Security Vetting

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that the view of anyone about Peter Mandelson provides an explanation for not providing me with the information that the recommendation was not to grant him security clearance. We are talking about a very serious issue on a very sensitive case. I clearly should have been given that information whatever the pressures, which are always there in government every day.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

The Prime Minister’s aides have briefed that “angry Starmer” is “furious”, but why is it that he only ever seems to get angry when trying to save his own skin? Is he not angry about the 600 men who crossed the English channel on small boats on Saturday? Is he not angry about the people who are queuing for fuel at the forecourts and cannot afford the Chancellor’s taxes? Is not the truth that his Government are now so paralysed that their only agenda is cleaning up the mess left by the paedophile pal Peter Mandelson?

[The Prime Minister]

I think any Minister, of any Government, who had not been provided with this relevant information would rightly be frustrated and angry.

US Department of Justice Release of Files

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

Appointing Peter Mandelson to our premier ambassadorship was always a grotesque error of judgment by the Prime Minister, given everything we knew about this man. Now we are told that this man leaked confidential information to a convicted sex offender when he was a Cabinet Minister and took tens of thousands of pounds in secret backhanders. It is a total disgrace.

Has the Minister really come to the House to say that he does not intend to bring forward primary legislation to deal with this now but will write to the House of Lords to seek support for modernising its procedures in a few months’ time, and that he will not go proactively to the police to demand an investigation when Peter Mandelson has clearly broken the law and now stands accused of serious misconduct in public office and should be tried for his offences?

[Darren Jones]

As I have said repeatedly, the Government will, of course, co-operate with any investigation and encourage everybody to do so. We stand ready to introduce legislation at pace, if required, and to work with the House of Lords to update its procedures. We agree that that needs to happen, and that it needs to happen quickly.

I gently say that when the right hon. Member was a member of the Conservative party at the point Peter Mandelson was first appointed to the ambassadorship to the United States, the official Opposition did not object in any way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of this Labour Government delivering the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation. We are ending exploitative zero-hours contracts and unscrupulous fire and rehire practices, plus we have changes to parental leave and sick pay. Workers will benefit from those rights in April, and they should never forget that Reform and the Tories opposed every single one of them.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

One of the last meetings that I took as shadow Justice Secretary was with the parents of Lenny Scott. Lenny Scott was an exceptionally brave prison officer who uncovered corruption in his prison. He left the service, and years later he was hunted down and brutally murdered. Because he died after leaving active service, there was never any compensation paid to the children he left behind. I know that the Prime Minister would want to right that wrong. I wrote to the Justice Secretary privately after I discovered this—I should say that Lenny Scott’s parents never asked for any support. Will the Prime Minister correct this, ensure that this brave man’s children have the support that they need as they grow up without the father they deserve, and join me in thanking all the brave men and women who serve us in our Prison Service?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this matter. I will make sure that it is looked into as a matter of urgency, given the circumstances that he has set out.

Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I addressed that in my statement: we need to get more humanitarian aid in; it is desperately needed, and has been needed for a very long time. That is why we continue to press for that aid to go in, and for the protection to go in for those who will be delivering it once the aid gets into Gaza, as is desperately needed.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Since the barbaric attack on 7 October, we have seen an explosion in antisemitism and extremism on the streets of our own country. Only on Saturday, we saw people flagrantly valorising Hezbollah in London. We must root out those who despise our country and our values. What will the Prime Minister do to revoke the visas, where appropriate, of those in the UK who are conducting themselves in this manner, to encourage the police to enforce our existing laws without fear or favour, and to further ban and proscribe organisations such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which do not support the UK, our values, and the way we wish to conduct ourselves in the world?

[The Prime Minister]

We are proud of the democratic right to protest in this country, but supporting a proscribed terrorist group is unacceptable, and we need to be very clear about that and give the police our full support in taking the action they need to take in relation to that, wherever it is in the United Kingdom.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today. The Grenfell fire was an unimaginable tragedy but, as he rightly said, it was also a comprehensive failure by the British state, and in many respects that comprehensive failure persists today. I am grateful for the words that he said about giving all resource and support to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, because clearly the victims, the survivors and the community of North Kensington want the insights and the answers that they have partly had today, but they also want justice, and that needs to be delivered as soon as possible.

