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12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Calum Miller

   International Update

   I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to the new national centre for information defence. It is a critical factor in preserving the integrity of our democracy, but he will be aware that the US State Department intends to spend tens of millions of pounds promoting ideological propaganda and supporting far-right parties in western Europe, potentially including the UK. Will he give the House the assurance that the new national centre will be free to go where it needs to go, without fear or favour, in investigating misinformation and disinformation, and that, where necessary, that will include the activities of the United States?

   Hansard source
2. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Ben Maguire

   International Update

   The US President’s disastrous war in the middle east has massively driven up the price of liquified petroleum gas and heating oil in my rural constituency. Pensioners and struggling families will be forced to leave their heating off, risking their health. As reducing bills is the Prime Minister’s stated priority, will he please consider removing VAT from heating oil and LPG, and include them in the energy price cap?

   Hansard source
3. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Alison Bennett

   Baby Loss Awareness Week

   I thank the hon. Members for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) and for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), and the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), for their advocacy for better maternity care and for their opening speeches. I want to begin by talking about an extraordinary woman, my constituent Jane Plumb, from Haywards Heath, and her son Oliver, and the work that they have done with their colleagues in running a charity called Group B Strep Support. They visited Parliament in the summer, and some hon. Members came along to learn more about their campaign, which calls for all expectant mothers to be offered GBS-specific tests late in pregnancy as part of their antenatal care. If that test were offered, more babies could be protected from a life-threatening infection. I spent some time this afternoon looking at the Group B Strep Support website, and found the history of the charity. I knew that Jane set up the charity after her baby, Theo, died from the infection, and that she had been working on it for decades since then. The first time I saw a photograph of her at Parliament was outside this building with David Cameron; then, a few years later, she met my predecessor, Sir Nicholas Soames, and Theresa May, again while campaigning. That gives hon. Members a sense of the decades that she has put into fighting for babies not to have the same outcome as baby Theo. The second set of constituents I want to reflect on are the families in Mid Sussex who are part of the Truth for Our Babies campaign. Since last year’s debate to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, progress has been made for the families in Sussex who lost their babies, the families whose babies were harmed and the mums who were harmed themselves. In last October’s debate, I called for the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), to listen to the calls from those families and the Truth for Our Babies campaign. Their ask was quite clear: an independent review into maternity services at the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust led, critically, by Donna Ockenden. It was not until April, six months later, that their requests were met. In the intervening months, the meetings that those families convened with the right hon. Member for Ilford North were raw, emotional and stark. They are meetings I will not forget. I wish the bereaved parents from Truth for Our Babies had not been put in the position where they felt they had no choice but to lay out their babies’ stories again and again in order to be heard. As so many hon. Members can attest, the distress, pain and exhaustion felt by parents and families tragically stretches on beyond the loss of the baby. It is right and proper that these families receive reviews to better understand what went wrong and to stop things going wrong in the future. I am of course glad that the Sussex maternity review is now under way, but when I receive extremely concerning correspondence from my constituents, such as that which I will briefly go on to quote, I have serious doubts about the way in which reviews are being conducted. My constituent tells me that “there is currently no funding available to cover families’ travel expenses to review meetings and that no remuneration arrangements are in place for our time, expertise and emotional labour.” My constituent rightly notes that this is “particularly concerning given the review’s commitment to being inclusive and non-discriminatory.” That is despite the fact that National Institute for Health and Care Research guidance is clear about the importance of properly resourcing public involvement. It recommends payment for public contributors’ time, skills and expertise, alongside reimbursement of reasonable expenses such as for travel. The guidance recognises that financial barriers can prevent people from participating and that appropriate payment and expenses are important to ensuring that involvement is accessible and inclusive. If families cannot afford the cost of travel or to take time away from work or caring responsibilities, and if they repeatedly revisit traumatic experiences without appropriate recognition and support, the evidence gathered will inevitably be incomplete and potentially fuel the inequalities already in place. I hope that Department of Health and Social Care officials and the Secretary of State will reflect on that. I would be happy to engage with them further as a matter of urgency. I also ask the Secretary of State whether she will heed Group B Strep Support’s calls for screening to be put in place for all expectant women.

