point that Mandelson had repeatedly said that Epstein did not deserve to be in prison, that this was an awful time for him, and how he cared about and was thinking about his good friend.

Why was there no investigation, and why was the vetting not done right? There is no question but that the vetting cannot have been conducted properly. I have been through vetting myself—not as a Minister, I accept, but as a civil servant. I have sat in a room with a rather elderly gentleman for two hours, being asked about my every sexual proclivity, when I lost my virginity, and whether I had taken drugs. I was asked about every single aspect of my life because both apolitical civil servants and politicians in this place should hold themselves accountable and be right for appointment to their role.

It is clear from the debate, and from the evidence put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), that the Prime Minister wanted this appointment made, and because the Prime Minister wanted Mandelson, Mandelson was going to be appointed. We will see when the docs are released how they were able to get around the official vetting, but that brings me to my concerns about another political appointment that was rushed through because the Prime Minister demanded it: that of Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser. There are significant concerns about his business interests. There are significant concerns in the House about the fact that there has been no scrutiny of him because he will not come before the House and give evidence. There is also significant concern about his relationships in China and around the world, yet he is permitted—again, while flying the flag of this nation—to conduct secret visits to China, where he met Wang Yi and other senior representatives. The British Government refused to put out any press notice explaining why the visit happened, or even that it happened at all.

[Paul Holmes]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making a good speech. I was a special adviser at the Cabinet Office—a great Department with great civil servants. She mentions the cases of Jonathan Powell, and of Lord Mandelson as Deputy Prime Minister. Does she agree that this backhanded way of conducting Government business, without officials present, puts pressure on our great civil servants, and places them in difficult situations? It is not how Government should be run.

[Alicia Kearns]

I entirely agree with my very good and hon. Friend. I was taken aback by the comments of the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who sought to give us a lecture on how Government vetting is undertaken. She kept referring to fast-stream civil servants as those responsible for vetting. Fast stream is a mode of recruitment, not a type of civil servant. It felt as if she was trying to suggest that junior civil servants should take the can for the vetting process that was pursued. I very much hope that is not the case, because it is deeply inappropriate.

The commonality between the appointments of Lord Mandelson and Jonathan Powell is Morgan McSweeney, so I must ask whether Morgan McSweeney is the one who should be held accountable. At this point, it looks as if no one will be held accountable.

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[Alicia Kearns]

Unfortunately, as Members must slowly learn, where there is a vacuum of silence in this place, our constituents, the great people of this country, see conspiracy, and sadly too often they are right. The Paymaster General has committed to get me answers to my letter, and although he is currently having a conversation with someone else, I gently encourage him that I would like answers to those questions on severance pay today from the Dispatch Box, because I raised the issue on Monday and have received no response. It is in the motion, so please can we have those answers?

I also want briefly to reflect on what has happened over the past week. On Sunday, the Labour party informed the media that it could not strip Mandelson of his membership of the Labour party—perhaps the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) would like to intervene on that, as I suspect he has something to say about the Labour party stripping people of their membership. On Monday, the Government told the House that they cannot legislate as that would not be appropriate or possible, and it was too difficult, despite the entire House offering to sit until 4 am to do so. We then had silence from the Government when Members of the House asked them to refer the matter to the police. It was clear from early doors that this was going to end with the police, and hopefully in our courts, as I have argued it should have done back in 2010.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend will recall that during various parliamentary debates in the Chamber on Peter Mandelson, and despite the Prime Minister knowing that he had that relationship, at one stage she and I asked the Minister the simple question of whether the Government would strip Lord Mandelson of the Labour Whip. That question was refused an answer, and they did not remove the Whip. Does that not show a constant lack of action from a Prime Minister who does not have a grip?

[Alicia Kearns]

One lesson of being in government—there are many—that I hope we have learned is that the writing is normally on the wall. It was very clear from early days that this man was going to let down our country, but those of us who criticised him were told, “This is imaginative; this is inspired. They are putting in place a man who can shake things up and make friends with Donald Trump.” Throughout his persistent behaviour, as more and more became clear, the Prime Minister could have taken decisive action. As I said, it has been clear for a long time that this was not going to end up just with Mandelson disgraced, or with us rightly saying that he should be removed from the other place; it is going to end up with him facing court, I hope. Let me be clear: malfeasance in public office is what he should be tried for, and that carries a life sentence. That is how severe are the crimes that he has been conducting, and I am ashamed that Gordon Brown raised the flag of warning and seems to have had nothing in response to his concerns.