Equally, I fully support the effort that the Prime Minister is going to make to see if further regulatory changes are required. They need to be made in a proportionate and effective way, and there are lessons to be learned from changes that we have made in the recent past. But when making those changes, can I urge him to look in particular at the status of the testing facility—the Building Research Establishment—and at the way it operates, which I think has failed significantly, as is laid out in the report?

Finally, I concur with the broader point that the Prime Minister made today, which is that when one speaks to the victims and their families, one is left with a very strong sense that many people in social housing in our country feel that they are second-class citizens and that they are being treated with disrespect. That must end. Will he take forward the work that began with the social housing White Paper to ensure that that never happens again?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, all support will be given to the police and the CPS, and I absolutely agree that this must be done as swiftly as possible. I think the police made a statement in relation to that earlier today. I will look at the particular point the right hon. Gentleman raises in relation to testing. I think the whole House needs to come together to recognise that in social housing there has been a profound disrespect for a very long time across a number of communities, and we have to turn a corner on that.

Debate on the Address

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) on her maiden speech? It is clearly a real achievement to be the first to make a maiden speech in this Parliament, and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will join me in congratulating her and wishing her well in the years ahead here in Parliament.

I welcome all new Members to this House, not least because some of them make me look older, which I have been looking forward to for some time. I remember when I was first sworn into the House. I entered at a by-election and so swore in on my own, in a class of one. There was a real heckle on that occasion from the beast of Bolsover. He asked if I was here on work experience and everyone laughed. I have a few more grey hairs now, 10 years on, and have just been through a difficult general election in north Nottinghamshire. I want to begin by saying a special thank you to my constituents for doing me the great honour and privilege of re-electing me, all the more so on what was clearly a difficult night for my party. During this Parliament, I will represent my constituents with all of my vim and vigour.

Having served as a Minister under each of the last five Prime Ministers, I know what a special privilege it is to serve as a Minister, so I wish our successors in office all best wishes and good luck in the years ahead. As patriots, we all know that this Government’s success is our success, and we want them to tackle the great challenges facing our country. I want them to enjoy their time in ministerial office as much as I did.

The general election made a number of things clear to me. I am deeply proud of many of our Government’s achievements, which I will fiercely defend in the months and years ahead. We took a bankrupt country and righted our public services and public finances. We ensured a decade of good employment after inheriting high unemployment, particularly among young people. We led Europe in the defence of Ukraine. We reformed our education system, and we now outstrip countries all over the world in the literacy and numeracy of our children. We were one of the world’s greatest countries in tackling environmental challenges, decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. For those and other reasons, I will always defend the record of the last Conservative Government, but I will come on to some of the lessons I have learned from their failings.

[Neil Coyle]

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that voters were ungrateful on 4 July?

[Robert Jenrick]

I cannot quite hear the hon. Gentleman. If he is asking whether the electorate were wrong, the answer is no. No politician should ever doubt the electorate, but it is right that we defend the things we did well in government so that there is a proper diagnosis of what we got right and what we got wrong.

I think we did get some things wrong. We promised to get Brexit done when we stood in 2019, and we did. We got Brexit done and restored our sovereignty as a nation, which is a great and lasting achievement, but we also promised that we would secure our borders and that we would ensure a strong economy, lower taxes and a strong NHS and public services, which the public rightly expect. On those counts, we did not deliver the public services, the lower taxes, the economic growth and the migration system that we promised and the public rightly expect.

The baton now passes to this Labour Government. Where they succeed, I will welcome and support them; and where they fall short, I will challenge them. We want to ensure that the great issues facing our country are properly addressed. We live in one of the greatest times to be alive, but it is a time of immense change. There is a power shift from west to east, and new technology, like artificial intelligence, is upending old industries. It is an age of mass migration, which is challenging the pace of change in our country, creating huge pressures on housing, public services and integration, and making it harder to build the united country that we all want to see.