   Hansard source
4. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Green·Dr Ellie Chowns

   International Update

   I congratulate the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali), who was with us here earlier, and warmly welcome her to her place in this House. I also warmly welcome much of what the Prime Minister’s international update contained, particularly his recognition of Brexit’s disastrous effects on our country—as far as I am concerned, the faster we move to rejoin, the better—but there was no mention of the climate crisis. Does he not recognise that the climate crisis is one of the biggest international challenges facing us, that it requires us to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and that therefore—given that COP31 is coming up next month—the Government must rule out Jackdaw and Rosebank, and move with all speed to the future of clean, green, renewable energy on which this country’s future prosperity depends?

   Hansard source
5. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Green·Carla Denyer

   Rejoining the EU

   It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. It was and remains a tragedy that we threw away the right to work, study, live and love in 27 countries. That is something felt deeply in my constituency, which a recent YouGov poll found demonstrates the strongest support in the country for rejoining the EU. Nationally, too, support for rejoining the EU is at an all-time high, with 61% of the country in favour—and no wonder, when all of us in the room today can think of and provide many examples of the economic disasters visited on our own communities as a result of Brexit. It bears repeating that Brexit has led to a 4% long-run productivity loss and, as we recently learned, has cost upwards of £208 million to the creative sector, which we particularly treasure in Bristol. To give an example, the owner of a music venue in my constituency recently said to The Guardian that the consequences are still “being felt in cancelled tours, lost work...and fewer opportunities for audiences on both sides of the Channel.” Add to that the millions of EU citizens living in the UK who are in limbo over their citizenship position, and all the opportunities that are lost because it is harder for UK citizens to travel, work and study in the EU. In a multitude of ways, the UK has been left worse off after Brexit, as we have heard in speech after speech today. It is more vulnerable to food prices, less safe from harmful chemicals and lagging behind on air quality standards in the face of an air pollution scandal that is killing tens of thousands of people every year. What we have heard recently from the Prime Minister is a welcome start: Brexit has indeed “done more harm than good”. Now we need the Prime Minister to be unequivocal and clear, drop his party’s red lines, and prioritise our future prosperity and wellbeing by working to rejoin in full. There are forces that continue to try to create fear and division. We have now heard the PM confirm that there was Russian interference in the referendum, so we must have robust leadership from the Government on rejoining to build a better, more equal, outward-looking society. The Green party has been clear that we should rejoin the EU as soon as there is a settled majority in favour of doing so. We have long since met that threshold. We need to be back at Europe’s decision-making table.

   Hansard source
6. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Roger Gale

   State Pension Changes: Women Born in the 1950s

   It is several years since the ombudsman reported on this matter. As I recall, the last Government agreed to accept the recommendations of the ombudsman. To echo the point made by the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), many of these ladies will be dead before they see any money at all. When will the Government stop messing around and do something?

   Hansard source
7. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Roger Gale

   International Update

   I am quite sure that the whole House will applaud the Prime Minister’s reaffirmation of this country’s support for Ukraine and will support the additional sanctions that we are seeking to impose. President Trump has effectively driven a coach and horses through those sanctions, has torn up the bill that he himself signed in the White House and, for the sake of his domestic audience, is seeking to blame President Zelensky and Ukraine for the oil shortages that the United States is now facing, rather than placing that blame where it truly lies, which is with his disastrous expedition in Iran. The Prime Minister did not answer the question from the leader of the Liberal Democrats. Will he answer it now? Will he join my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in unequivocally condemning this act of treachery by the President of the United States?

   Hansard source
8. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Oliver Dowden

   International Update

   Iran clearly views this country as its enemy, and I fear that it smells weakness. It has attempted to attack Diego Garcia, Akrotiri and now Fairford. Does the Prime Minister agree that this demands a robust response, and will he confirm that if Iran is successful in attacking one of our bases, we will use direct action against it in legitimate self-defence? Will he provide enhanced support and assistance to our friends and allies who are under constant attack from Iran and its proxies—not just Saudi Arabia, but the United Arab Emirates and Israel?

   Hansard source
9. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Julian Lewis

   International Update

   As the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee who oversaw the publication of the Russia report as soon as the Committee was reconstituted, may I ask the Prime Minister to explain to the House exactly how he thinks Russia was able to alter the result of the referendum?