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[Chris Ward]

The release of information will be done in the way I have just set out. Either it will be done through the Cabinet Secretary working with independent lawyers or, if the material is deemed potentially to conflict with national security or foreign relations, it will be handed to the ISC, which is independent and can make a decision. To the point that my hon. Friend made earlier—this is really crucial—there will not be political involvement from Ministers or No. 10 in this process. The Cabinet Secretary and the ISC will work on it with lawyers.

[Paul Holmes]

I really must push the Minister, because he is giving conflicting messages. At one stage, he said that the direct contract award will be in scope of the ISC, without committing to any timescales. He has now said that the scope of the release of documents is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary, with no political involvement. As a political Minister, he has stood at the Dispatch Box to say that the direct contract award will be in scope. Will it be in scope or not?

[Chris Ward]

Any correspondence involving Peter Mandelson is within scope. As I say, that will be looked at by the Cabinet Secretary, who will make decisions with independent lawyers and working with the ISC.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that harm from online gambling has surged—NHS referrals are up 91% in the past year. The decisions we made in the Budget mean investment in public services and lifting more than half a million children out of poverty, but we are working with industry to ensure that adverts do not exacerbate harm and, through our £26 million investment, helping the Gambling Commission to crack down on black market sites and illegal adverts to keep players safe.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Q7. In 2020, the Justice Secretary said:“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea”,and the Prime Minister himself has said that there should be “a right of trial by jury in all criminal cases”,but now they want to scrap trials by jury. With a Chancellor who cannot count and a Justice Secretary who has lost count of the number of people he has let out of prison, is it any wonder that the people of this country cannot ever again trust a single word this Prime Minister or Government say?

[The Prime Minister]

The Conservatives left a broken criminal justice system in which victims of rape and serious sexual violence wait three or four years for trial. Only this week I have heard further examples of 14-year-old and 16-year-old girls having to give evidence four years after the allegation. That is not justice for them, and I am determined that we will deal with that. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, of all criminal cases going to court, 90% have always been in the magistrates court and 10% go to the Crown court. Of that 10%, 7% of defendants plead guilty, which means that 3% of all criminal cases go forward for a jury trial—not all our cases. We are making sensible changes to ensure that victims get justice, which was denied to them under the failure left by the Conservatives.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is right. One would think that the 1924 debate about bloodlines and pedigree as a basis for participation would no longer have any advocates, but it appears that a number of such advocates are left, a century later.

From the Parliament Act 1911 to the House of Lords Act 1999, the history of Lords reform is littered with examples of individual Members straining every sinew and making every different argument to try to resist reform. In 1911, Lord Curzon coined the term “the ditchers”—the Unionist peers who were to fight into the last ditch over the then Parliament Bill and whose efforts have acted as an effective block on further change. Today’s ditchers all sit on the Opposition Benches—

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will give way to hear from one of the 2025 ditchers.

[Paul Holmes]

I guarantee to the Minister that, as a council estate boy from Lewisham, I am not someone who ever thought that my bloodline would get into the House of Lords—[Interruption.] One day!

I want to challenge the Minister about the points he has made about future reform. His party has a majority of 170, and we know that it won the general election. Why is he claiming that we are trying to block reform, which is completely untrue, while the Government are so lacking in ambition and do not have the courage or political will to bring a full package of reform to the House, which the Opposition might well support? What we are asking is why he is tinkering at the edges and then attacking us for not being in favour of reform, when he has refused to bring reform in the first place.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s bloodline getting to the House of Lords, I am sure it is only a matter of time before we see that.

In terms of the antics of the Opposition, I do not know whether the Conservative parliamentary party in the Commons speaks to peers, but it should talk to them about their behaviour on the Bill and other Bills that they have blocked and blocked and blocked. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is apparently spending time to come up with credible policies—no one will believe that the Conservative party is in favour of wholesale reform of the House of Lords.

It has been more than 25 years since Parliament agreed to end the hereditary route, with a supposedly temporary arrangement to retain 92 hereditary peers. It is almost 200 years since the Great Reform Act 1832, which took away the hold of the great aristocratic families, opening up the franchise and taking their presence in electoral politics from monopoly to anomaly. Nonetheless, the hereditary principle remains in our Parliament: sometimes as symbol of tradition, sometimes as obstacle to real reform—as Conservative peers have recently demonstrated.

