Church Appointments (Repeal of Discriminatory Provision) Bill
Would the Minister agree that this Bill is about removing discrimination in elected office and not about inherited office?
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Jackdaw Gasfield
I warmly welcome the statement, especially the word the Minister has used several times—pragmatism—and how that stands apart from the ideology we see, especially from the Green party. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot decarbonise our economy, make steps towards a fully renewable energy generation mix, or achieve energy security by relying on importing oil and gas from overseas, which is often more carbon intensive and which in some cases enriches authoritarian regimes such as Iran? Also, as the representative for North Northumberland where 14,000 households are off the gas grid, what more can his Department do to help heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas households to access less carbon-intensive products, such as hydrotreated vegetable oil?
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Royal Mail: Performance
Following a meeting that I held with other Labour MPs and the head of Ofcom this week, the CEO of Royal Mail has invited a number of us to meet him off-site at 9.30 am on a random Wednesday in a couple of weeks’ time. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be much better for him to recognise that MPs from across the House and representing every single type of constituency have major concerns about Royal Mail, and that he needs to get himself into Parliament to listen to our questions directly, rather than suggesting that we traipse halfway across London to go into a room that he is in charge of on the basis of an agenda that is entirely his, rather than the one that our constituents want to discuss?
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Multi-Academy Trusts (Governance)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about financial transparency, expenditure approval limits and governance of multi-academy trusts; and for connected purposes. When parents up and down the country think about their children’s education, and their worries and hopes for school, “multi-academy trust governance” will probably not be the phrase foremost in many of their minds, but families across Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages know that when governance goes wrong, it is pupils and teachers who pay the price. That is what this Bill seeks to address. Before I was elected to Parliament, I taught for almost a decade across the west midlands before working for the NASUWT, one of our teaching unions, but I really did not expect this Bill to be the first that I presented to the House—until that is, at the start of this year, when I became aware of just how bad things were at Arthur Terry Learning Partnership. ATLP is a multi-academy trust running 24 schools across the west midlands, including six in my constituency. It was established in 2011, shortly after the Conservative-led Government passed legislation to significantly increase the rate at which council-run schools could be turned into academies. In recent years, the trust grew rapidly, almost doubling in size since 2010. Then things started to go very, very badly wrong. In 2024, the Department for Education was forced to give the trust an emergency loan to help it bail out a £4 million deficit, but ATLP insisted it was fixing its finances. Scarcely a year later, its deficit had ballooned to £8 million. The trust leadership blamed an accounting error. The idea that £8 million had gone missing because of a mistake was hardly reassuring to me or any of my constituents, and many of us were somewhat sceptical. In 2022, ATLP announced that it would acquire 11,000 iPads—one for every pupil across its 24 schools. Exactly how had it paid for 11,000 iPads? I put those questions to ATLP’s leadership over and over again in meetings, alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) and for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards). We never got a straight answer, and the way that ATLP displayed its financial data—particularly graphs that it was using—really seemed to be designed to hide and obfuscate, rather than explain where the trust’s finances were. Believe me, as a former physics teacher, I am more than comfortable with a graph, and it was clear that these were not quite right. Last autumn, things got much worse. After taking yet another Government loan, the trust needed to cut costs to get its finances on track. Its leadership decided that teachers and support staff would be the people who paid the price. As many as 100 jobs were put at risk of redundancy across the 24 schools. As much as I know that teachers hate going on strike, in that case, ATLP staff at the National Education Union felt that they had no choice, and the risk of redundancy led to nine days of strike action in a number of the trust’s schools. Nobody across any part of the constituency or the communities affected wanted to see iPads prioritised over teachers, teaching assistants and school support staff. Families were right behind the teachers standing up. Closer scrutiny of ATLP’s accounts at that time showed that the iPads were a symptom of a deeper problem. Most comparable trusts asked schools to pay about 5% of their budget into a pot for centrally procured services. It is often called a top slice—in some schools, there is a slightly different system known as general annual grant pooling. ATLP was asking its schools to fork out eye-watering sums—as much as 25% of their budgets—for these services. At the same time, it was preserving well-paid roles in head office while teachers and teaching assistants were at risk of losing their jobs. By February, things had unravelled. After those nine days of strike action, ATLP’s chief financial officer and chief executive had both resigned. An interim leader, with experience helping failing trusts, was brought in, swiftly changing tack on teaching cuts and instead slashing the iPad policy and cutting down the head office. Following that, there were no compulsory redundancies at Arthur Terry Learning Partnership at the end of last year, bringing the figure down to zero. The scale of Arthur Terry Learning Partnership’s failings finally became clear: the trust had spent its reserves on iPads—one of a number of financial missteps that had bankrupted it. In May, after many discussions with me and my colleagues, the Department for Education announced the break-up of Arthur Terry Learning Partnershiop—one of the biggest trust closures our country has seen. Throughout the process, the stress for pupils, parents, teachers and the community across my area has been serious. Families have feared for the future of ATLP schools, worried that great teachers would leave during this time of uncertainty and upheaval. I thank the amazing staff and school leaders at Arthur Terry schools, and I am pleased that we now have a clear plan for those schools to move to other local trusts, where they can thrive and get the support they deserve. What unfolded at Arthur Terry was unacceptable, and it cannot be allowed to happen at trusts in other parts of the country, but, unfortunately, that is precisely the risk we face. There are not enough financial safeguards in the Academies Act 2010—there are not enough guardrails to stop this happening again. Earlier this year, the Department for Education found “serious” financial issues at SAND Academies Trust in Gloucestershire. The trust’s explanation, blaming “accounting errors”, will be eerily familiar to far too many of my constituents. The boss of St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi Academy Trust, based up the road in Derby, quit in June, after the trust accrued an even bigger deficit: over £9 million. Those are just some examples. There are further example of other trusts that go beyond finances. Analysis by Schools Week found that most trusts put in special financial measures by the Department for Education end up sliding further into the red. Make no mistake, this is a national issue. I have been campaigning for a change in the law to ensure that there are stronger rules on multi-academy trust governance, so that no area has to go through what mine did. Half of all schools in England are now part of a multi-academy trusts like Arthur Terry, yet research by Parentkind—the national charity for parents—shows that fewer than one in five parents feel that their trust listens to them. I think many parents are shocked by the lack of oversight of trusts; many families in my area certainly asked me at public meetings why the local council could not step in and take the schools back on, particularly when things had gone so wrong at ATLP. The National Governance Association says that that is replicated up and down the country; parents understandably assume that councils still play a significant role in school oversight, when in reality, for academy trust schools, they simply do not. When the Conservatives aggressively expanded academisation, they said it would drive up standards. What they failed to recognise is that when school leadership fails, pupils suffer, and the Conservative Government failed to put in the adequate safeguards. It is shocking that it took until this Labour Government in 2026—more than 15 years after the Academies Act—for inspections of trusts to be introduced. For almost a decade and a half, the Conservatives presided over a system where Ofsted had no powers to inspect the trusts that ran the schools. In my area, we have seen the problems that that failure of oversight has led to. We must now go further. Since the break-up of ATLP was announced, I have been consulting experts across the education sector, including: teachers’ unions, such as the NEU, NASUWT and Community; unions representing school staff, including Unite and GMB; the Association of School and College Leaders; the National Association of Headteachers; the Local Government Association; the National Governance Association; the Confederation of School Trusts; and Parentkind. My hon. Friends and I have written to multi-academy trusts to seek their views, and, crucially, I have been working with parents, carers and teachers across my constituency who have first-hand experience, as well as running a survey and holding a townhall meeting earlier this month. I thank everybody who has given their time to this. Together, we have crafted a Bill that makes practical proposals that would put the proper safeguards in place. The Bill starts with a financial transparency section. Parents need to know if trusts are skimming off sums that could be spent in classrooms, or if their reserves are running low—and they should not have to pore over accounts like a forensic accountant to find out. The Bill would mandate that trusts publish details of the money they are taking from school budgets, and, if they pool and redistribute that, how they are doing so. They would need to include how they plan to spend reserves on their website and the website of every school they run. They would also have to publish details of the reserves they hold in the same place. If trusts cannot explain their decisions to parents, it is a warning sign. We need stronger oversight, too. Our experience with iPads at ATLP has shown that one big mistake can cost pupils. The Bill would make such purchases subject to additional sign-off. If trusts cannot justify the cost on an education basis, it should not be able to happen. We also need better scrutiny at board level; governors should have better skills to ask those questions. The Bill would compel the Secretary of State to draft statutory guidance to make local governing boards mandatory for trusts and set out the competency that trust boards should have, with specific guidance for chairs of finance committees. There is more to say, but I am aware of the time, so let me close by saying that the Bill has been a community effort, and it exists to help ensure that no other community goes through what families at Arthur Terry Learning Partnership schools did. Its provisions would build on the Government’s work in strengthening multi-academy accountability. We know the problems, we can see the solutions, and now we need to grasp them. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Dave Robertson, Sarah Edwards, Paulette Hamilton, Rachel Taylor, Taiwo Owatemi, Jacob Collier, Jonathan Davies, Josh Fenton-Glynn, Leigh Ingham Jon Pearce, and Mark Sewards present the Bill. Dave Robertson accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 15 January 2027, and to be printed (Bill 164).