   Hansard source
10. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Hunt

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I thank the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for that excellent opening speech. I also thank him and the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for co-sponsoring the debate with me. Most of all, however, I thank the parents who have lost children, and who took me on a journey on this issue when I was Health Secretary. I am thinking of James Titcombe, who lost his son Joshua at Morecambe Bay; of Carl Hendrickson, who lost his wife Nittaya and his son Chester at Morecambe Bay; of Richard Stanton and Rhiannon Davies, who lost their daughter Kate at Shrewsbury and Telford; of Derek Richford, who lost his grandson Harry at East Kent. They, and many others, are watching this debate and can see that the Health Secretary is here. I thank her for being here for this Backbench Business debate; it means an awful lot, and I know that she cares about the issue. I start by recognising that some progress has been made. Since I first stood at the Dispatch Box in 2014 with the Morecambe Bay inquiry, which was the first of many maternity safety inquiries, the neonatal deathrate has fallen by 21%—about 700 fewer deaths a year—but that is not good enough. The fall in death rates plateaued in 2020 and has not got much better, and since then we have had a worrying rise in maternal deaths. The 2025 target to halve neonatal deaths that I set in 2017 was missed. There are three problems behind our lack of progress. First—and this is something for which I am partially responsible—there are too many recommendations. Earlier this year, Baroness Amos counted 748 maternity safety recommendations, mainly since 2015. The NHS is a world champion at doing reports into maternity safety, but sadly not a world champion at implementing the recommendations made. It is encouraging that the Health Secretary says that there will be a recommendations hub, but could she give it real teeth, so that there is a timescale within which the NHS will decide if it is going to adopt a recommendation and, if it is going to, a person responsible for implementing it within the vast labyrinth that is the NHS? Could she give a timescale so that we and our constituents all know that something really is going to happen?

    Hansard source
11. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Hunt

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and his point closely links to the second of my three reasons, which is that we have still not, after all this time, implemented proper continuity of care. That should mean that every mother, from the moment she is told that she is pregnant, is assigned one team of doctors and midwives to be with her throughout pregnancy, birth and even after the birth. Clinical teams that know their patients are much more likely to identify risk when it happens and to avoid tragedies. That lack of continuity of care sits behind the feeling that we heard about in the speech by the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen: parents saying time after time that they feel forgotten in the system.

    Hansard source
12. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Hunt

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I thank my hon. Friend for that very powerful personal experience. I am concerned about this idea of women being moved from having no team to a high-risk team, because it cannot always be known in advance if someone is high risk. It is knowing every woman’s situation continuously that enables a team to understand whether she is deteriorating and whether, therefore, she is in need of specialist help. The third reason we still have this problem after all this time is the one I really want to focus on: the ideological obsession that still exists in some parts of the NHS with so-called natural or normal birth. That leads to the promotion of vaginal birth over and above C-sections in a way that, all too often, sees interventions and escalations happen too late, and mothers and babies die. I do not ask the House to take my word for it, as some of the reports have commented on this issue. Bill Kirkup, who did the Morecambe Bay report, said that maternity services at Furness general hospital “became strongly influenced by a small number of dominant individuals whose over-zealous pursuit of the natural childbirth approach led at times to inappropriate and unsafe care.” Donna Ockenden told the Select Committee about Shrewsbury and Telford: “We have spoken to hundreds of women who said to us that they felt pressured to have a normal birth. My clinical team said they have seen examples, even in situations where a normal birth in their own hospital would be contraindicated, of women being pressured”. She said there was “a multi-professional…focus on normal birth at pretty much any cost.” Again, at the launch of the Nottingham inquiry, Donna Ockenden said there were hundreds of cases where “the quest for normal birth continued. And avoidance of intervention persisted”. Finally, in Leeds, Fiona Winser-Ramm told The Times she was convinced that “normal birth” ideology played a part in the death of her daughter, Aliona.

    Hansard source
13. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Hunt

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I defer to the hon. Gentleman’s clinical experience, but I absolutely agree with him. He has hit the nail on the head. Before I come on to my solutions, I want to say why I think this is still a problem. Very senior voices are still promoting “normal birth” ideology, including a former president of the Royal College of Midwives who told LBC in June: “Doctors have taken over maternity, and they’re not doing it very well.” It really is time to stop denying the problem and start solving it. Never again should the promotion of an ideology about a so-called preferable type of birth lead to a mother or baby being put at risk.

