Member Defections: Automatic By-elections

Roger Gale Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point, which I think aligns with my own point: it is the make-up of the political party that gains the confidence of the House, and therefore its leader is appointed Prime Minister, should they get a mandate to be so, based on the numbers.

Where I do not feel that a by-election should be triggered aligns with the points made by the hon. Member for South Cotswolds. If a Member of Parliament is unfortunate enough to lose the Whip and therefore sits in the House as an independent, I do not feel that that should necessarily trigger a by-election, because it might be subject to circumstances outside that Member’s control—political difference associated with a particular policy and therefore voting the other way. The Whips may use that as a mechanism for removing the party Whip, but I do not think that that should trigger a by-election in those circumstances. I want to be clear on that.

To summarise, politics is about trust, and at a time when the relationship between politicians and the electorate is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly fractious, it is vital that our democratic system holds us to account for the promises on which we as individuals associated with a political party were elected, the platform on which we chose to stand for election, and ultimately the manifesto commitments that we stood by.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

I am sorely tempted to say that if somebody else would like to take the Chair, I will come down and do an hour on this myself, but happily for colleagues, I am not allowed to.

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[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

As the hon. Lady said, there are occasions when quality makes up for quantity, and the House has behaved in an exemplary manner this afternoon. Thank you for your courtesy.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 737660 relating to automatic by-elections following Member defections.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are determined to halve the disadvantage gap and give all children the best start in life. I am delighted to see that a free breakfast club is opening in his constituency of Rochdale. Our actions will lift over half a million children out of poverty, and the Conservatives’ policy is to say they would plunge them straight back into poverty, which is disgraceful. Through our actions to reform the SEND system, we will create an inclusive system so that every child can go as far as their ability and talents will take them.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you will recall that, some months ago, I asked the Prime Minister why, as the Director of Public Prosecutions, he did not bring charges against Mohammed Fayed for rape and assault, and the Prime Minister replied that this did not cross his desk. I understand that the Met police delivered two dossiers to the Crown Prosecution Service, so if the Prime Minister did not see them, who did, and could he tell the House when he expects the Metropolitan police to bring charges against those who aided and abetted Fayed?

[The Prime Minister]

I stand by my answer. Hundreds of thousands of files are submitted to the prosecution service every year. It is important that the investigation is going on. I cannot tell the right hon. Member when the decision will be made or what the decision will be, as he well knows, but it is important that every allegation is properly investigated and properly dealt with according to the law.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Roger Gale Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I can confirm that the Government are complying, and will continue to comply, fully with the requests from the Metropolitan police, as well as from Parliament in relation to the Humble Address. My hon. Friend is right to say that it is important that we do so to bring transparency and accountability to these most egregious actions.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Could the Minister clarify whether or not the Cabinet Secretary’s review into Lord Mandelson will be advised by the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team? I ask for two reasons. First, I think I am right in saying that it was the PET that undertook the original so-called due diligence on Lord Mandelson. Secondly, in the light of the question asked by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) a few moments ago about the involvement of the PET in an earlier unsavoury matter, I am not sure that the House will have much confidence in that team.

[Darren Jones]

My experience of the civil servants in the propriety and ethics team is unquestionably that they work extremely hard, comply with the civil service code and seek to ensure that the Government uphold all the ethics and integrity rules that we are subject to. I have not seen one instance or any suggestion of poor performance or conflict of interest in that team, and I wholeheartedly endorse their work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kanishka Narayan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: regulation is one part of this issue, but we are also focused on the fundamental aspects of media literacy and education. We are engaging very closely with the Department for Education on a media literacy aspect of the national curriculum to ensure that our young people can spot misinformation and disinformation, and that they are prepared to make the most of online experiences.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Further to the question put to the Secretary of State by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), my teenage informant tells me that if you ask them the right question, most US-based search engines will tell you how to access the dark web. That is clearly undesirable, so what are we doing to stop it?

[Kanishka Narayan]

We are looking very closely at that. Of course, under the Online Safety Act, platforms already have a responsibility to make sure that young people are not able to access harmful content. In relation to wider access methods—whether virtual private networks or others—we are looking very closely at patterns of behaviour. So far, we have been pretty successful; after an initial spike in the use of some of those platforms, we have seen a levelling-off, which I very much hope continues. We will continue to monitor the situation.