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Mineworkers’ Pension Schemes: Nottinghamshire
I know that my hon. Friend just said there are too many people to mention by name and how sad it is that we have lost so many of the campaigners, but would he like to join me in celebrating the work of Tommy Christopher, who did so much to lead the campaign, and his brother John—I have the pleasure of calling him a constituent—who is now chairing the campaign? Without them, we would not have got as far as we have. Will he join me in thanking them?
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E-scooters and E-bikes: Regulation
I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this debate. You can see, Mr Stringer, how big the issue is for constituencies across the country. In 2017, the London Fire Brigade attended just seven e-bike fires. Last year, the number reached a record 206. That is an e-bike fire somewhere in the capital every other day. Since 2023, six people have lost their lives in e-bike and e-scooter fires in London, five of whom were not themselves charging the vehicle responsible for the fires. They lost their lives because of a danger they had absolutely no control over, and they might not even have known existed. In my constituency alone, 14 homes have been lost to fires. Just last week at my advice surgery, I met Mr and Mrs Gifford, whose home was devastated by an e-bike fire on Lewis Road in Mitcham in October last year. They lived next door to the property where the battery was being charged. Almost a year later, they are still unable to return to their home. Imagine losing your home through no fault of your own—losing everything you own, all your memories and the place where your children grew up—and a year later, you are still unable to return. That is the lasting devastation that these fires can cause. The reality is that some people caught up in these fires never make it out of their home. At a roundtable that I also held last week, we heard the devastating story of Sofia Duarte. Sofia was just 21 years old when she died on new year’s day in 2023 as a result of spending the night at her boyfriend’s flat in Old Kent Road, where a converted e-bike charging in the communal area caught fire. Everyone else got out; she did not, and she did not see another year. That should not be the consequence for anybody who is not doing anything wrong, but is subject to an illegal and unauthorised battery exploding.
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E-scooters and E-bikes: Regulation
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that illegal e-bike battery fires in the Metropolitan police’s own pounds have cost the force half a million pounds? It confiscated 3,000 illegal e-bikes in the last year.
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E-scooters and E-bikes: Regulation
Is the hon. Member aware that University College London published data this week indicating that almost three quarters of delivery riders surveyed are concerned about their own bike battery catching fire, while one in 10 had personally experienced overheating?
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Community Policing: Government Support
Community policing is fundamental to public confidence in our police service. When people know their local officers and PCSOs, see them on their streets and can raise concerns directly with them, communities feel safer and more confident that crime and antisocial behaviour will be tackled. First, I thank the officers—and, importantly, the staff, who do not often enough get the recognition they deserve—in the Crewe local policing unit. I thank all the warranted officers, PCSOs and staff in the LPU for the work they do to keep our communities safe. We have seen a welcome increase of four additional neighbourhood officers in the Crewe LPU, working across my constituency, which will go a long way to tackling some of the problems that we have. However, significant challenges remain; many of them have already been covered in this debate, including endemic antisocial behaviour, which too often is treated as low-level offending, but needs to be taken on and taken out at the roots. In the brief time that I have left to speak, I also acknowledge the important work being undertaken by Cheshire police in relation to the investigation concerning allegations against members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, and I just ask that consideration be given to urgent, unexpected and complex investigations that police sometimes have to respond to, and to the extra burden that those place on police forces. I welcome the fact that I have a meeting with the Minister next week to discuss that issue, but, if she could say something about it when she responds to the debate, that would also be really welcome.
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Community Policing: Government Support
I anticipated that the shadow Minister might want to have a knockabout on numbers. Does he not acknowledge that the previous Conservative Government were replacing the 20,000 police officers that they had cut, and that the police uplift programme created perverse incentives that meant that many of those replacement officers ended up behind desks? That is not where we want them to be, is it?