I worry that this King’s Speech falls short on some of those great challenges. There are undoubtedly Bills that I welcome, and I am delighted that the new Government are taking forward the Bill for a Holocaust memorial, a project in which I have been involved for many years. Some of the Bills are radical, such as the changes to our energy policy, and I worry that they are radical for all the wrong reasons. Despite having decarbonised faster than other countries, and despite being responsible for only 1% of global emissions, we now find ourselves with a Government pursuing, for ideological reasons, a net zero policy that will make it harder for our own consumers to afford their bills. The policy will further erode our industrial base and leave us in hock to Chinese technology. We are trading dependence on Russian hydrocarbons for dependence on Chinese electric vehicles, smart meters and solar panels that will despoil our countryside. New quangos, such as Great British Energy, will spring up, serving no apparent purpose and taking inspiration from predecessors such as Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham, in my part of the world. That failed project wasted £50 million of taxpayers’ money.

I worry that 200,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector have been put in danger in the first few days of this Government, at a time when they are rightly saying that they want to fuel our economy, create jobs and change the dynamics that the country has seen since the 2008 financial crash and after 20 or 30 years of low productivity growth and unsatisfactory economic growth. We should all be working to find ways to do that and to make that possible.

I worry about the message we are hearing on the economy. We want economic growth, but economic growth is founded on harnessing the entrepreneurship of our people. It is about creating a start-up country and helping small business people to found businesses around their kitchen tables, like my parents did. It is not a statist vision of this country. It is not about using new quangos or a national wealth fund, which is an oxymoron because it is going to borrow the money it seeks to invest. It is not about changing our employment laws, which will make us less competitive and drive the kind of higher structural levels of unemployment we see in Europe that we have mercifully avoided over the last 10 years.

And I worry about immigration, because we live in an age of mass migration. I have been honest—painfully honest—about the failings of the last Government on this topic, but I worry that the same or worse mistakes are about to be made again. What we are seeing in the channel is a national security emergency. We are seeing tens of thousands of people about whom we know next to nothing crossing into our country, breaking into our country, in flagrant abuse of our laws. Some of them are subjects of interest being followed by our security services. This has to stop. Scrapping the only known credible deterrent, with nothing else to put in its place, is going to surrender to the people smuggling gangs. That is wrong, it is a mistake and I worry that we are going to rue the day that we did that.

I also hope that the Government will take legal migration seriously. We have to accept that the public in most parts of our country have been voting for 20 or 30 years, in elections and referendums, for Governments that promise to control and reduce the level of legal migration, only for Governments of all political colours to do precisely the opposite. That is immensely corrosive to public trust and confidence in politics and in democracy. As one of our colleagues said earlier, about the rise of far-right parties around the world, if we centrist parties on the left and the right do nothing about this, we will see the rise of far-right parties in this country. That would be a great mistake.

I hope the reforms I started, to reduce the number of people coming into this country legally, are taken forward, and that we further reduce those numbers. We could have used the King’s Speech today to implement a legal cap on net migration, embedded by Parliament in law. We have not done that, which will mean further pressure on housing, public services and the pace of change.

Let me close with this: the Prime Minister has said he wants this to be a new era, in which politics is defined by service. I think we will all agree on that point—it should be—but the question is who do we serve. I do not think we come to this place to serve the interests of new quangos, commissions and reviews, the legal fraternity in contested notions of international law, or the new and worrying rise in sectarian politics, represented in this House for the first time in my lifetime, which again should worry us. We are sent here to serve the interests of our constituents. I choose them; I choose to ensure the working people of Newark and Nottinghamshire are always represented. They sent me here with a few clear messages: secure our border; reduce immigration; lower our taxes; stop the crime; build homes; build a more united country, cohesive and integrated, not riddled by the poison of left-wing identity politics. That is what I am here to fight. Where this Government do that and live up to that test, I will support them. Where they do not, I will fiercely challenge them.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I am grateful as a Front Bencher for being permitted to speak from the Back Benches—though in my case it might be hard to keep up. I am aware that my appointment was, along with those of others, one of the last acts of Her late Majesty. That thought will lie with me every day that I go about my duties, because she really was the last of a generation that has now passed—a generation marked by stoicism, humility, modesty and service. Those qualities, too often neglected in our politics and our public life, are ones that I, like all others in this House, seek to emulate.