There is a real opportunity today for the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He has protested several times about newly found passion for wholesale Lords reform—

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I can help the hon. Gentleman out on one issue: I can reassure him that he is most definitely awake; this is most definitely reality. Where I am afraid I will fail is in explaining the priorities on the Conservative Benches. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to draw attention to that.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the Minister genuinely for giving way again; he is courteous and gentlemanly in doing so. I promise that this will be my last intervention. Could I just ask him about the difference between the problems he is discussing and what the Bill will enact, where a hereditary peer is not given membership of the House of Lords, but is still given the title and privilege of being a peer of the realm?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Quite simply, the amendment is trying to create the title as an honour without the actual membership. That is the difference. I had an exchange earlier about there being no barriers to life peerage; that is not saying no barrier to the title. The life peerage, if granted, obviously confers both the title and the participation. That is the difference between the two.

On the point about the amendment being unnecessary, as my noble Friend Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent stated in the other place—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Family connections exist on the Government Benches, as well. The UK already has an extensive and long-standing honours system, which recognises and promotes the outstanding contributions made by individuals the length and breadth of the country and from all sections of society.

As has been said, being appointed as a peer is an honour, but it also brings the responsibility to contribute to the work of the second Chamber. The Government have a manifesto commitment to introduce a participation requirement to ensure that all peers contribute to the work of the other place—an approach that has received widespread support from peers. I certainly do not think that creating another layer to that system to provide for the statutory creation of non-sitting peers is in keeping with the mood of either House. I therefore urge the House to reject Lords amendment 3.

I turn finally to an issue on which I hope there will be cross-party consensus, which is resignation by power of attorney. Lords amendments 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 would allow the House of Lords to set out arrangements for resignation from the other place where a peer lacks capacity, including when someone is acting under a lasting power of attorney. During the passage of the Bill in the other place, it became clear that there was considerable support to address in legislation the long-standing concern that Members who lack capacity were unable to resign from the House of Lords, and the Government have listened and acted. Following discussions with peers across the House of Lords, the Leader of the House of Lords brought forward these amendments to address the matter. What they make clear is that a notice to resign from the other place may be given and signed by a person acting on behalf of a peer who lacks capacity, providing that it is done in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House.

The amendments relating to resignation would come into force on Royal Assent to ensure that families who wish to avail themselves of these new arrangements do not have to wait until the end of a parliamentary Session to do so. It seeks to provide certainty to peers who have raised this issue. It is a solution that has received unanimous cross-party support in the other place, and I hope that the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will confirm the support for that amendment.

This a short and focused Bill. It delivers on a manifesto commitment to immediately remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. It is not personal, and nor is it a comment on the contribution that hereditary peers have made. The Government are grateful for their service in the other place, and I stress again that there are no bars on them returning as life peers if their party leaders wish to nominate them. However, the time has now come to deliver this immediate reform, so that we can move on to further reform of the other place, as set out in our manifesto, and deliver on what was promised in July last year. I therefore urge the House to support the Government’s position.

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[Alex Burghart]

I do not recall us saying that it was a terrible idea. I distinctly remember many Conservative peers speaking in favour of it actually, but that is part of the joy of the independence of the upper House, which, as I will shortly explain, risks being undermined by this legislation.

What the Government are now trying to do is remove a group of public servants who have done nothing wrong and who have simply served their country and continue to do so. The reason they are being removed is very clear: the Government cannot rely on their votes. Consequently, they are attempting to take a group of opponents out of Parliament by Act of Parliament. This is simply Cromwellian. I am not suggesting that the Prime Minister is a second Cromwell. Cromwell was a great man—a “brave, bad man” as Clarendon said—while the Prime Minister is just a man.

I do not believe that the Government have Cromwellian intent. They are doing something clumsy and foolish, but—I mean this seriously—what they are doing will set a precedent. I do not believe it is a route that the Paymaster General would follow, but the people who come after him may be much more like Cromwell than he. [Interruption.] There is laughter from behind the Paymaster General, but I want us to think seriously about what future Parliaments might look like. If the precedent is set that political opponents can be removed by Act of Parliament, someone in the future, even if maybe not tomorrow, in two years or in 10 years, will point back to this—I guarantee it. It does not need to happen this way.