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Royal Mail: Performance
I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate. I want first to put on the record my appreciation for Royal Mail staff, particularly those I met on Monday at the delivery office in Rottingdean in my constituency, where I saw how hard they are working to improve the local service. Of course, we all want Royal Mail to succeed, because it is a universal postal service and something we all rely on. It is a truly national service and a source of good, unionised jobs. We should celebrate that more—frankly, we should do more to encourage other providers in the sector to match those employment standards and expectations. But we also have to ask how we can better support Royal Mail staff to do the job we all need them to do, and how our constituents can be sure that they will receive the service they rely on, because right now problems with Royal Mail is the one issue I get the most emails about—I was going to say letters, but it is actually emails. I will give two quick examples. One constituent from Woodingdean in my constituency told me that they had no deliveries from 1 to 16 August this year, 29 pieces of mail on 17 August, no deliveries from 18 to 28 August, and 13 items of mail delivered on 29 August. When I raised this directly with Royal Mail locally, I was told: “there are no current issues with the delivery of mail to your constituent’s address…deliveries are taking place six days a week”. Frankly, it is hard to know how to relay that to constituents.
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Royal Mail: Performance
I am afraid it does. As my hon. Friend’s intervention shows, some constituents are now routinely missing letters—letters informing them of NHS appointments, legal affairs, fines and so on. One even contacted me on Saturday to say that he had only just received his Labour party conference pass, some four weeks late. Members might think that a blessing in disguise and that we should be praising Royal Mail, but he was not too pleased. We are now in a cycle of despair with Royal Mail, where constituents report unacceptable delays all the time and MPs from across the House come here to raise them. Successive Governments will say how terrible it all is and demand that Ofcom acts and Royal Mail improves, but Ofcom does not have the powers it needs and keeps fining Royal Mail for failure, despite the fact that Royal Mail cannot make a profit anyway. Royal Mail has no chance of hitting its legally mandated targets and no hope of competing on a level playing field, because operators in the same sector simply do not have the same regulatory or employment standards that we ask of Royal Mail. The result is rising anger on all sides, a loss of faith in our national delivery service and, frankly, a belief that we cannot even get the post to run on time in this country. I know that the Minister cares deeply about the issue and is working hard on it, so I urge her to break that cycle: look at what more we can do in Parliament to level the playing field for Royal Mail, empower the regulator more, and give Royal Mail staff the opportunity they need to improve and modernise the service. If we do that in this Parliament—there is a majority for it and cross-party support—then we can finally get our national postal service back on track and serving our constituents as it should be.
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Jackdaw Gasfield
I am concerned about the message this decision sends about how serious we are about tackling the climate emergency and protecting our hard-won international reputation as a world leader on climate change. However, I am even more concerned—as are my constituents—that this is a prelude to the bigger decision on Rosebank that is to come. Can the Minister confirm that when that decision is taken, the climate emergency and our international climate commitments will be at the forefront of his mind, and that we will have a chance to debate that decision in this House?
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Antisemitism in Schools and Colleges
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and Sir David Bell for his report. As a former teacher, I welcome the training being provided to teachers so that they have the skills and the toolkit to challenge this stain on our society. For once, I agree with many of the things said by the shadow Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott); anecdotally, I was so good at being politically neutral in school that a year 11 girl once accused me of being a Tory, so that is possible. It is right that school often acts as a mirror to things we see in the wider society, and that is something which the Harlow Jewish community is very concerned about—I had a conversation with a local rabbi about this at the weekend. What will the Secretary of State, working with Cabinet colleagues, do to tackle antisemitism, online and in wider society?
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Housing Costs: Government Support
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing this important debate and on an excellent speech, as always. I want to briefly encourage the Minister to speak to colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about reconsidering the merits of a potential cap on rental increases. I know that the Government are determined to do everything they can to give the British public breathing space on the cost of living. For almost all of us, the cost of our home is by far and away the largest item on our monthly bill. Private renters spend an average of 36% of their income on rent, and although I fully support the drive for a new generation of council housing, it is clear that that will not substantially bring down costs for the nearly 5 million private renters in England in this Parliament. The housing crisis is a crisis, and it demands immediate action. Research by the Autonomy Institute has shown that, as an emergency short-term measure while we build the genuinely affordable homes we need, holding rents at 2027 levels would save renters more than £14 billion over the next four years. That would substantially reduce the burden on public spending to support those who need housing allowance in private rental as well. I hope the Minister will take that suggestion to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government colleagues.
