Standards in Public Life

Polly Billington Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

On the first question, I agree that we need to ensure that we have a standards system, both in this place and the other place, that meets the challenges we are talking about. That is not a party political issue. I merely referred to the performance of the last Government given the chuntering from those on the Opposition Benches when I talked about the reforms that we are bringing forward to ensure justice for victims and appropriate powers to tackle corruption in the future.

On the second question, I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman writes to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s office will engage with him and his Committee on the invitation.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I think it is worth reminding my right hon. Friend that one of the things that people keep going back to is that a decision was made that this appointment was “worth the risk”, and we finally found out that some people decided that the rules did not apply to them. Considering how important tackling violence against women and girls is to this Government and this Prime Minister, would my right hon. Friend agree to meet women Back Benchers in particular to discuss the possibility of exploring further how we tackle misogyny in public life?

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased to hear the news about the dental school in the hon. Member’s constituency. We have put in further funding for dentistry. We were left with dental deserts across many parts of the country, but we are fixing that problem.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

As the Prime Minister has pointed out, today is World Cancer Day. As outlined in our cancer plan, early detection and diagnosis is vital. Will the Prime Minister agree to consider the campaign by my constituent Gemma Reeves, who is a nurse at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital, to ensure that breast cancer screening is available for all women over the age of 40, and will he meet her to discuss how such a change would save lives?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely support that, and I will make sure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss it. Early diagnosis is so important for all cancers, and we must do everything we can to ensure that early diagnosis is the norm by default.

Lord Mandelson

Polly Billington Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Let me first take a moment for us to remember those women and girls who were silenced, marginalised, degraded, objectified and discarded—collateral damage in the pursuit of pleasure for a network of men who thought that the rules did not apply to them. The correspondence between these men from across the political spectrum, from Steve Bannon to Noam Chomsky, is soaked in misogyny, and it is the misogyny that we women do not actually hear on a day-to-day basis. I am talking about the casual, relentless women hatred shared between men.

We know well the misogyny directed directly at us. There are many of us here in this House who work hard to expose that misogyny as we are witness to it, but the misogyny hidden from us needs exposing. That is why the transparency to which the Government say they are committed is so important. If we say we believe in tackling power imbalances and in ensuring that the law works for everyone, we cannot stay silent, and the hatred and the offences must be seen so that they can be tackled.

One man in particular is apparently guilty by association rather than actually involved in those particular acts, and he is the one who is the focus of the debate today, but it is also true that what has been revealed from these documents is that there appears to have been, over a number of years, horrendous breaches of trust and potential criminal activity amounting to misconduct in public office. I would like this Government, this House and our political class to take this moment to acknowledge that, while this is an extreme and egregious example of an individual believing that the rules do not apply to them, such behaviour cannot continue without the consent—active or passive—of others, and that this is the moment that we will agree that passive or active consent to allow such behaviour in public life will end.

[Stephen Gethins]

I have raised the point about the Prime Minister, but there is a broader point here. Lord Mandelson was appointed to the Lords. For 115 years, Labour has been promising to get rid of the Lords. The Conservatives and other parties have appointed people to the Lords who we should be getting rid of. Please—is now not the time to take the opportunity to scrap the Lords?

[Ms Billington]

I accept that there are wider constitutional implications for what we are talking about right now, and I will turn to some of those later. We also know, however, that there is a long track record across politics, not just across the political spectrum but across decades, where people’s talent—predominantly men’s talent—has been seen as a justification for appointment, regardless of their behaviour or their character, and we do need to consider behaviour and character.

[Dr Mullan]

I think that, by refusing to believe the victims over Jeffrey Epstein, Mandelson is an example of misogyny, and I think the Prime Minister, by deciding to appoint someone who remained friends with Epstein, is an example of passive consent. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Ms Billington]

I will continue to explain in my remarks why I think this is a moment where we need to draw a line under that passive and active consent that we have seen for far too long across all political spectrums and across the decades, where people have turned a blind eye to bad behaviour.