We have a group of people already in the House of Lords and already doing a job. Take Viscount Stansgate, who is an excellent Member of the House of Lords and Deputy Speaker. As I am sure hon. Members know, there are 65 hereditary peers who sit on parliamentary Committees, so this change will be enormously and unnecessarily disruptive to the working of the House. It would be much better to leave them in place and let them do their jobs.

[Paul Holmes]

On that point, I think of peers such as Patrick Courtown, the Opposition Deputy Chief Whip, who has served in the other House since 1975 in a number of ministerial capacities. That is because of where he was born, but there is a risk in seeing Members laugh about rich and privileged hereditary peers. This is not “Downton Abbey” any more, and many of these people have given their life to this Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that should the Government get their way this afternoon, there needs to be an urgent conversation about support for those hereditary peers who may suffer after losing their positions in the other House? The Minister raises his eyebrows, but many peers in that House are not stately home owners but people who have given their life and position to this Parliament, and they will need support going forward.

[Alex Burghart]

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s excellent point, and I hope the Minister will respond to that in his closing remarks.

What we will see is the removal of a group of public servants to make way for Labour placemen and Labour stooges—a huge act of patronage. I do not think anybody here believes that will improve scrutiny. It is just a numbers game. It is simply an attempt to give the Government a more compliant majority in the House of Lords, which they do not need. The Government will be able to get their business through the House of Lords anyway, so this is an unnecessary change that, despite the comments of the Paymaster General, belittles the contribution of the peers who already sit. It belittles their service, and it does not need to be done.

I turn to Lords amendment 2, on pay. I was interested by the Paymaster General’s response and listened closely to the detail he set out. There is an important principle here. We ask people to serve as Ministers of the Crown, and I think most of our constituents would agree that those Ministers should be paid. Members of the House of Lords are on no salary. They can collect their £361 a day if they turn up, but let us assume that one such Member is an unpaid Minister in the Home Office. They will find that on many working days they will be expected to travel—perhaps to Northern Ireland, Scotland or the north of England—and they will not be able to collect their allowance. On top of that, for taking on that important, unpaid job, they will also, for understandable reasons, have to give up their outside interests.

That means simply that many people in the House of Lords can afford to take ministerial jobs only if they are already of considerable means. I just do not think that the Paymaster General, in his heart of hearts, wants to see the perpetuation of that. If he does not agree with the Lords amendment, will he confirm whether the Government intend to bring forward comprehensive plans on that?

I will correct the Paymaster General on one small point of fact. He said that if Ministers in the House of Lords were paid, we would need to reduce the number of Ministers in the House of Lords as only a certain number of Ministers can be paid.

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[Shaun Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. A point that has been made by other Members, including from the Opposition Benches, is that there is nothing stopping the Leader of the Opposition putting forward any hereditary peers for life peerages.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman says that the Leader of the Opposition could give those peerages, but he will be aware that that is organised through the usual channels, in conjunction with the Prime Minister and members of the governing party. We would be a lot more comfortable talking about the replacement of hereditary peers if the Minister had come with any clarity on the conditions that may be set going forward, but we have had none of that. I challenge the Minister to say that hereditary peers can be put in as life peers. We would like some more information on what we are getting.

[Shaun Davies]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. This is about priorities and choices. The Leader of the Opposition will be able to nominate people this year and next year—and maybe the year after, if she is still in place. She can make a decision on whether to put forward a hereditary peer or someone else during that spell.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Fine, let me put it this way: the hon. Gentleman is supporting the position that his peers are taking, which is in breach of that convention.

I will give the hon. Gentleman another chance, because he is trying to put a defence up on that particular precedent. He supported the closing down of Parliament in 2019, and now he sits here lecturing me on precedent. I think it is best not to take any lectures from the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on that.

There was an opportunity for the Opposition this afternoon. They did not have to join in with the filibustering tactics that have been used, with tens of hours of debate on this very narrow Bill. The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster could today have not joined in, but he will lead his troops through the Lobby to continue to try to block these reforms. That is what this is all about. It is not, as he pretended, about trying to improve the Bill. It is not that those on the Tory Front Bench are secretly in favour of radical reform, and this is not radical enough for them. They are trying to wreck this Bill, and that is exactly what he will do as he goes through the Lobby with his troops later.

