Digital ID

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)]

This is a watershed moment for our country, and not a good one. The argument for digital ID is that it will help tackle illegal working, but sadly the evidence does not stack up. Across Europe, nations with long-standing ID card systems—Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Greece—have not seen reductions in irregular migration as a result of ID cards. In fact, some have larger shadow economies than our own. Estonia, the poster child for digital ID, actually has a bigger underground economy than Britain. Assuming that this new system will somehow suddenly make rogue employers obey the law, when they have ignored the paper checks for some time, is for the birds.

That argument aside, the real fear here is that we will be building an infrastructure that can follow us, link our most sensitive information and expand state control over all our lives. The Minister must understand why people are concerned. This policy does not arrive in a vacuum. It sits alongside a worrying pattern: the accelerated roll-out of facial recognition, attempts to weaken end-to-end encryption, and data laws that strip away privacy protections.

We must remember that Britain has no constitutional right to privacy. Parliament can, in a single vote, grant or remove protections that people in other democracies take for granted. When we think of building a nationwide ID system capable of linking health records, education data, housing history and even information about crimes that people have suffered, we should stop, because once that architecture exists, any future Government could misuse it, and we would have very little power to stop them.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

My constituents in Stratford-on-Avon are deeply concerned as well. Does the hon. Member agree that if millions of people need to rely on a Government-built identity tool to access work and services, the risks of data and privacy breaches and of errors will be considerable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I completely agree. We have seen the consequences of reckless data sharing already. All too often, migrant victims of domestic abuse, rape and trafficking have been frightened to report crimes because police forces routinely pass on their information to immigration officers. The harm is real: the offenders go unpunished and communities are less safe.

Even if we set aside the civil liberties concerns, there is a basic practical problem here: UK Governments, of all stripes, do not have a good track record of keeping our data safe. The number of serious cyber incidents is rising year on year. Critical institutions from the British Library to the Legal Aid Agency to the One Login platform have already been criticised for major security flaws.

[Sarah Edwards]

My constituents have also raised concerns, particularly around cyber-security. One of my constituents was told by the DWP that they were defrauding the child benefit system when they were not, because they had had data stolen. I am concerned that our Government systems need to be far better, so that if such a thing happened, someone could demonstrate that they were the genuine holder of that data.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend is spot on, and we all have constituency stories that replicate her experience.

Finally, there is the question of exclusion. As we have heard, millions of people in Britain do not have reliable digital access, and millions more do not have the basic digital skills required to navigate systems like this. Introducing mandatory digital ID risks shutting people out of work, housing, healthcare and public services, so I urge the Minister: for the sake of our rights, our safety and our democracy, drop this plan.

G20 and COP29 Summits

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the previous Government made lots of promises about lots of things—the only unifying factor is that they met none of those promises at all. We heightened the ambition for the agreement and made it clear that the negotiations would restart early in the next year. Of course there are checks and balances, and discussions to be had on that, but I am pleased that we have raised that ambition. That engagement was constructive and in the best interests of our country.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Ind)]

May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments about the late Lord John Prescott? He was a giant of this place and of the labour movement. My condolences go to his family and loved ones.

The Prime Minister may know that, as the G20 communiqué once again recommitted to advancing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, a groundbreaking and upsetting BBC documentary aired showing the harrowing experiences of British nuclear test veterans and uncovering vital new information. I know that he has long supported those men and their families, so will he agree to meet them, me, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) to discuss the Government’s next steps on securing long-awaited truth and recognition?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank and pay tribute to her for her personal work on that issue, on which she has been pressing for a number of years, with considerable success. As she knows, I have met the veterans myself, and members of the Government will be happy to do so in future. It is a really important issue. She has been pressing on it for a number of years, and I pay tribute to her again for that.

Debate on the Address

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), after his eloquent and passionate maiden speech. A huge welcome to all new Members; it is the greatest privilege in the world to be here and to be the voice of the place that you love —never take that for granted.