    Hansard source
14. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Hunt

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I thank my hon. Friend for her courage in talking about her personal experience, which says it better than I ever could. That leads me to my conclusion and what I think are the solutions. First, bringing together the points made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley), we need a total overhaul of midwifery education to make it clear that there has to be teamwork around every birth. It is not midwives versus doctors; it is midwives and doctors working together for the safe delivery of every single child. Secondly, we need a shared agreement across both professions about what risk is, and about when escalation is required—total agreement about the moment for intervention—so that something such as my hon. Friend describes never happens again. Finally, we need to rehumanise the whole process through which the NHS takes care of pregnant mothers and newly born babies so that from the moment of pregnancy, every mother is assigned one team of doctors and midwives who are responsible for that mother and child right the way through pregnancy and after birth. No one should ever be turned into a number or a type of care. Everyone is a human being and should always treated that way by the NHS. This week we are here to remember the babies and mothers who should be here but are not. We recognise the progress that has been made in their name, but we also have a duty to the families to be humble about the failures as well.

    Hansard source
15. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Edward Leigh

    Rejoining the EU

    Order. Mr Vaughan, a very large number of people want to take part in the debate, and I am endeavouring to get in everybody who wants to give a speech. Perhaps you might bear that in mind before taking too many interventions.

    Hansard source
16. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Edward Leigh

    Rejoining the EU

    Order. A large number of colleagues wish to take part in the debate—I see very many Labour MPs—and I want to accommodate you all, so I am afraid that I will have to impose a four-minute limit on speeches. I remind you that we have worked that out so that everybody can get in, so the more interventions you take, the more likely you are to be stopping a colleague getting in and giving a speech that they have written so carefully.

    Hansard source
17. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Edward Leigh

    International Update

    Will the Prime Minister forgive me if I put some words in his mouth? Does he think this is a reasonable statement: “Look, I have been elected by my MPs to serve a full term of government. I am going to get on with bread-and-butter issues, such as the care system, pensions and asylum. Of course, we like a good, close relationship with our partners on security in Europe, but”—this is the Prime Minister speaking—“I say this to the people: I am very wary about reopening the whole Brexit wars. There were years of harrowing negotiations and an even worse deal. I give an absolute commitment that I will not seek to join the EU unless there is a general election first and I offer the British people a full referendum”?

    Hansard source
18. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    Listening to this debate is amusing, but rather depressing in other ways. There is a heartfelt hope among a great many people here that rejoining the EU would somehow be transformative for the British economy, which they think has done much worse as a result of being outside the EU. [Interruption.] That is the thesis, isn’t it? Let’s look at the facts. The UK economy has outgrown France and Germany since we left the EU in 2021. In fact, some of our economic growth is a direct result of leaving the EU. We have not over-regulated our tech sector in the way that the EU has, so we are getting the lion’s share of inward investment and far greater gross value added in that sector than France or Germany. Interestingly, the tech sector has been excluded from the EU reset talks. Before covid, the City of London employed some 500,000 people. Today, over 680,000 people are employed in the City. The financial services sector is booming outside the EU because we have scrapped MiFID II, the bonus cap and regulations on derivatives trading, and all the people who left because of the fear campaign are coming back. What is the basis for saying the EU has damaged our economy except for these two forecasts, which are conjectural projections and not things that have happened? They are not facts. They are quoted by the OBR and the Treasury and the Prime Minister believes them, and I am sure there is sincere belief in those figures across Westminster Hall today, but they are not facts. The only facts are that the UK economy has grown by 7.9% over that period, while France’s economy has grown by 6.8% and Germany’s economy has grown by only 1.1%. I was not aware that Germany or France had left the EU and that their economies had been damaged by their leaving, but that is the basis on which we are being told that we have damaged our economy.

