Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
Could the Secretary of State set out in greater detail for us what the word “essential” will mean in law?
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I thank the Secretary of State for his comments and the briefing that his team gave mine at the start of this week. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that he and his team have worked hard to try to make improvements to this Bill. I am afraid, however, that the Bill is a mess. That mess is attested to by the fact that we are still debating it when it was introduced a year ago tomorrow and we have yet to breach Committee of the whole House. The mess is attested to by the fact that we are debating a carry-over motion for the second time. It is attested to by the fact that the Government told us in April that they were going to submit their amendments after six months of delay, but published them only yesterday after another six months. We have 144 Government amendments making up a pack of about 300 amendments over 119 pages. This is a mess in the process of becoming a bigger mess. The Secretary of State has been handed this mess. I know it is not of his making, but he has been given the unenviable task of fixing it. Yet this Bill cannot be fixed, because the fundamentals are wrong. However much one scrubs off some of the worst corners and the worst excesses, the fundamentals are still there. Next week, we will have a chance to debate this legislation and its many amendments, but the amount of time set aside is wholly unequal to the task. For reasons I cannot understand, the Government have effectively denied the House the Report stage. Only an hour has been set aside for Report, and it is inevitable that the Committee of the whole House will eat that away entirely. As a Back Bencher, the Secretary of State was a defender of this House’s role in scrutiny. It is upsetting that we will not be able to give this Bill proper treatment in the Commons and that it will only get proper scrutiny in the Lords. That, though, is only a minor quibble in the face of the problems in the Bill itself. In simple terms, we cannot support this legislation because it reopens the door to vexatious litigation against those who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles. In the long time in which this Bill has been in the Table Office, a number of cases have come to public attention that illustrate both the problem that requires fixing and the inadequacy of the Government’s response. In November last year, we debated the findings in the case against soldier F from Bloody Sunday.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
Soldier F was found not guilty after the longest and most detailed inquiry in British legal history. Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown court that even after such an investigation, the evidence fell well short of the standard required.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
The judge said: “A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined”—
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I will finish my sentence.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
Because I was in the middle of speaking. The judge said: “A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined, nor can I assess the demeanour of a sheet of A4 paper.” It is becoming vanishingly difficult to get convictions.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
The hon. Gentleman, if he had waited a moment, would have heard me talk about the victims. The victims, who suffered so much, are being given the promise of convictions that will never come. Even when we have the most detailed inquiry in British legal history, no conviction comes, yet this House is now expected to believe that the legislation before us will open the road to all these convictions. It will not happen. It is a promise that will not be fulfilled, but that does not mean that soldiers who did nothing but their duty will not be pulled through the courts time and time again. In February last year, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case from 1992. On that occasion, four men—known terrorists—armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun attacked an RUC police station and then moved on to commit further crimes. They called themselves an army. They carried weapons of war, they sought to kill and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law, and yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. The men will now be subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of the decisions that they had to make in exceptionally difficult circumstances, decades ago. The case of soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised repeatedly in the House. In 2024 a coroner ruled that he had been justified in using lethal force in Coagh in 1991. Then, in 2025, the case was taken to the High Court in Belfast, where it was thrown out by a judge who described it as “ludicrous” and said that it should never have come to court. Despite that, in April this year the case went to the Court of Appeal, where it was again thrown out. Last month an attempt was mounted to take it to the Supreme Court, and that attempt is ongoing. Soldier B has been dragged through the courts for five and a half years, when the legal system in this country admits that the case against him is ludicrous.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I am giving the Secretary of State an example of the things that will not be stopped by his legislation. This will continue. The Bill does not solve the problem.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
The hon. Lady says that it is our problem. Our legislation drew a line in the sand which meant that things like that would never happen again. That case had already started, and if the hon. Lady were familiar with the legacy Act, she would know where the line in the sand was drawn.