We on the Labour Benches are under no illusions as to the scale of task ahead of us in government. Fourteen years of successive Conservative Governments have ravaged our public services, stifled investment, created gross levels of inequality, and entrenched widespread job and housing insecurity, so the Gracious Speech offered welcome national renewal. Legislation promising to hand power back to local leaders, support for local growth plans, and greater protections for renters were welcome and long overdue. The new deal for working people was also a pivotal step in ensuring that the fruits of our economic growth are shared by everyone, not just a select few.

On child poverty, the Government have pledged to roll out breakfast clubs and to develop a strategy to reduce child poverty, which is very welcome, but such extensive plans will take some considerable time to pass through into legislation. In the meantime, there are immediate measures that the Government must take now to alleviate the financial strain faced by so many in my constituency. Indeed, on the issue of child poverty alone, we are in a state of what can only be described as national crisis. Research by Loughborough University on behalf of the End Child Poverty coalition reported that a staggering 333,000 children in Greater Manchester and Lancashire alone are now living in poverty. That is an increase of over 31,000 compared with the previous year. The hope that these families place on the new Labour Government is immense, so my first urgent request of our new Labour Government is to lift these children out of poverty immediately by scrapping the two-child limit in universal credit.

My second urgent request of the Government is to settle the debt of honour we owe to women born in the 1950s who suffered pension injustice. The issue now is not whether the women faced injustice; the ombudsman’s report earlier this year made it clear that they did, that the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration, that the women are entitled to urgent compensation from the Government, and that Parliament must urgently identify a mechanism for providing that appropriate remedy. They need fair, fast, simple redress and an apology from the DWP. There is no excuse for delay. The report was laid before Parliament in March, and at least one woman will die waiting for justice every 13 minutes. They deserve nothing less than justice, so I hope that the Government urgently identify a mechanism for appropriate remedy now.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I would not normally intervene having just entered the House, but knowing that my friend, the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), was speaking, I felt I ought to come and hear her, and particularly to support the remark she has just made about those women so badly affected in the way that she has described. It is critical, as she said, that this matter is addressed speedily—and, actually, that means simplifying the system. That will not please everyone, by the way; some people want a detailed analysis, but that is unfortunately likely to lead to obfuscation. It is very important, as she describes, to have a simple mechanism which delivers justice to these women speedily.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I agree wholeheartedly. The work that the right hon. Member and I carried out throughout the last Parliament is an example of how we can work co-operatively with Members of opposite parties and find those issues on which we can serve our constituents well. He joins us at an opportune moment, as I am about to talk about an issue that is close to his heart.

My final urgent request of the Government is one of moral duty: to recognise, support and compensate our nuclear testing veterans and their families. These are the men who put their lives at risk in dangerous atomic weapons tests to ensure our long-term security. For decades, campaigners, Labrats, veterans and their families, and the indefatigable Susie Boniface have been fighting for recognition for these heroes. They have highlighted scientific studies that show increased rates of miscarriage, increased birth defects, and the same rate of genetic damage as clean-up workers at Chernobyl.

Of course, the campaigners take pride in the fact that the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister met them when Labour was in opposition, and supported their campaign to receive the long overdue recognition they deserve. But despite winning the campaign for medallic recognition, the UK sadly still remains the only nuclear power that refuses them adequate compensation, research and support, unlike the US, France, Canada and Australia. Medal criteria are very limited, there has not been a formal recognition event and even access to war pensions has been impeded.

Veterans, and sometimes their wives, widows and descendants, have reported making repeated requests to gain access to their blood or urine testing records from samples the veterans recall being taken during the nuclear testing programmes. Sadly, many confirm that their service medical records frequently do not include the test results, and they just do not understand why. The data is vital for their war pension applications and for understanding the conditions they suffer, but sadly the absence of such records means that many veterans’ war pension applications are refused.

I want to place on record my thanks to hon. Members right across the House who have continued to support these veterans, particularly the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who has worked closely with me and campaigners in recent years. This week, we have both written to the Defence Secretary and the Minister for Veterans and People, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), requesting that they urgently meet us, veterans and campaigners, and work with us to deal with their concerns. We hope that is made an urgent priority, because ultimately the Government can and should deliver justice for these families, and now is the right time to do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Last and not least from the Opposition Benches, I call Jim Shannon.