G20 and Ukraine

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with that wholeheartedly. We will see; I suspect it is the version that emerged from Geneva yesterday that is being talked about, but of course the next step is Russia, and we need to exert every pressure, whether that is capability, the assets, or oil and gas, on which we have been bearing down for a considerable period of time.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry but that is just not within the rules of the House. I do not expect this from somebody who is so well established here. The right hon. Gentleman may by all means raise a point of order straight after the statement if it relates to the topic, but the rules of the House come first. I call Stella Creasy.

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[The Prime Minister]

A proposal has been put forward in relation to how the assets could be used. Obviously, that requires a high level of agreement by various interested parties. That is why extensive discussions are going on as to how we can make that progress. There is no pretending that it is simple and straightforward—it is not—but that should not stop us trying to make further progress.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I understand that the order of the day when dealing with Mr Trump is flattery. I am afraid that 42 years of experience in this House have not yet qualified me for that level of sycophancy. The presentation of a Kremlin wish list by the White House as a peace plan is risible, which the Prime Minister indicated rather more elegantly than I have. Will the Prime Minister seriously consider—if necessary, unilaterally—ensuring that legislation goes through so that the frozen Russian assets can be used to support the Ukrainian war effort?

National Security Strategy

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

Let me express my gratitude to the shadow Foreign Secretary for her response, the spirit in which she put her questions and her welcome for at least broad parts of the strategy we have published today. Let me turn to the questions she has asked and try to address them.

On the resources to protect people, we made our commitment to increase defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP. Unlike the Conservative party, we said exactly how we would pay for that, even though it meant a very difficult choice on this side of the House. On the FIRS scheme, the right hon. Lady will be aware that Iran and Russia have been placed on the enhanced tier. She asked about our approach to China. This is a serious question and we must have a serious approach to it. The Conservative party, during its time in government, veered between the naivety of the so-called “golden era” to, in effect, no engagement at all. We believe that both were the wrong approach. Instead, our approach will be marked by a desire to protect our national security and to promote our economic interests; total disengagement is not a good option for the UK, so we will be guided by both. The Foreign Secretary, as I said, will make a fuller statement on China shortly.

The right hon. Lady asks what might be included in the 1.5%. It will include such things as cyber-security, border security and telecoms infrastructure. To those who ask what those things have to do with defence, let me be clear: our opponents and our enemies know that they are part of national security, and we should recognise that, too.

Finally, we have resisted the Opposition’s pleas for us to choose between our allies. In resisting that, I believe we have a strategy that makes our country stronger and enhances Britain’s capabilities. That is at the heart of the strategy we put today. Indeed, we made a conscious choice to increase investment in the country’s future capabilities at the spending review. This will give us increased strength in the future. The spending we have committed to is funded, it is set out in the spending review and that is the approach we will take in the future, too.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Chairman of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I totally agree that defence and security have to begin at home, in the home and in the workplace. This is a very welcome comprehensive national security strategy, given its wide-ranging assessment of all the threats we face, in defence, security, critical national infrastructure and so on. An impressive number of workstreams have fed into it—AUKUS, the SDR, the resilience review and so on—but there was no mention of the National Security Council. Can my right hon. Friend tell me what he is doing to ensure that there is a coherence across the strategy that will herald a cultural change in how this country faces security?

[Pat McFadden]

I thank the Chair of the Joint Committee for his question. I should have said, in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary, that I hope to reach a resolution with the Committee soon on the matter of appearances before it. I am always happy to appear before the Committee, if invited. The Chairman of the Joint Committee is quite right to say to the House that publishing strategies is one thing, but there must be follow through. The difference between this and some other documents produced is that it is a whole-system approach, looking at sovereign capability, international alliances and making our country a harder target for our enemies. All three of those must be brought together and followed through in a systematic way.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome the publication of the Government’s national security strategy, because we recognise that we are living in a world that is less stable and more insecure now than at any time since the end of the cold war. Putin’s forces continue to wage their war in Ukraine, the middle east is teetering on the precipice of a fully-fledged regional war, and the actions of the United States under an unreliable President Trump are putting an enormous strain on the post-war settlement from which we have benefited so much.

The nature of the threats we face continues to evolve, as has become immensely clear to millions of people across the country with the recent cyber-attacks on Marks and Spencer and the Co-op, and in other countries we have seen attempts by authoritarian states to meddle in free and fair elections. That is why we welcome so much of what is contained in the strategy. It is also why the Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Government’s decision to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, although we have urged Ministers to go further.