    Hansard source
19. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    No, I will not give way; I am going to be very brief. Services exports to the EU have rocketed, because there is no single market in services and we export a huge amount to the EU, as we do to the rest of the world. Overall, our trade has boomed since Brexit; our trade with the EU and the rest of the world combined has grown very substantially. Does anybody know what proportion of GDP is represented by goods exports to the EU? Hon. Members are quoting all these businesses from their constituencies, but how representative are they of the economy as a whole? The EU may be our single biggest export market, but it represents only 6% of our GDP. Hon. Members are looking very puzzled, because people have brainwashed themselves. They think that trade is the entire economy, but it is not; trade is only a proportion of the economy. Our trade with the rest of the world has expanded much more in comparison with our period in the single market. For example, between 1997 and 2019, when we were in the single market, goods exports to non-EU countries grew by 85%, but goods exports to the EU fell from 10% to 7.8%. Our exports to the EU were already declining. Why was that? It was because the internal market is a failure. The countries that form the internal market today represented 30% of global GDP when we joined the single market in 1992. These are Library figures that I am citing, by the way; Members can go and check them out. Today, the EU represents 17.3% of global GDP. It is declining; it is losing global share. The United States had 25% of global GDP in 1992 and it still has 25% of global GDP. Why is that? It is because its economy is much less regulated, it has much lower taxes, it rewards enterprise and risk, and it is not mired in the Code Napoléon and the way of cautiously regulating everything that the EU is. If the EU could deregulate, it would possibly be in our economic interests to join it, but it is incapable of deregulating. Therefore, the case for joining the single market has collapsed in the few minutes in which I have been speaking.

    Hansard source
20. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    That reporting was from a self-selecting group of businesses. The doppelganger model included the United States, which is not a comparable economy to the United Kingdom. It also included eastern European states like Estonia that are growing very fast, which is not a sensible comparison. But in any case, those figures were just projections. The facts show that we have grown faster than our two main competitors in the European Union and the hon. Gentleman cannot accept that. He thinks that our economy would have been between 4% and 8% bigger by 2025 than it would have been without Brexit, so we would have been growing even faster than we have grown—that is what he is saying—and very considerably faster than we did when we were in the European Union.

    Hansard source
21. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the polls. When people are asked about whether particular areas of policy in the United Kingdom should be controlled by the EU, the result is always a negative. Farming, trade policy or financial services—whatever the question, it is a negative. When it comes to the money, if we rejoined, we would probably have to join without any of the rebates that Margaret Thatcher negotiated, so our gross contribution would be something like £30 billion a year—about 0.5% of GDP. The British people would never vote to rejoin the European Union if they thought they would have to prop up the EU budget and subsidise other EU countries.

    Hansard source
22. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    On the 6% share of GDP in exports of goods to the EU, what the Government are recommending is that we let the tail wag the dog. For the sake of trying to expand that share of our economic activity, which actually declined while we were in the single market, we are going to regulate the other 94% of the British economy that does not export goods to the EU. Does the Minister not get the point? We expanded our trade with the rest of the world by 85%—that was in the figures I gave earlier—without any free trade deals, or any agreements to abolish tariff barriers or to stop paying tariffs. In share of GDP, the rest of the world is growing and the single market is shrinking. Why are we shackling ourselves to a regulatory regime that crushes innovation and crushes economic growth when the world is our oyster outside the EU? Yes, we have failed to exploit those opportunities, but that is what the Government should be doing and that is what the next Conservative Government will do.

    Hansard source
23. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Rejoining the EU

    The logic of the Government’s position is that because Canada sends 75% of its exports to the United States of America, they had better join the United States and give up their sovereignty in order to get rid of barriers to trade. The idea that Canada will become an associate member of the EU and that the EU is going to be able to get a grip of Canada seems rather fanciful, but can the hon. Gentleman explain why the Carney logic about the UK being in the single market does not apply to his own country?

    Hansard source
24. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Ashley Fox

    Youth Hubs

    Over the last two years, the Government have increased the cost of employing young people with higher national insurance charges on employers and imposed the 350 pages of additional regulation contained in their “unemployment rights Act”. Does the Minister agree that the best way of reducing youth unemployment is to cut the cost of employing young people rather than an endless array of hubs, grants, schemes and guarantees?

    Hansard source
25. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Andrew Mitchell

    International Update

    On the Prime Minister’s international agenda, should he not also focus on the appalling humanitarian situation in Darfur, Sudan, and avoid making policy on Israel, the timing of which enhances Netanyahu’s prospects of re-election? On Yemen, as well as defending Saudi Arabia from the outrageous Houthi attacks, should the Prime Minister not use Britain’s deep historical links and connections to Yemen to support constitutional negotiations and prevent the situation from getting any worse?