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Jackdaw Gasfield
It is not quite the response to catastrophic climate change, wildfires and drought that I had in mind, but I accept that that appears to be a minority view in this place. Nevertheless, despite all the sophistry, the inconvenient truth remains that this choice means that more fossil fuels that are currently buried will be extracted and burned to pollute our planet. Does the Minister understand why so many people find it hard to believe that the hope of a liveable planet will win out against short-termism and deluded self-interest?
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which finished its remaining stages in this House yesterday, will deliver a reformed independent legacy commission with stronger disclosure powers that will be critical for families and victims seeking answers and access to justice. It will also repeal the immunity scheme and lift the bar on civil claims, which the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 wrongly introduced.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
First, I would say that the legal profession is a noble profession and that—[Interruption.] I am not sure I have carried the Conservative Front Bench with that line. If we are to uphold the rule of law, we have to make sure that lawyers are protected in their ability to defend people in the criminal justice system. The idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty is fundamental to our system. That is why I think it behoves all of us to be careful about our language.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
Let me be absolutely clear: there will be no political interference in any of these decisions. We think that it is appropriate—as was recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of Members from both our two Houses—that the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales both come to their conclusions. We will draw up guidelines on how to deal with troubles-related issues that may follow on from the legacy commission. But in the end, the final prosecutorial decision is a very simple non-political one: whether it is in the public interest and whether there is more than a 50% likelihood of getting a successful conviction. I am glad that yesterday evening the Committee of the whole House agreed that without a Division.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
Mr Speaker, I know that you would not want me to intrude on an ongoing judicial review. The judge reserved his judgement yesterday, so I will not do that, I am afraid.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
I note that the cast list for the Chamber today is very similar to yesterday’s and the day before, and that some of these issues were adumbrated in the discussions we had. There is obviously a difference in the coronial system in Northern Ireland. I have heard people make suggestions about how we might want to reform it. One of the reforms we have put in the Bill, which I think is important, is that inquests will no longer be allowed to repeat processes undergone elsewhere, just as the legacy commission will not be able to do so.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is asking me to talk again about proceedings in the High Court in Northern Ireland, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to do so.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
In the court case.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
The shadow Secretary of State is asking me to comment on documents produced in the judicial review into my decision on Drumcree. I am not going to do that, because I think it would conflict with the judicial review process and I do not want to be held in contempt of court.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
Yes.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
I heard the interview this morning on the radio, and I warmly welcome the fact that the Taoiseach will make that apology. It is entirely right and proper. This relates to some of the discussions that we had yesterday and the day before about how the Irish Government deal with the issues of the past. This was a prison guard from the United Kingdom who was killed in Dublin. I also heard the point that his son Austin made, when he said that the apology “means an awful lot to us”. It is incumbent on all of us to make fulsome, and not mealy-mouthed, apologies.[Official Report, 22 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 12WC.] (Correction)
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Access to Justice
The right hon. Gentleman makes a strong point about political accountability. The rule of law is something that we all pledge to uphold when we become Members of Parliament. That is also true of Members of the Legislative Assembly and, for that matter, members of the Executive. I also think that we need to have political accountability for the finances in Northern Ireland. It is really important that we make sure that at some point or other, the Northern Ireland Executive get round to settling a budget. We have set aside more than £1.5 billion for the next three years. I look forward to conversations with the right hon. Gentleman and others tomorrow, and I very much hope that we might be able to settle that. He is right that we need to have political and financial accountability, and if that means changing the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to achieve that, I am up for that.
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Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement
The hon. Lady asks what steps we are taking to replace the legacy Act of 2023. I refer her to the debates of yesterday and the day before.
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Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement
It is important to say, not only after we have we completed our processes here but now that the Bill will go to the House of Lords, that I am happy, as I said to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), to work with all the different associations, including veterans in the hon. Lady’s constituency if she has people who want to meet me, to make sure that we end up with a Bill that really works. I urge her and all hon. Members to say to veterans in their constituencies: first, there will be answers for veterans’ families because many lost loved ones; and secondly, no veteran will be cold called, no veteran will be approached unless there is compelling new evidence and no process will be repeated unless it is essential. Those are guarantees for all, but in particular for our veterans.