Given the new NATO target of 5% of GDP, will the Government now urgently convene cross-party talks to establish a consensus on how to get there? We need to show our adversaries we are serious about that commitment. The strategy also has a welcome focus on resilience, something especially important given not just the scale of the threat we face but its varied nature. Will the Minister look at steps taken by our allies such as Estonia to inform their populations about how to deal with those threats, should they arise? To reflect the threat posed to our democracy by hostile actors, will he make protecting our democracy a national security priority? I also note the importance that the review places on sovereign independent capabilities. Is that an admission from the Government that, under President Trump, the United States is no longer a reliable ally? Will the assessment be carried over into defence procurement, where we look to maintain an inextricably close bond with the United States?

UK-EU Summit

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I do not think the Conservatives are just against all things European, because they say they are against the India deal as well. That is a deal they tried for eight long years to negotiate. It is deeply embarrassing for them to say that that was what they were trying to negotiate and now they are against it. They are against the deal with the US, which they said they wanted to negotiate, which saves thousands upon thousands of jobs. Go to Jaguar Land Rover and tell those workers that you are going to reverse the deal, and look at the expressions on their faces. It is further evidence of the decline of the Tory party, away from free trade. I never thought I would see that, but we are seeing that now under this Leader of the Opposition. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about arbitration clauses: they are there in every trade deal that has ever been struck.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I do not want to be a dog in the manger, but the Prime Minister’s statement appears to be very strong on self-congratulation and very short on detail. I know he does not like answering detailed questions, but the response he gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) was quite simply unacceptable. When will this deal be signed off in a form that this House will be able to debate properly and vote on?

[The Prime Minister]

The detail of the agreement we reached yesterday was set out in a document which we released during the course of yesterday. If the right hon. Gentleman has not had the chance to see that, I will make sure that he does. On the detailed text that follows, obviously that needs to be drafted in legal form so that everybody can see it, of course, and we can debate and scrutinise it. None of this can go through without legislation, so he will have that opportunity. It is quite right that he presses for it.

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[The Prime Minister]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not descend into silly language, like the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), but this is an important point. He and I get on, and I do not think—

[Sir Roger Gale]

Don’t be so patronising!

[The Prime Minister]

It was his language, not mine, but this is an important point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

We know of the brilliant craftsmanship of the Stoke-on-Trent industry. We are committed to supporting British businesses and ensuring that they have the best chance of winning public contracts. Our new national policy statement asks contracting authorities to maximise spend with small and medium-sized enterprises and to support our industrial strategy.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

During the last Parliament, I made a submission, on behalf of the National Association of Retired Police Officers, for a medal to be issued in recognition of the service given by those injured on duty and invalided out of the service. That had the backing of the then Policing Minister, and I understand it also has the backing of the current Policing Minister, but it has now disappeared into a black hole in the Cabinet Office. Will the Minister please dig it out, dust it off and give it a fair wind?

[Pat McFadden]

I will find out exactly where we are with this matter and then write to the right hon. Member.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the hon. Lady for her continued support for Natalie’s family. When I was in Northern Ireland, it was very clear to me that that support had been in place. A fundamental part of halving violence against women and girls has be looking at exactly the issue she has talked about—the femicide of women, and how we can all work together in a multi-agency way to ensure that I do not have to read out names like Natalie McNally’s.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Will the Minister discuss with the Home Secretary how best we can bring to account, albeit belatedly, those still surviving who aided and abetted Mohamed Fayed in the rape and sexual assault of young women and girls?

[Jess Phillips]

The Home Secretary and I have very much discussed that. While there are ongoing police investigations, it would be inappropriate for me to make any further comment. However, having met some of those affected, I want to see exactly what the right hon. Gentleman wants to see.

Ukraine

Roger Gale Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, because it is absolutely crucial. It is a moral outrage that those children have been taken, and of course we must ensure their safe return. That has to be part of any discussion, but she is quite right to raise it. We should do so more often.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition has quite rightly and properly shown her support for the Prime Minister’s position, and I hope he will take comfort from the fact that he has the support of at least these Back Benches as well. Those of us who have had dealings with the Russians—in my case that is through the Council of Europe—know only too well that Putin’s Administration cannot be trusted, and that security guarantees are therefore absolutely vital if we are to succeed in getting a peace agreement, not a surrender. A surrender would lead to inevitable further activities in Georgia and Moldova, and then possibly in the Baltic states as well. Is that not right?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the right hon. Member completely. We know Putin’s ambitions, and we know that he is not a man to keep his word. We absolutely have to guard against those risks, which is why security guarantees have to go in, in relation to any deal that must be done. We must be vigilant on all fronts in relation to Putin because, as we know from our history, instability in Europe inevitably washes up on our shores. This is about our national security just as much as it is about the sovereignty of Ukraine.