We need to know, and to apply our judgment to, whether somebody is suitable for public life not just because of their talent, but because of their probity. We have many systems in this place, in our Government and in our wider political environment that are supposed to protect the public and our institutions from people who do not have the appropriate probity for public life.

My concern and the concern of many of my constituents, of people across the country and of my colleagues in this House is that, in some ways, individual people’s apparent talent for politics is seen as something that justifies turning a blind eye to their character, their associations and their judgment. I know and understand the importance of acting to ensure that national security is not put at risk. I only wish that we could all be so sure that the former ambassador to the United States had similar concerns.

I am less convinced by the language of “international relations” in the Government’s amendment. I seek clarity from the Minister for the justification for such a broad term, especially when, by the very virtue of the nature of the relationships that should be under scrutiny via the transparency to which the Government say they are committed, the relationship between our country and others may well have been exposed to risk. Will the Minister explain how the Government will distinguish between material that is prejudicial to national security and international relations, and that which is not?

There are deeply concerning reports in the media that the Government amendment is a convenient catch-all to prevent material from being published. For that reason, I seek assurances from the Minister that the Government have a plan to facilitate maximum transparency by handing over relevant sensitive documents and communications to the relevant Select Committees. The Paymaster General said that there should be scrutiny by the ISC of the Cabinet Secretary’s approach. However, that is not the same as the Committee being given the material and having full oversight of it.

I am sympathetic to the expressions of concern by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop). People voted Labour for change. People are convinced that we are all the same. This is a moment when probity in public life is on the line. The Government can go one of two ways: we can have a culture of certain people being “worth the risk”, or decide to draw a line under that, and agree that there will no longer be situations in which individuals, because of connections or talent, are exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ward]

I am going to make some progress, because time is pushing on. I will give way in a second.

Let me come to the manuscript amendment. We will agree with the ISC how it is going to work with us and provide scrutiny, and I welcome the commitment made earlier. As the Paymaster General set out, the process for deciding what falls in scope will be led by the Cabinet Secretary and supported by Cabinet Office lawyers working with the ISC. The Cabinet Secretary will take independent advice on the decision he has taken, and it will take two forms—first, through independent KCs, and secondly, through scrutiny of the approach he is taking, working hand in hand with the ISC. The Cabinet Secretary will write to the ISC to set out that process. He will meet members of the Committee regularly to ensure that they are content with it. In line with the manuscript amendment, papers that are determined to be prejudicial to national security or international relations will be referred to the ISC, which is independent, rigorous and highly respected. The ISC will then decide what to do with the material that it is sent.

[Ms Billington]

Just for further clarity, people are concerned that there will be a decision made by the Government, in the form of the Cabinet Secretary, about what is referred to the ISC. We are keen to know that the bulk of the documents will be in the hands of the ISC, which can make the decision about what needs to be kept private and what should be made public. Can the Minister clarify that the ISC will have control over what needs to be kept private and what can be made public?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I am sure that the whole House has sympathy for the case that the hon. Gentleman has outlined. I understand that the inquest is ongoing, but to answer the substantive point of his question, children’s and adult social care have historically not always been what victims felt they could rely on, with many cases to demonstrate that over the years. Without doubt—as I sit next to the Secretary of State for Education—the work with my office, with the Ministry of Justice and with her office to ensure that that is handled in the violence against women and girls strategy, and more broadly, is at the top of the agenda for all of us.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend use this opportunity to remind the House how many women and girls are vulnerable to people they know, as distinct from people they do not know? Will she also use this opportunity to condemn elected politicians who peddle misinformation about who is most at risk and where the targets really are?

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have in front of me the exact data that my hon. Friend has requested—I am not entirely sure that exact data exists—but what I can say, based on decades of experience, is that women and girls in our country are far more at risk from people who know our names, and whose names we know, and who we work among and live alongside. The idea of “stranger danger” is one that most women do not recognise; the people they fear are people they know.