I am here to represent my constituents in the loyal borough of Newark-on-Trent—loyal because in May 1646, we were the last town to hold out in the English civil war. The town surrendered only when the King—a forebear of Her Majesty’s, and another Charles—said that we must. At the end of the war, the town was racked with disease and pestilence, but all contemporary accounts show that no one regretted their decision to stand by the monarch. That shows that even in a hereditary monarchy, and certainly in our modern democracy, the loyalty of the people to the Crown is not something that any monarch can take for granted; it has to be earned.

From the speeches made from all parts of the Chamber today, we can see that Her late Majesty the Queen, over the course of her long and remarkable reign, earned the respect and admiration—indeed, the love—of her people. She really has been the golden thread that has run through the warp and weft of our national story. My grandmother stood in the crowd on the Mall and watched the Queen and her family celebrate on VE Day. My dad watched the coronation—as did others who have spoken—on a small, rented television set, and marvelled at her beauty. Afterwards, he created a bonfire on the street, and it took the council years to fill in the pothole, so some things clearly never change.

I met Her late Majesty only a few times. Once, I did so on Zoom, as other Members have said they did. It was a Privy Council meeting. As has happened to us all many times during the pandemic, the Zoom failed. Out of the darkness, a voice suddenly emerged. It was Her late Majesty the Queen, and she said, “Well, thank goodness someone kept a landline.”

Just the other day, I went with my family, including my children, who are the great-grandchildren of holocaust survivors, to see Anne Frank’s house. My children, who had gone ahead of us on the tour, came back to me and said that in the secret annexe ahead, among the images on the walls were photos of Her late Majesty the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret. I later researched with my daughters why that was. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, is recorded as saying later in life that Anne Frank loved the royals—but that was not the only reason. He wanted to put some photos on the wall that would give the children strength, and Anne Frank also said that the beautiful smile kept her going. May the Queen rest in peace, and God save the King.

CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Actually, at the Commonwealth summit, the most interesting thing was the widespread understanding of what the UK is doing in the Indo-Pacific tilt and the moves we are making to engage with that part of the world and strengthen our friends and allies in that region. Hon. Members saw what we did with the carrier strike group—an absolutely astonishing exercise—and know about the AUKUS commitment that we have made. We are in the embassies in that part of the world and are increasing our deployments there as well.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

The single most impactful thing that we could do now to bear down on the cost of living would be to encourage OPEC, in particular Saudi Arabia, to pump more oil. What will the Government do to encourage our partners, such as Saudi Arabia, to do that? The Saudi Arabian oil Minister recently said that the relationship between Saudi and Moscow is

“as warm as the weather in Riyadh”—

a provocative statement that was probably influenced by our continued negotiation with Iran on a nuclear deal. Could the United Kingdom Government take a lead on that?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is correct about the role of Saudi. There may be some question about how much more the Saudis could pump out at this moment, but there is no doubt that we will need a lot more OPEC-plus oil. As hon. Members know, the UK has strong and productive relations with Saudi Arabia, which need to continue, and we need to make sure that the whole west does as well. We make that point to the Saudis. That is the way forward; they need to produce more oil—no question.

Address to Her Majesty: Platinum Jubilee

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

It is a great honour to join my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other colleagues on both sides of the House in our tribute to Her Majesty the Queen on the presentation of a Humble Address.