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was pointing out to the hon. Lady and the Minister for Veterans and People exactly the sort of problems that the legacy Act was designed to solve. There was obviously a cut-off point—[Interruption.] As I am sure the hon. Members know, the legacy Act had a cut-off point, and cases that had already started were not caught by that. I am giving an example of similar cases that will now come about because of their legislation. As Philip Barden KC wrote in The Spectator this week, the Government’s attempts to solve this issue, and the Government's proposed protections, are wholly inadequate to the task. They fail on their own test, because the Bill and the Government’s amendments “will permit repeat investigations.” Earlier, the Secretary of State raised the use of the word “essential”, and talked about new evidence. As Philip Barden pointed out, “Any lawyer worth their salt can find new evidence.” This might sound like a high bar, but it is an extremely low bar. All the while—throughout the year and more in which we have been dealing with this legislation—the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, set up by the legacy Act, has been doing its work. A few weeks ago, ICRIR published its first report, which laid out the details of Mr Rory O’Kelly’s murder by the IRA in 1977. That was an information-recovery exercise which concluded that no perpetrators were ever likely to be identified, but it still provided answers to questions that have haunted Mr O’Kelly’s family for half a century. His daughter described, in extremely moving terms, how the report had moved the family into a “space of serenity and light, all anger taken away”. Yet just as ICRIR has started working as intended, the Government are to reprogramme it into what two generals have described today as essentially a criminal investigations body, charged with collecting evidence to a criminal standard, although we know that the chance of prosecutions is incredibly unlikely. Those who work in ICRIR are desperately concerned that that will lead to a massive increase in their workload, with no increase in funding, and that it will inevitably mean long delays and distraction from the core information-recovery exercise, which was intended to be their central function. Those on the Government Benches may not want to take from me the case that I am making against this Bill, and I understand that, but they should take it from the retired generals and soldiers who have repeatedly spoken out.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
The hon. Lady speaks powerfully on this point, and she is absolutely right to say that many victims were people who served. I was talking about the way in which ICRIR works and is now being seen to work. Regardless of who was killed, it can be used by victims’ families in order to assist in the information-recovery process, and one of the advantages of ICRIR is that it is a non-adversarial system that has already started to enable families to find out things they did not know before. The hon. Lady is absolutely right: that process is very valuable, which is why it was put in the legacy Act by the previous Government. I hope that Labour Members, and anybody in the House who is thinking of supporting the continuation of this legislation, will listen to the two retired generals who wrote today that the Government should stop pretending that their amendments offer veterans meaningful protections. The consequence of continuing down this route will be that some men who served decades ago, like soldier B—not soldier B himself, but men like him—will spend years in the jaws of vexatious litigation, that victims will not receive the justice that they are being promised by this legislation, and that many more veterans will continue to live with the nagging sense that those using lawfare may come for them. They are already being punished by the idea of this legislation.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
The hon. Lady will know that her Government, when they came in, did not appeal against that case. We have a human rights framework that is wholly inadequate for dealing with cases from decades ago, and it is clear that the current Government would rather protect that framework than protect people from that period. The failings of this Bill, should it be passed, will be quickly seen and long felt. The House has the power to stop it tonight. If we do not and the Government persist, the next Conservative Administration will repeal it and once again draw a line under the troubles.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
May I say a huge thank you to everybody who has spoken in the debate this evening for the personal stories they have told, the tributes they have given to their constituents and the personal stories of constituents that they have told? This is a moment for the whole House to come together and reflect on the babies lost and on our responsibility to do everything we can to support families who go through the unimaginable and lose a baby or child, and to do everything we possibly can to prevent it happening to more families in the future. I thank the Members who secured the debate today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for the work that I know he has done on the APPG and for his courage in talking about his own experiences and his determined focus on the action that is needed. I also thank the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), one of my predecessors, who I know championed patient safety and maternity safety in particular. It is hugely welcome that he is still speaking out so strongly and has sat here throughout the entire debate this evening. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), who is doing such an incredible and invaluable job as our national maternity and neonatal adviser. I thank her for her work and the incredible job she is doing in ensuring that parents’ voices are heard, that babies are remembered and that change is driven forward for families in the future. Her work has been hugely powerful. I have seen the work that she has been doing with parents across the country and with the maternity taskforce. I thank everyone, because no one should underestimate the courage that it takes to talk about some of the most devastating personal experiences in such a public forum and in a way that is all about helping and giving comfort to others. They have brought an empathy and humanity that, if we are honest, we do not always show in this place, but we have come together to show them this evening. In particular, let me say that this debate is about Mallorie, Jasper, Jesse, Joshua, Nittaya, Chester, Kate, Harry, Alya, Aleah, Theo, Ida, Bran, Wynter, Harriet, Sebastian, Koupar, Teddy, Quinn, Aubrey, Grace, Poppy, Dexter, Luna, Theo, Siena, Rita, baby Ladybird and baby Collinge. We remember them all. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) said, on this Thursday evening at 7 pm, hundreds of parents in every one of our constituencies will light candles at home to remember babies who they have lost. It is something that spreads across the world, from one time zone to the next, as a global wave of light to unite parents from every continent in an act of collective grief. We will go on social media and see the pictures of burning candles posted by mums and dads. For those families, the sense of loss does not go away and it does not grow lighter or less painful, but on that day of 15 October, there is at least the knowledge that it is shared and that together, we hold a candle up to an issue that for too long has been hidden, ignored or dismissed. We are saying to every family who have faced the pain of losing a baby, “You are not alone, and you deserve support.” The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) raised an issue that I want to refer to. Earlier this evening, I had a conversation with Gina Jacobs, who lost her stillborn son Robert 57 years ago. At the hospital, he was taken away, and she never saw his face. Only years later did she discover that he had been buried in a mass grave without her knowledge. Just imagine the heartbreak of losing a child, followed by the pain of realising that something so important and personal had been kept from her. Across the decades, many bereaved parents have lost babies in NHS hospitals and been denied any say in, or any information about, what would happen to their remains. On behalf of the Government, I issue a profound apology to those parents—I have issued that apology to Gina today, but I issue it to so many more like Gina who have sought answers over many years. I am sorry for the unthinkable pain caused by those historic practices, because what happened to those parents should never have happened, and we need to ensure it can never happen again. While I have the time to do so, I want to also recognise the parents of baby Dexter from my constituency, because Dexter’s mum Sophie is in the Gallery this evening. I spoke to Sophie and Dale some months ago, before I became Health Secretary. Their story and Dexter’s story had a profound impact on me, and it is one of the reasons I am so determined to make maternity and neonatal care a priority for the NHS and for the Government. Dexter died in 2018, less than 24 hours after his birth, following hospital failures that were admitted years later. I have listened to Sophie talk about the concerns they had not being listened to and about failures in diagnosis, early intervention and treatment. They went through the unimaginable and were then unable to get answers, and eight years later, they are still navigating NHS complaints, regulators, legal processes, the coronial system and the parliamentary ombudsman, trying to get answers and accountability. I want to acknowledge Sophie’s determination and the courage it takes to be here today, and the commitment of so many parents who have been through the unimaginable and through that trauma, but who keep campaigning for others. All of us in this Chamber have a responsibility to Dexter’s family and to every family represented in this debate—a responsibility to listen, to learn and to act. As Sophie said to me earlier, trust begins with truth, and if you cannot get answers about what has happened, that compounds the anguish and the distress. That is why I have made maternity and neonatal care a priority; it is also why I want to recognise the wonderful care that so many midwives, consultants, support staff and health visitors in our NHS provide when families need it most, right across the country. However, we also know the devastating stories where things have gone wrong, where families did not get answers, and where so much more needs to be done. As part of our new maternity and neonatal taskforce, we need to ensure that we have a new national action plan drawn up, but also that work is done to establish a new modern services framework of proper standards across maternity and neonatal care. That is crucial because 25 years ago, when I was a junior Health Minister, I had responsibility for maternity services. That was a full quarter of a century ago. I was pregnant at the time, so Members can imagine that I had a particular interest in maternity services. One of the things that I announced at that time was that there should be a new set of standards, with a national services framework for maternity and child health. When I arrived in the Department as Secretary of State, I said, “What do we need to do to address the Amos report, the Ockenden reviews, the Kirkup review of Morecambe Bay and the many different reviews that we have had?” One of the responses I got was, “We need a modern services framework.” I asked how different that would be from the old framework, given that we would need to modernise the standards from the existing one. They said that the existing one does not exist, because it had just been allowed to lapse. We therefore did not have a set of national standards in place. We have to put that right, and I think there is collective determination on that. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) referred to the importance of national standards, and that is one of the things that needs to be done as part of the work of the taskforce, alongside the action plan. Right at the heart of this has to be listening to parents and in particular to mothers. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) spoke powerfully about her personal experience of feeling that she was left having to make choices or that she had to fight to be listened to. Nobody—no parent, no mother—should be in that situation. One reason that it is so important that we legislate for and appoint a new independent maternity and neonatal commissioner is that this issue cannot simply be something where a spotlight is shone when we have a debate in this House, when a new review comes out or when particular Health Secretaries say, “This is a priority.” It has to always be a priority for our health service, because it is about the very start of a family’s life. It is about some of the most important things that our national health service does. Many Members have talked about miscarriage, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who have talked about the importance of miscarriage care. We are working with Tommy’s to assess its findings in its miscarriage study, which is hugely important. It is important that miscarriage care is included as part of the modern services framework that we are drawing up. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) importantly talked about the impact that miscarriage care had on his constituent. That needs to be a central part of those standards and how we provide support for families in those circumstances. We should never underestimate the impact that miscarriage can have at different stages in a pregnancy, and the deep distress that can come from miscarriage through to stillbirth through to loss in neonatal care. At every stage, we must be aware of the long-lasting impact that loss can have on the family and the trauma that can be caused, too. Many Members referred to the importance of bereavement care and services. We are already putting additional investment of £9 million into bereavement suites. Seven-day-a-week bereavement services need to be the standard across maternity and neonatal settings. All trusts are reporting compliance with that, but we need to ensure that it is happening in practice. They have also been funded to provide specialist bereavement midwives. Those services are crucial, because every family needs time to grieve after losing a baby, and needs immediate support and care. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) spoke of the importance of the employment law reforms, and the fact that bereavement leave is now allowed for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. We know of the impact that such losses can have on families, and the importance of being able to provide support at that time. We are currently drawing up a new mental health strategy, and that needs to include not just post-natal depression but bereavement, and the distress and trauma that can be experienced as part of maternity. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) spoke about inequality issues, such as the fact that black women have an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and maternal mortality. It is shocking and deeply distressing that in the 2020s we are seeing inequalities of that kind, as well as seeing periods during which maternal mortality among some groups and in some areas has increased. That must be central to the work done by the maternity and neonatal taskforce. We will be setting out the targets and the progress that are needed and the action that we must take to address such inequalities, particularly those relating to ethnicity—we need to challenge racism—but also those involving deprivation. The right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale referred to the normal birth ideology. There is no place for any ideology in childbirth: childbirth has to be about the mums and the babies and safety, and about what is right for the family. As my hon. Friend said, it has to be about safety. It has to be about informed choice, and it has to be about compassion. No mother should ever feel the pressure to live up to a particular kind of ideal birth. As we know, we are all different, and services need to reflect and support that. The hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) spoke of the challenges that he has been facing, and the challenges that mothers and families have been facing, in his constituency. I know that later this week he will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest, the national maternity and neonatal adviser. I have spoken several times to the NHS chief executive exactly about what is happening in North Devon. I know that, because this is a workforce challenge, the hospital is taking action to increase recruitment, and that is crucial. It is unfair for families to be worrying, at a time when they should be looking forward to the birth of a new baby, about having to travel for two hours because local services are not open. We are looking into ways of ensuring that there is appropriate support for getting those services open in North Devon, but we are also looking at the workforce issues in other rural areas where more remote services are crucial and need to be provided and sustained, and we will continue to consider maternity issues in that context. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) raised the important subject of Group B strep. We have a trial under way. There will be a report within the next 12 months, and the information and evidence will go to the UK National Screening Committee, which will examine the issue of testing. I thank the hon. Lady’s constituent, who I understand has been campaigning for a long time. Let me also give a personal undertaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) to follow up the issue of the baby loss certificates directly with the Scottish Government. It is unthinkable that she could be left in such a distressing situation, and that others will be in a similar distressing situation, because of a lack of co-ordination between Governments with which we should be able to deal. I hope the House forgives me if I have not covered the other points that have been made. I am keen to follow up on the important points about CPR training, maternity triage, regulation and a series of other things, but I want to come back to a broader issue. It feels to me as though maternity services and neonatal services have not been taken seriously enough by the NHS and the Government for too long, and have too often been treated as a sidecar. Hospitals and acute trusts have a lot of things happening, but my sense is that the maternity unit has often been treated as a bit of a sidecar to the main hospital. Although there may be some brilliant work and support being done within a maternity unit, it is not always seen by the rest of the hospital and the rest of the trust, so when things go wrong, too often too little is done. When parents are not listened to and something goes awry with the support, care and compassion that are needed, often strong enough action is not taken to make sure that something is done. In those cases, it has meant that we have had mothers and babies treated as second-class patients. Mothers and babies should never be treated as second-class patients, because one of the most important things that our NHS does is to be there at the very start of a new family’s life. If we get that right for a new family, it supports them for the rest of their lives. I recognise the remarkable and wonderful care provided in many places, but I still have a strong sense that, overall, our NHS has not been giving start of life, maternity and neonatal services the priority that they really need to be given.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
I take very seriously the points that the hon. Member makes, and I look forward to talking to her in more detail very soon. The wider point that I want to make is that we are trying to implement many changes, and we are looking at different rules and different services. We are expanding Martha’s rule to all maternity and neonatal services so that there is a clear way—not just for women in labour and their families, but for staff in maternity services and neonatal services—to raise concerns, to ask for a second opinion and to make sure that we are building in the need to listen to families. However, all of this works only if it is part of a wider recognition that we have to give much greater priority to maternal and neonatal care. The final thought that I will leave with people is that tonight’s debate has been about baby loss and the most distressing of circumstances, but we know that if support is really to be about giving every family and child the best start in life, it cannot just be about childbirth. It is about what happens throughout maternity and in those first few years as well. That is why I think one of the other most important things we are doing is restoring the Sure Start health services to family hubs right across the country and going back to co-ordinated support—every service coming together to support families and babies at the very start of their life. I again thank everyone who has spoken in this debate.