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have just dealt with that question, Mr Speaker. The money announced yesterday is going to our capability in order to put ourselves in a position to defend the security of both our country and Europe. The Leader of the Opposition asked about defence spending. She gave what people have described as a rambling speech yesterday, where she could not say what defence spending should be. We have been absolutely clear. We have set out a full, credible, costed plan, and I thought she supported it.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Q5. The Prime Minister will be aware that in coastal communities such as mine in East Thanet, people develop cancer earlier, get treated and diagnosed later and die younger. Can he give the House an update on the Government’s plans to implement the recommendations by the chief medical officer, Chris Witty, for tackling poor health in our seaside towns?

Oral Answers to Questions

Polly Billington Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Georgia Gould]

I am surprised to hear a Member on the Conservative Benches express concern about money that is desperately needed going into our NHS, when people are waiting for GP appointments and in ambulances. Under the Conservative party, police officers would spend hours sitting with people with mental health concerns. Is that productivity? The Secretary of State has set out an incredibly ambitious reform agenda for the NHS, moving resources into prevention and taking account of the amazing opportunities in digital technology to give people more control over their own health. Labour is the party that backs the NHS and fixes the mess left by the previous Government.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

18. What recent progress his Department has made on reform of the House of Lords.

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

The Government have brought forward the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill as an immediate first step in reform. That will remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The Bill passed this House unamended and will have its Second Reading in the other place next week.

In addition, I am proud to announce today that I have laid a written ministerial statement that will ensure that political parties nominating people for peerages in the other place will now have to publish, alongside the nomination, a 150 word summary as to why they are putting that person forward. That is another reform that this Government are proud to announce as part of our wider agenda.

[Ms Billington]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response, particularly the fact that it will increase transparency for the other place. Does he agree that we have a mandate for reform, and while respecting the individuals, we are absolutely determined as a Government to progress the abolition of the hereditary principle in lawmaking?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It just should not be the case, in a modern legislature, that there are places reserved for people by accident of birth. The Bill has now passed this House unamended. As I have indicated, it will now go before the other place for Second Reading next week. We want to get that Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat McFadden]

As I said to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) a few moments ago, all Secretaries of State give their declaration to the propriety and ethics team upon appointment. The matter was concluded last Friday with the Transport Secretary’s resignation. She has been replaced by a new Secretary of State, and she set out her reasons for resigning in her resignation letter. If the right hon. Member has not had a copy, I am quite happy to make it available to him.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to a duty of candour for public bodies. In the light of the appalling crimes of John Smyth, who left over 100 children assaulted and traumatised while senior members of the Church of England looked the other way, what steps is the Minister considering in conjunction with the Church so that bishops, dioceses, cathedrals and national church institutions are designated as public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

In relation to my hon. Friend’s second point, it is right that the Church of England looks very carefully now at its procedures in the light of what has happened and been brought forward. In relation to the duty of candour, I have no idea why the Opposition Front Benchers were laughing about that. It is a hugely important reform that we are bringing forward, and it will make a significant difference across public service. We will have public servants putting the public interest above their own personal reputations and above the reputation of institutions. I hope the Opposition Front Benchers will come to support and help with the leadership required for that step change—that culture change—across public service.

Black History Month

Polly Billington Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) on her speech. She shared an important story about Peter McLagan, and I will enjoy supporting her campaign. I want to refer back to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee); he will enjoy reading his admission in Hansard that I look 15 years younger.