    Hansard source
26. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Simon Hoare

    International Update

    Irrespective of how we voted in the referendum, I hope the Prime Minister will agree that if one wants to be called a democrat, one has to abide by that decision and make it work, but the Windsor framework illustrates that no deal is ever cast into tablets of stone and that things are capable of sensible evolution. Will the Prime Minister accept that at this time, as always, businesses large and small, urban and rural, need certainty? They need to know the regulatory regime in which they are trading, the opportunities that exist and the barriers that they may need to overcome. Will he commit that, whatever evolution he is envisaging, it will be delivered speedily to be able to give confidence, certainty and clarity to North Dorset businesses and those across the country?

    Hansard source
27. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sarah Bool

    Draft Human Rights Act 1998 (Remedial) Order 2026

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. As the Minister has set out, the regulations are being laid to implement the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment in SW v. United Kingdom, application number 87/18, to allow for damages in respect of a judicial act done in good faith where the judicial act is incompatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights on the right to respect for a private and family life. We are here today because, under section 4 of the Human Rights Act, when a provision of legislation is found to be incompatible with the ECHR a Minister may, under section 10, make an order to make such amendments to the legislation as the Minister considers necessary to remove the incompatibility. Remedial orders are therefore powerful legislative instruments used to amend primary legislation. I wonder about the decision taken to make this change using a remedial order rather than primary legislation, given the time that has passed. The family court laid down its judgments in 2014 and the Court of Appeal in 2016, and the European Court made its ruling in 2021. The Government have argued the rationale is that they “consider there is little prospect of finding suitable primary legislation to make an amendment in the near future”— which is perhaps more revealing of the quality and suitability of much of the Government’s legislation during this Parliament. It is important to remember that the limitation in the Human Rights Act on the availability of damages in proceedings in respect of a judicial act done in good faith is there to preserve the principle of judicial immunity, a principle that is a key aspect of judicial independence—a cornerstone of a democracy. Any amendments to it therefore have to be carried out with the greatest care and consideration. The debate today demonstrates the challenges that are faced by the two sovereign powers of the EU and the UK. It is becoming increasing clear that the ECHR repeatedly ties Ministers’ hands, blocking the democratic decisions of this place and frustrating the will of our constituents. The prime example: over 83,000 people have crossed the channel under Labour. I am afraid that the Government may have to recognise that as long as we stay shackled to the ECHR, foreign criminals can use the courts to block deportation, meaning that we will never be able to deter illegal channel crossings—[Interruption.] Do not worry, Sir Desmond, I am moving on. I highly recommend to any member of the Committee the report by Lord Wolfson, the shadow Attorney General, on our position on the ECHR. As he says himself, “the ECHR places significant legal constraints on the Government’s ability” to address issues such as immigration. Leaving would allow us to “legislate freely on any of the issues raised in this paper, without being tied to the expansive interpretation of human rights that has been developed by the European Court of Human Rights” For as long as the European Court of Human Rights regards the ECHR as “a ‘living instrument’ such that its decisions, and in consequence those of domestic courts, are not constrained by the actual wording of the ECHR itself” we will have problems. As a society, we can either continue to pass statutory instruments and orders piecemeal, as we are today, as the EU’s jurisprudence expands, or we can take decisive actions based on our own laws and the strength of this place.

    Hansard source
28. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sarah Bool

    Draft Human Rights Act 1998 (Remedial) Order 2026

    I invite the Minister to acknowledge that the interpretation the ECHR has expanded far beyond what was intended when it was first created in that post-war period.

    Hansard source
29. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sarah Bool

    International Update

    If the Prime Minister is so keen to support our farmers, there is one step he could take that is entirely within his control, which is to scrap the family farm tax. Will he do so, and show a genuine commitment to our farmers?

    Hansard source
30. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Saqib Bhatti

    International Update

    The whole House will have noted that when the Prime Minister was asked about freedom of movement, he evaded the question. May I ask him directly—it is a simple yes or no—to say that in any future negotiation on rejoining the EU, freedom of movement will not be on the table?