I speak on behalf of my constituents in the ancient and loyal borough of Newark-on-Trent—ancient because we received our royal charter from Her Majesty’s forebear Henry II, and loyal because in May 1646, Newark was the last town in the royalist cause to surrender in the civil war. It did so only on receipt of a personal command from the King, who gave himself up to the Scots outside the town. The town’s defenders were impoverished, starving and riddled with disease, but all the contemporary accounts show that they were entirely unrepentant and committed in their loyalty to the sovereign. Then, the Crown relied on the loyalty of the people—and it does so even more in our modern democracy. Loyalty is a vague concept that can apply in many human situations. We can be loyal to our parents, our siblings, our friends, our employers and even—although this is less common—to party leaders. The loyalty that binds us to the Crown is peculiar, in that it is not based on any family tie or material consideration. In that sense, then and now, loyalty has had to be earned.

I am sure that the whole House will agree that Her Majesty the Queen, over her uniquely long reign, has earned the loyalty of her country. The nation holds her in its heart, not just as the figurehead of a great institution, but as an individual who has served our country with unerring grace, dignity and decency. She has been a golden thread running through the warp and the weft of our lives. My grandmother joined her in the crowds that lined The Mall on VE Day. My father watched the coronation on a rented television set in the crowded front room of the one house in the street whose occupant could afford one. It was the first time he had seen a TV set other than in a shop window. Today he says that what struck him most was how beautiful the Queen looked, even on a terrible-quality black-and-white TV. Afterwards, he lit a bonfire with his friends in the middle of their street. It would be several years before the council filled in the pothole, so some things never change.

Almost 70 years later, I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty as a Minister, often virtually, as that was how Privy Council meetings were conducted during the pandemic. Samuel Pepys recorded that during the civil war, Newark’s then representative communicated with the King by writing in cypher and concealing the script in a lead ball, which he asked the messenger to swallow and then pass out on arrival at the court. Fortunately for all concerned, Her Majesty has proved adept at using Zoom. Indeed, she always moves with the times.

When I accompanied my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the Palace in 2019, after the short ceremony of giving us our seals of office had been completed and a few words had been exchanged, Her Majesty said—I hope this does not betray any confidence—“Well, I suppose we had all better get back to work.” That was that, and I think that is her. She is an example of efficiency, dedication, common sense, humility and good humour.

Few countries, if any, have been as fortunate as ours in having such an anchor, bracing us against the storms and providing a well of consistency and certainty. Few countries are fortunate enough to have someone who can represent the whole nation, and we need that now more than ever. Few countries have benefited from such a capable and knowledgeable ambassador on the international stage. Indeed, she is arguably the most admired and respected public figure in the world today.

Her Majesty the Queen has been guided by the pledge to serve that she gave on her 21st birthday in 1947. The words were simple, and we politicians know how easy it is to make promises and pledges; but the years have shown that they were uttered with deep conviction. The fulfilment of that promise has been the story of her life. My constituents in the loyal borough of Newark, and all of us in this House, would agree that Her Majesty the Queen has kept that pledge in full measure.

Sue Gray Report

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there are people in No. 10 Downing Street, including me, who cared passionately about making sure that we had the PPE we needed, that we had the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, and that we protected this country from covid. That is what people were doing, and I may say that the abuse that has been directed at civil servants and officials is wholly unwarranted.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

When I think of civil servants and advisers during that period, I think of the brilliant civil servants who helped move mountains to create the shielding programme within a matter of days and the brilliant civil servants and advisers who got 90% of homeless people off the streets within days. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these achievements and others should mean that nothing in this report is a stain upon the character of the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civil servants, whether in No. 10, other Departments or across the country who helped to steer this country through the pandemic? Secondly—difficult though this is for many to say—with a war in Europe, an economic crisis and the challenges this country faces, is it not true that it is now time to turn a page, and for this country, our politics and this House to move forwards?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my right hon. Friend absolutely and passionately. We can study the report and we can draw the conclusions that we want, but the best thing now for our country is to move forwards together, and that is what we are going to do.