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Rejoining the EU
On the topic of local businesses, 87% of my constituents voted to remain in the EU, but kitchen designer Neil Lerner told me that he had to close the doors on a family business that had lasted for more than 30 years because of a severe downturn in sales caused by Brexit, a local bakery told me that its paperwork nearly doubled before it closed because of Brexit, and—this is my personal favourite—John Atkins, who ran a flower stall next to the Royal Free hospital for nearly 40 years, said that, because of post-Brexit bureaucracy, the cost of tulips has gone up by 50% since 2020. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that Brexit has made our high streets significantly worse?
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Topical Questions
It took the DWP hotline 29 working days to respond to me about a constituent’s PIP arrears, and 39 working days to reply to a email about a reduction in state pension for one of my constituents. Can the Minister help me with this, please?
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State Pension Changes: Women Born in the 1950s
We want all pensioners, including women born in the 1950s, to have the comfortable retirements they deserve. That is why we are delivering on our twin priorities for pensioners: raising the state pension, and rescuing the NHS. We are also delivering the largest ever pension credit take-up campaign, which is particularly important for low-income pensioners, a disproportionate number of whom are women.
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State Pension Changes: Women Born in the 1950s
The Prime Minister and I opposed the 2011 acceleration of the state pension age by the coalition Government of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, in particular because it gave some women as little as five years’ notice of changes to their state pension age. Those same women have faced disadvantage in the workplace and very uneven burdens of caring responsibilities. I have recently written to WASPI representatives to set out the Government’s position. With legal proceedings ongoing, further comment is not appropriate, but I continue to hear from and to speak to women affected by the accelerated increases in the state pension age.
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State Pension Changes: Women Born in the 1950s
I thank the right hon. Member for his question; I just do not agree with the tone in which he asked it. This Government have considered the case set out by the ombudsman and provided a detailed response. I am afraid that the previous Government did nothing of the sort—they did not say they would proceed with a compensation scheme. In fact, the reason the ombudsman laid their report before Parliament, rather than to the Government, is that it was clear where the last Government were going with this.
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Pension Scheme Surpluses
The Government’s reforms provide greater flexibility for well-funded defined-benefit pension schemes to share surplus with employers and to benefit members. Scheme trustees, who must act in the interests of scheme beneficiaries, are best placed to determine the appropriate use of any surplus for their individual scheme. Trustees will agree how members can benefit, working with sponsoring employers.
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Pension Scheme Surpluses
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; he and I have met and discussed this issue on many occasions. Around three quarters of schemes already provide some pre-1997 indexation, but the hon. Gentleman is right to point out the strength of feeling on this. I have met with many MPs and scheme members, including those in south Wales who have been affected by lack of pre-1997 indexation on their defined benefit schemes. It is separate from the changes that we have already introduced for the Pension Protection Fund’s indexation. Trustees need to be in the driving seat. Employers will have no direct access to a scheme’s surplus. The flexibilities we have put in place through the Pension Schemes Act 2026 and the guidance being provided by the Pensions Regulator are already changing the nature of the discussion between trustees and employers, and will lead to a step change in this area.