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Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement
I am really grateful to my hon. Friend, because she is absolutely right. Although sometimes I think our debates have felt as though the Bill was an armed forces Bill, it is actually a Bill that is primarily about families, including the families of veterans, of course. Joe McVey, who brought several members of his group here earlier this week, has very much informed the debate that we have had, but in the end, the most important thing is getting answers for families, and my hon. Friend’s Committee has led the way on that.
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Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement
As I said yesterday, it would be false to make a direct equation between special forces recruitment and our Bill. As I pointed out, recruitment to the armed forces is 7% up at the moment, for the first time. It is true, of course, that we want to ensure that confidence and morale in the armed forces are upheld, and I think our Bill will help to achieve that. I would just push back on one point. The hon. Gentleman says that everybody is united, but actually there are many different views on the Bill in the veterans community. I am very happy to work with all the different associations to make sure that we get to the right answers at the end of the process.
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Support for Veterans
The Government are committed to supporting all our veterans, including those who served under Operation Banner, and to ensuring that they receive fair treatment and consistent support. That is why we are expanding the armed forces covenant to remove disadvantages and recognise sacrifices. The Ministry of Defence recently announced that the Brooke House health and wellbeing centre, which does brilliant work to support veterans, has been awarded £1 million to develop a Valour-recognised centre in Northern Ireland.
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Support for Veterans
Actually, I disagree with the hon. Member. I have had many conversations with a lot of veterans associations, and all of them have recognised many of the changes that we brought into the Bill. These include introducing the concept of compelling new evidence before anybody can be called as a witness; ensuring that the concept of “essential” is a high bar, not a low bar, for people; and ensuring that nobody can be cold called. I am very happy to work with all hon. Members to make sure that the Bill, in its final version, is one that everybody can support.
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Support for Veterans
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to make sure that the legacy commission takes on the good work that has been done by ICRIR, even as we are improving it, so that it can get more answers for people. I also want to push back against the idea that there are veterans on one side and families on the other. Actually, a very large number of the people who are seeking answers—and will do through the legacy commission—are the families of veterans.
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Support for Veterans
One of the reasons we had a manifesto commitment and said this before the last general election was that we believe the legacy Act 2023 was morally and legally deficient—legally deficient as it was struck down in the courts, and morally deficient because it made an equivalence between the lawful action of our armed forces seeking to preserve the peace and the deliberate acts of terrorists. We think that was morally wrong and offensive.
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Support for Veterans
One of the things that I have campaigned on for many years is acquired brain injury. One of my anxieties about what has happened to veterans in this country over the years is that it has felt as though we have sort of left them to one side. It is shocking that we still have so many veterans who are homeless. I am proud that one of the first things our Prime Minister said was that he wants to end homelessness. We need to do that in Northern Ireland, just as anywhere else in the United Kingdom. We also need to ensure that our veterans get the real support they need to be able to live fruitful lives and work after their service.
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Support for Veterans
One of the key asks of all the veterans organisations was that we should introduce a change to the Bill to state that there was no equivalence between the lawful actions of our armed forces and those of terrorists, and recognise the operational context in which people were functioning, including their training, their command structure and so on. That is precisely what we have done in the legislation, and I commend my hon. Friend for the way he has raised many of these issues with me directly on behalf of the veterans in his constituency.
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Support for Veterans
The hon. Member makes a really good point about former members of the RUC. I was very struck when I visited the RUC memorial garden in Belfast, where we can see, decade after decade, the number of RUC officers who were killed in action. As we get closer to the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s and the ’90s, those numbers go from three, four or five to dozens. We owe them a debt of gratitude, and I say to them, as I say to everybody who served under Operation Banner: thank you for your service.
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Support for Veterans
It is absolutely essential that the Irish Government fully co-operate with the process. I am very confident that they will do so. I have spoken directly to Jim O’Callaghan and Helen McEntee, the two Ministers responsible for these issues in the Irish Government. But they are partners of ours; we need to work with them to be able to get answers for the many thousands of people who lost loved ones during the troubles era.
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Support for Veterans
I did not catch all of that—I am not sure whether you did, Mr Speaker—but I think I heard “PTSD”. As I said earlier, one of the things I have campaigned on is acquired brain injury. I suspect that many people in the armed forces were told that they had PTSD but actually had an acquired brain injury that had never been properly diagnosed. It is one of the pieces of work that we need to do far more effectively. I want to look at how we properly look after those who are serving now in Northern Ireland into the future to ensure that they can have the most fruitful lives possible.