[Paul Holmes]

The Minister may remember that at the beginning of the debate, I asked him to bear in mind the circumstances of some of the people who have given their life to this place over the last 25 or 30 years and are not in the best financial health. We are not in “Downton Abbey”—the film had its premiere last night. If he makes the decision to get rid of hereditary peers immediately, what support will be put in place by the House authorities, which I know he would want to work with, and the Government to ensure that those people are looked after? May I push him to consider the more practical proposal of waiting until the end of the Session, rather than immediately getting rid of the hereditary peers?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is not my decision; it was the decision of the British people at the last general election in supporting our manifesto. If the Bill gets on to the statute book, hereditary peers will leave at the end of this parliamentary Session. I repeat the point we have heard throughout the debate: there is no barrier to them becoming life peers. Indeed, there is no barrier to them standing to become Members of this House if they wish to continue their public service.

Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to Paul Holmes.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—there I was ready to defend your honour, Sir. Even after your ruling yesterday, the Government made more announcements on the BBC this morning concerning health services, so has the Paymaster General asked his advisers at the Cabinet Office whether they think the Chancellor or any other Minister has broken the ministerial code? If he has not asked for that advice, why not?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Come on. The Conservative party, which showed zero respect for the ministerial code in office, trying to put questions like that is appalling—it is double standards. [Interruption.]

Debate on the Address

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I add our sincere thanks to His Majesty King Charles for his Gracious Speech. Like other party leaders, I wish him well as he continues his recovery, and I join them in sending our happy returns on the birthday of Her Majesty.

As we remember Members who were killed in service and condemn the appalling assassination attempt on President Trump, we should all commit ourselves to a new politics, whereby we disagree with respect, listen to each other and try to bring together the dialogue on politics in our country following the divisions we have seen.

May I join others in paying tribute to the late Tony Lloyd, who championed many campaigns and issues in this House? I had the huge privilege of joining him on an all-party trip to Israel and Gaza, and one of his commitments was to peace in the middle east. He wanted justice for the Palestinians and a two-state solution, and let us all commit ourselves to that again.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) for their accomplished speeches in proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. I know the hon. Member for Bootle comes from a political family— he explained that in some detail—and I believe that his great-uncle Peter, who was once the Labour MP for Preston South, later became a Liberal councillor in Liverpool. So may I say to the hon. Gentleman that if he does follow in his great-uncle’s footsteps, he will not be the first in his family to see the Liberal light? Our door is always open.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green made an impressive mark in her first Parliament, as she campaigned on issues such as knife crime, the NHS and housing. She spoke eloquently on an issue that is close to her heart and mine: care. She spoke movingly about how she cared for her mum when she was just a very young child, and about how she learned at a young age about all the different painkillers needed to treat her mum. As someone who believes that we need to hear the voice of carers in this Chamber far more often, it was a pleasure to listen to her speech today. I am left in no doubt that she will make an even bigger mark in her second Parliament.

While I am paying tribute, let me add our thanks to the Three Lions, who captivated the whole nation and came so agonisingly close to ending all those years of hurt. They did us proud, and let us hope the Lionesses retain their European crown next year.

I welcome the Prime Minister to his place, and congratulate him and his party on their election victory. As he says, they now have an enormous undertaking, and we wish them well. I read somewhere that the Prime Minister apparently surfed to power on a wave of Conservative failure, but may I say to him gently, and with a pang of envy, that watersports are my thing?

The challenges awaiting the new Government are certainly great. Set against the challenging backdrop, there is much to welcome in the programme set out today, not least the Government’s focus on getting our economy growing strongly again. The Prime Minister is right to say that building more homes is an essential part of that, as we can see from the work of many brilliant Liberal Democrat councils, from Cumbria to Eastleigh and, in my own area, the royal borough of Kingston. The best way to build the many extra homes we need, especially social and affordable homes, is to properly engage local people and communities, and bring them along with us. That is the community-led approach that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches will continue to champion.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I am delighted to see that the leader of the Liberal Democrats seems to be openly advocating the work of Eastleigh borough council. May I just remind him that the council is building double the number of houses required only because his party leadership has got it into £800 million-worth of debt and it needs to pay off the debts that it accrued?

[Ed Davey]

I am delighted to say that today we welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis), the new Member for that constituency, to the Liberal Democrat Benches. I am sure she will have all the answers that the hon. Gentleman needs.

But growth and house building are not the only challenges, crucial though they are. I am sure that all of us across the House, as we knocked on doors during the election campaign, heard the same common refrain from people of all backgrounds and all walks of life: that nothing seems to be working as it should, from the health and care crisis to the sewage scandal to the cost of living. The British people have overwhelmingly rejected the past out-of-touch Conservative Government. They have gone, but after so many years of being taken for granted, many people have simply lost faith in our political system to solve their problems.