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Pension Scheme Surpluses
Although I listened closely to much of the Conservative party’s conference—not quite all of it, but lots of it—I am still not clear what its policy is on the triple lock or on many other things in the pensions space. I have been paying a lot of attention, and what I have learned is that the shadow Foreign Secretary calls the triple lock a Ponzi scheme and the previous shadow Chancellor calls it completely unsustainable. The shadow Secretary of State knows she has a ridiculous position on reform of the state pension. This Government will put the state pension on a sustainable basis and address the other big challenge of ensuring an adequate private pension system. That is what the Pensions Commission will do.
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Topical Questions
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the challenges facing younger workers. They face exactly the same cost of living challenges as the rest of society, but often with added pressure when it comes to housing. The good news is that between 2012 and 2025, participation among employees aged 22 to 25 who are eligible for automatic enrolment increased from 28% to 85%. He is completely right that there is much more to do, and I can confirm that the Pensions Commission is exploring exactly these long-term questions.
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Topical Questions
This Government promised in our 2024 manifesto to ensure that the state pension in Scotland, England and Wales would rise every single year, and that is exactly what this Government are getting on with doing.
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Employment: Rural Areas
5. What steps he is taking to support employment in rural areas.
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Employment: Rural Areas
The Minister has been to my constituency and seen it for himself, so he knows about the challenges of administering and delivering benefits in the Western Isles, or Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The process could be made simpler if the verification of identity could be done virtually in some cases rather than requiring a home visit, which, for DWP staff, could involve travelling to other islands. The Minister also knows about the challenges posed by weather and the failed ferry system that we have inherited from the SNP. Will he consider changing the one-size-fits-all system of verifying claims and identities to take account of the rurality and the insularity of constituencies such as mine?
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International Update
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for highlighting the effect of Brexit on the salmon farming industry. Salmon farming is worth £189 million to the Western Isles, with £34 million of that direct, and over 200 jobs. Similarly, fishing is worth £16 million, with most of that prawn exports to Spain and France. We are physically furthest from that EU market, but we need that deal—we need to get our fish and our produce in. While we are at it, let us get a deal for our young people to get them studying and working again in Europe.
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Rejoining the EU
I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 749128 relating to the UK applying to rejoin the EU. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank Robert McMaster from Reading Central, who started the petition and is in the Gallery, as well as the 111,687 people who signed it, including 199 of my constituents. One of Mr McMaster’s biggest frustrations with Brexit is that it was never defined. It was not about what our future relationship would look like; it was simply about leaving the treaties on the European Union, and our post-Brexit relationship with the EU has left Britain worse off than if we had remained a member. People can feel that, and polling shows that most of the British public now regard Brexit as a mistake. In whose interest was Brexit? It was certainly in the interest of countries such as Russia that want to see Britain’s influence weakened and Europe fractured. With Brexit, that is what they got. With Russia doing everything it can to provoke further division and war in Europe, this petition is a good opportunity to ask ourselves not just whether we should rejoin the EU, but the much bigger questions of what relationship we want with Europe, why, and how we get there.
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Rejoining the EU
My hon. Friend raises a fundamental point. These are very real things that have been known for a long time, but we have not moved quickly enough to address them. I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement about that threat centre, because it is the only way that we can drill down beneath the surface of what is being said online and understand who is influencing our politics. The answers to those questions about what our future relationship should look like will determine how we secure our prosperity for the future.
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Rejoining the EU
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is not what just his constituents think; the polling shows it is what most people across the country think. My hon. Friend alludes to not just an economic argument but a much wider one about where we belong. I will dwell on the economics, because it is important to start with that. My constituency of Folkestone and Hythe is a good place to look at where things have gone wrong. We are home to the channel tunnel, which is one of the main gateways to Europe; for us, the relationship with Europe directly affects whether lorries move, whether businesses can recruit and whether exports reach customers, as well as whether our young people can seize opportunities abroad. It is fair to say that Mr McMaster’s case is, above all, an economic one. He argues that our relationship with the EU has made our economy smaller and our trading relationship with our nearest and largest markets more difficult.
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Rejoining the EU
I completely agree, and that is why it is so vital that progress is made immediately on the youth experience scheme, about which I would be grateful to hear from the Minister later. Every single economist agrees with Mr McMaster’s assessment that we have been left in a much worse economic position, and the experience of businesses in my constituency is proof that he is right. Alcaline, a major local employer, is an international haulage company that serves customers across Europe. Nearly a quarter of its fleet is currently off the road, not because it lacks work, but because its British drivers can only spend 90 in every 180 days in the Schengen area due to post-Brexit rules and EU drivers are hard to find because they need a work visa and have to deal with all the friction at the UK border. This is a major local business that should be expanding but, because of Brexit rules, is struggling to survive. It is a travesty that haulage firms across the country are going bust because of these kinds of post-Brexit rules.