Black History Month has its roots in this country, in a powerful vision of education and empowerment. In 1987, Akyaaba Addai-Sebo and Ansel Wong, staff at the Greater London Council—a Ghanaian and a Trinidadian respectively—recognised a pressing need: black British children were facing an identity crisis, were reluctant to identify with their African heritage, and shrank back when called African. This realisation sparked a movement to create time and space to challenge racism and, importantly, to recognise, educate, and reflect on the invaluable contributions of black Britons to our nation’s history and culture. The history of Britain is incomplete without acknowledging the profound contributions of ethnic minority communities.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me on the importance of that changing narrative, and the importance of the organisations in our communities that change it? In mine we have People Dem Collective, Everyday Racism and Margate Black Pride, which are putting the stories of black people in our constituencies on the map. They tell me that in the modern curriculum review, we need to make sure that black history is not just about black people; it is everyone’s history, and it should be part of the curriculum.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I remind the hon. Lady that interventions need to be short. She will have an opportunity to make a speech in due course.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Polly Billington Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I begin by declaring an interest as my wife, the noble Baroness Evans of Bowes Park—although she does not always make me call her that—is a Member of the other place. She was also Leader of the House of Lords for more than six years, so I have perhaps had more dealings with Members of the other place, including hereditaries, than most. As a result, I have a view about how our two Houses operate effectively in practice, rather than the somewhat theoretical perspective we have heard from some of the newer Members of this House.

The House of Lords is an important revising Chamber, without the guillotines and time limits that are so common in our House, while recognising and respecting the ultimate supremacy of this House. In doing so, it can draw on the considerable knowledge and expertise of former defence chiefs, diplomats, scientists, engineers, businesspeople and, yes, those from whom this Bill seeks to remove the right to sit as peers.

The fundamental point, reflected in a number of contributions from Conservative Members and in the reasoned amendment, is that this Bill has been brought forward in isolation from wider reforms. It ignores the convention that constitutional changes are based on consensus, where possible, and it fails to provide time for a cross-party approach on wider reform. It is best described as piecemeal and, as such, conflicts with the commitments given in 1999, at the time of the House of Lords Act, that the hereditaries would remain until wider reforms came forward.

Well, there are no wider reforms in this Bill. Even the proposed retirement age of 80 has been quietly dropped. Perhaps Ministers have realised the challenge of interfering with letters patent issued by the sovereign, or perhaps their timidity reflects the lack of consensus on the Government Benches about wider reforms, as we saw in response to Gordon Brown’s proposals.

Such reforms would have to consider the issues of giving greater power to the House of Lords and the impact this would have on the primacy of the Commons. They would have to consider the potential for legislative gridlock, the desirability of creating more professional politicians and, as many have mentioned, the rationale for retaining guaranteed places for bishops in the upper Chamber. Those are just some of the questions that comprehensive reform would need to address, and they require considerable cross-party consideration and analysis.

No one would create the Lords today, but the system works. This rushed legislation, which rather suggests a Government lacking a substantive legislative programme, will remove considerable experience. It reveals a lack of knowledge of the contribution made by Members of the House of Lords, such as my noble Friend Earl Howe, with whom I worked closely when he was a Defence Minister. He has served continuously on the Conservative Front Bench for 33 years, including 20 years as a Minister.

It ignores the role of the usual channels—the Whips and the business managers—in seeking to manage legislation at both ends. The Earl of Courtown, who will be known to many for his eight years of distinguished service as a Government Deputy Chief Whip, now continues that role in opposition. He and Lord Ashton of Hyde navigated the choppy waters of Brexit and covid in a House in which there is no Conservative majority.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Polly Billington Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

On the first point, the Government are saying that people can have both a continuation of the support schemes and the lump-sum compensation as well. Awards are made under five heads of loss: injury, social impact, autonomy, care and financial loss. The continuation of the support schemes is taken into account for only two of those: the future care element and the future earnings element. The other elements stand alone. That is one of the big changes the Government have made to allow these support schemes to continue.

On the health impact supplementary route, the regulations have set up the core route. That health impact special route has been set up because there will be circumstances in which the health impact and condition is not quite captured by the core tariffs under the scheme. This route has been put in place to make the package more individualised. Again, I undertake to the House that action will be taken as swiftly as possible.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will appreciate that injustice is often compounded by a brutal, faceless and unnecessarily complicated bureaucracy; ostensibly established to right the wrongs, it quite often fails to do that. That is certainly what I have heard from my constituents affected by this scandal. What support in getting compensation will be available to victims of this huge injustice, and will the Infected Blood Compensation Authority have dedicated caseworkers to help people navigate the process?