We on the Liberal Democrat Benches recognise the scale of the challenge now facing the new Government. They have a big job to do, and so do we. We will work hard on behalf of our constituents. We will scrutinise the Government’s plans carefully and strive to improve them, and we will oppose them when we think they have got it wrong, but where they act in the national interest to solve these problems and improve people’s lives, we will support them.

One issue that came up more than any other at door after door—I am sure it was the same for Members of all parties—was the issue of health and care. Patients are waiting weeks to see a GP or an NHS dentist, if they can find one; more than 6 million people are waiting on NHS waiting lists; tens of thousands of cancer patients are waiting months to start urgent treatment; patients are stuck in hospital sometimes for weeks, ready and wanting to leave but unable to do so because the care home place is not there or the care worker or support for the family carer is not in place. Fixing this crisis in our NHS is essential, not only for people’s health and wellbeing but for the economy and for growth. Only if we get people off the waiting lists and into work can we get our economy growing strongly again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of the Royal Mail’s universal service obligation. As the hon. Member will have heard this morning from the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), we remain absolutely committed to ensuring that it remains as it is.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Q3. The Lib Dem-run council in Eastleigh has just received a report from its external auditors warning of the possibility of fraud and ignoring whistleblowers who tried to warn it. Does the Prime Minister agree that Lib Dem leaders who shun accountability, shun transparency and simply say, “Not me, guv,” should start showing some remorse and responsibility, or make way for those who will?

[The Prime Minister]

My—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Not content with being the third-most indebted council in England, with a debt of £670 million, Liberal Democrat Eastleigh Borough Council recently refinanced its failed One Heaton Heath housing project to the tune of £148 million, with no houses built and interest payments of £386,000 per month. Will the Prime Minister now ask the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to intervene and independently investigate the development? May I ask for a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss this terrible decision by Eastleigh Borough Council?

[The Prime Minister]

I am aware that some local authorities, including the one my hon. Friend mentions, have taken excessive risks with borrowing and investment practices. That is why we have taken a range of measures to strengthen the regulatory framework to prevent that from happening. They include new powers that make it quicker and easier for the Government to step in when councils take on excessive risk through borrowing. I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to raise his concerns, because his constituents deserve better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I do not want anybody in the LGBT community to feel fear—I have had that experience myself and I would not wish it on anyone. That is why we are making sure that the Bill is a good Bill that delivers good law to ensure that we outlaw those abhorrent practices. I recognise that the delay has caused some issues for the community, but I assure them that we are on their side.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Through my personal dealings with the Minister, I know how much he is committed to making sure that this legislation comes forward. Can he reassure me that, despite what some have said, the Bill is not about stopping parents from having meaningful conversations with their children who may be questioning their sexuality?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. That is why we need to consider the evidence carefully; those conversations that parents have with their children are really important. I will never forget the conversations I had with my mum and dad, who helped me when I was coming out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Taking advantage of our freedoms is going to drive growth, jobs and prosperity in the UK, whether in life sciences, in reducing the burdens on data for those SMEs or in the financial services industry in Scotland. That is how we are going to create prosperity across this nation and that is why we are going to get on and deregulate post Brexit.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and the Chancellor have rightly pointed out that levelling up is for the whole of the United Kingdom. As a Southampton man, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will know that, since the 1970s, Eastleigh has been promised a much-needed Chickenhall Lane bypass. Will he agree to meet me and Hampshire County Council to finally get the project moving?

CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now bring in Paul Holmes.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was great exercise bobbing, I can tell you.

The Prime Minister should be congratulated on his international leadership on Ukraine, which is shown by how much people in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Government applaud him for his leadership at NATO. We are now entering a phase where the Ukrainians really need to start to be able to push the Russian lines back. What conversations has he had in NATO about providing heavier land-based equipment to the Ukrainians?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right; that is where the focus now is. The Ukrainians are heroic. They have shown they can push the Russians back. They pushed them from Kyiv. They pushed them back from Kharkiv. What they need is the right multiple launch rocket systems to do it, because the Russians are very good at standing off and using heavy artillery to shell and intimidate. The MLRS are absolutely critical to the Ukrainian fightback. That is what we are giving them now, together with several other allies. What they also need is the training to make sure that those very sophisticated weapons are used to the best possible effect, and we are giving them that training as well.