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Rejoining the EU
I am grateful, Sir Edward. I will bear that in mind. I will take a very brief intervention from my hon. Friend and will be sparing thereafter.
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Rejoining the EU
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I will give her a further example—it will be my last. I have a sole trader in my constituency who has for three decades hand-made stringed instruments and exported his craftsmanship across the world. In some years, most of his sales went to the EU, but under post-Brexit rules, one Italian customer had to be charged around €1,000 in import costs on an instrument worth €3,200. That business faces post-Brexit red tape that is making it extremely difficult for him to compete. He describes it as “nail after nail being hammered into a coffin” for his business. We have heard of three different businesses that are in quite different environments but tell the same story: these post-Brexit trading arrangements have added cost, delay and uncertainty to British businesses that should be focusing on investment and growing. How can we be serious about reindustrialising our country while our British manufacturers are being hammered day after day by trading rules that are purely a creature of Brexit? In 2026 we cannot accept that status quo any longer. I fully support what the Labour Government have been doing to strengthen our ties with Europe—the work on the agrifood agreement, a youth experience scheme, Erasmus+ and a security and defence partnership are useful steps—but the measures that would make the most difference to our country are not in those draft agreements, at least as it appears so far. Given the need to reindustrialise our nation, the economic challenges that we face, the need to address irregular migration and, most fundamentally, the need for democratic and rule-of-law-respecting states to pull together and stand up for our values against Russia’s vile war of aggression in Ukraine, we cannot, as a country, afford to keep taking small steps away from the disastrous Brexit settlement that we have now. Instead, we should be looking at all the options for fundamentally refreshing our relationship with Europe, which I believe is strongly in the interests of British people, and the Prime Minister is absolutely right to be calling for a more ambitious approach.
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Rejoining the EU
I will take interventions a bit later. I will make some progress. Many of my constituents who voted to leave the EU, whose decision I respect, agree with me that, 10 years on, the world is changing. Technology is changing, migration flows are changing, our climate is changing, and wars start, spread and are fought differently. All that leaves us as a nation far more exposed to external shocks. I think that most people are pragmatic enough to see that when the world changes it is a good idea to ask ourselves how we should change with it. As a country, we have formidable strengths: the English language, the rule of law, a trusted legal system, world-class universities, financial and professional services, and leading science and research. Our future economic model should be to combine all those strengths and be the best place in Europe to invent, make, finance and export, but we will not achieve that by keeping rules that make it difficult for manufacturers to access their nearest market, for exporters to sell their goods or for companies to operate across borders. I want very quickly to say something about asylum and immigration, because it is an important element of why we must have closer relations with Europe. When we left the EU, we lost the returns agreement that we had with it and were left with no returns agreement at all. Small boat crossings then shot up. Today we are left negotiating one-off, ad hoc arrangements with individual countries—most recently with France—which are hard-won but too limited in scope to tackle the problem fully.
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Rejoining the EU
I need to press on, because of the time. We now have no access to the Eurodac fingerprint database, so we do not know how a person has travelled through Europe or whether they have already claimed asylum elsewhere. Despite all those constraints, the Government are making huge strides to reduce irregular crossings, but we could be making infinitely more progress if we were working inside the EU or more closely with it. We need practical co-operation with all our European partners, including action against people-smuggling networks, intelligence sharing and stronger enforcement, all of which will drive a faster, fairer asylum system here at home. In conclusion, I strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to investigate and set out the long-term options for our relationship with Europe, and I urge the Minister to make sure that membership is on the list of possible options. I am also keen to hear from him on the following points. First, what progress are the Government making in securing the agrifood agreement, access to the SAFE—Security Action for Europe—defence loans programme and the youth experience scheme? Secondly, what action are we taking to ensure that British manufacturing does not suffer as a result of the EU’s “Made in Europe” scheme? Thirdly, do the Government see any way forward based on our current—or even future—arrangements to negotiate away the 90/180 rule that has been so devastating to hauliers? Finally, what consideration are the Government giving to levying tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles so that we can have alignment with the EU and protect our domestic car industry? Mr McMaster, the petitioners, businesses and many people in Folkestone and Hythe who want a closer relationship with Europe are not asking us to turn back wistfully; they are asking for hope again. They are asking for recognition that we are all paying a Brexit bill: our manufacturers, our farmers, our universities, our young people, our hospitality sector—I could go on. Brexit has not served our national interest. The world we now find ourselves in demands new choices about how we can prosper in the years ahead. I thank the petitioner and those who signed the petition and look forward to hearing from colleagues and the Minister about how we move forward.
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Rejoining the EU
I thank all hon. Members for turning up today and speaking in this debate. It is interesting that we have had one Conservative MP, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), a Reform MP—the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) is almost out the door, but I am going to acknowledge him all the same; he has left his colleague the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) in his place—and the shadow Minister speak up to defend the status quo. Their defence of the current Brexit rules referred to evidence that, I think it is fair to say, was selectively referenced and in denial of where the weight of the evidence is. I will start with the remarks of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, who challenged the idea that Brexit has damaged our economy and referred to the fact that the GDP of other countries is lower than ours. But that is not the point: the comparison is with the situation that we would have had if we had not left the European Union. That point was made earlier. The National Bureau of Economic Research has found that our GDP was 6% to 8% lower by the end of 2025 than it would have been if we had not left the EU. It also found that investment in the UK was 12% to 13% lower, employment was 3% to 4% lower and productivity was 3% to 4% lower; the OBR agrees. The hon. Member also minimised the significance of individual examples given by numerous hon. Members in this room about Brexit-related red tape and British exporters. But the evidence is clear: our trade volumes are billions less than before Brexit. For example, a study by the LSE found that in 2022, there was £27 billion less in goods exports, which is a 6% reduction compared with the no-Brexit counterfactual, and 14% of firms stopped exporting to the EU altogether after post-Brexit trading arrangements came into force. That research found that smaller firms were particularly affected by those arrangements, whereas larger firms were able to absorb the additional costs. That is what hon. Members are seeing all over the country.
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Rejoining the EU
I fear that the hon. Member’s points have not moved with the evidence, but I will give him a chance to respond.
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Rejoining the EU
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention but as far as I can see, none of what he said is relevant to the question of whether any of his points are well founded. The evidence is as I have read out. He needs to engage with the weight of the evidence, not the selective examples that those who oppose a closer relationship with Europe ultimately rely on.
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Rejoining the EU
I will not. The hon. Member for East Wiltshire, who is not here any more, at least accepted that our exports have been hit by Brexit, but his point was different. He said that where we have used our Brexit freedoms, we are better off. He seemed to be saying that where we do not have alignment, we are doing better. I am afraid that is not correct. UK firms that have to comply with multiple regulatory regimes will obviously incur greater costs to be able to trade with multiple markets. I have heard consistently from businesses that, as all hon. Members have said today, it is where we have no alignment that there have been disastrous consequences for businesses. The 90/180 rule the Minister referred to as being a fixity for now, which was negotiated by the Opposition, is just one example of those problems. Even if there were some benefits from regulatory divergence, they pale in comparison to the damage done to our economy by Brexit, so the thesis of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex is wholly unsupported by the weight of the evidence. The hon. Member also doubted whether the asylum returns agreement we had with the EU was ever used. The fact is that we sent back more people than we took under that agreement until 2016, the year of the Brexit vote, so it was a useful tool for addressing irregular migration. In any event, its absence was relied on and manipulated by smugglers to drum up business. The consequence of that was the boat numbers going up. I accept that this debate will not end today. It has been a lively debate. I thank the Minister for his remarks and clarifications. I thank the petitioner, Mr McMaster, for creating this opportunity for Parliament to debate this important issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) said, these are conversations that have never gone away. They are constantly brought back to me in my constituency work, as they are for other hon. Members. I hope that, as the Prime Minister said, these conversations will lead to progress on a matter that is at the heart of how to build a prosperous nation for the future. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered e-petition 749128 relating to the UK applying to rejoin the EU.
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Topical Questions
Young workers are facing real challenges in their living standards, particularly because their housing costs dwarf those faced by the generations that came before them. That is leading many to reduce the contributions they make to their workplace pensions, or even to forgo making them entirely, at the risk of having inadequate pensions when they retire. Will the Pensions Commission make recommendations on how to address those challenges?