    Hansard source
31. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Saqib Bhatti

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    The hon. Gentleman is incredibly generous in giving way and is making an excellent speech. When there is a gap with therapeutic care, there are charities, such as the Lily Mae Foundation in my constituency, that fill it. We have also talked about Sands and Tommy’s—there are lots of charities out there that need support as they do that important work. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should consider more support for them as well?

    Hansard source
32. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Saqib Bhatti

    Baby Loss Awareness Week

    I start by paying tribute to all the excellent speakers who have shared their story with the utmost bravery. This debate is one I have attended since I was first elected, and it is the only debate I know during which the Doorkeepers, quite rightly, distribute tissues. I am the vice-chair of the APPG on baby loss, and I pay tribute to everyone who has contributed to this debate and to the inquiry that the APPG has carried out. I will start with a slightly more positive story, which is a personal one, but while the outcome is positive, this is relevant to some of the experiences we have heard about. We have just welcomed our third baby—he is about seven months old—and we had the good fortune to attend the midwifery unit at Warwick hospital. It is not in my constituency, but I would still encourage the Secretary of State to go to visit it, which I am sure the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) would welcome. We had a very positive experience in the sense that the midwives were really good in their communication. I am going to protect my baby’s identity, but he has crazy hair, so I am going to call him baby Elvis. However, when baby Elvis came out, he was not breathing. I remember the moment, because the midwife had pressed the panic alarm and he came out and he was grey. I suppose I am speaking about it today because my wife has been trying to get me to talk about it for about seven months and I haven’t. And now I will do it in front of the TV cameras; she is a very patient woman. What I remember in those moments—my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) talked about CPR—was that the midwife just went straight into action. I did not realise that the room had filled up with health professionals from across the hospital. It was quite a sight to see when I turned around, once everything had settled down. In the moment I thought, “Oh my god, we’re about to become another statistic,” but the midwives worked their magic. The support needed by non-birthing partners has come up in the debate. I do not want to take away anything from mothers and what they go through—clearly, they go through everything, as we have heard—but there is a call that whatever support is provided takes into account partners and parents too. I admit that I have thought about that moment many, many times in the past seven months and I still do—those images do not leave you—so I hope that, in anything the Secretary of State can do and will do, they are taken into account. In the limited time I have, I am going to make a few calls and recognise some of the charities I have worked with in my locality. There is work on a national framework to ensure that standards are put in place. Of course, any standards that are put in place will need key performance indicators and accountability along with them. I am sure the Secretary of State is looking at that and I welcome her being in her place today. Many parents go through the NCT—National Childbirth Trust—training, but we went through a private provider called Bump to Baby. One key thing that came up was the training to be able to challenge what was given to us—my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford spoke about this—and to have the confidence to be able to say no or to ask why. That really helped us as a family to talk about our baby. The midwives, recognising that there were questions that needed to be answered, spent a lot of time answering questions afterwards—they really went over and above. The training during pregnancy is really important because it gives parents the power in their arsenal to be able to ask those questions. The point about data and miscarriages has been made. It has also been made to me by my constituents, so I hope the Secretary of State can clarify what thought process she is going through around collecting data on miscarriages. In my intervention earlier on the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae), I mentioned the Lily Mae Foundation. I met Amy and Ryan, who set up the foundation over a decade ago and who have recently received the British Empire Medal. It is a smallish charity that punches way above its weight and they are incredibly strong in what they do. They have given therapy to over 1,000 parents grieving baby loss. They have supported professionals by giving them training, too. They pointed out the postcode lottery that does occur. Smaller charities do not always get the support and they are being asked to do more with less, so that is an important point that I wanted to stress. They see first-hand that increased load. I want to pay tribute to a couple of friends of mine. Baby loss can touch anybody and they have gone through it in the past couple of months. They experienced it at Musgrove Park hospital. They were really keen for me to stress how great the labour team were, but they did see grieving bereaved parents next to families who were celebrating a birth. Clearly, that disparity still continues and it is one I have seen in other hospitals, too. Perhaps the Secretary of State could reflect on that, pay tribute to the staff of Musgrove Park and recognise baby Merlin, who they sadly lost. Finally, on Thursday at St Philip’s church in Dorridge, many of my constituents will be gathering for the “Wave of Light” service and the windmill dedication set up by the TeddyRose Foundation.

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33. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Robbie Moore

    The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Calculation of CBAM Rate and Determination of Carbon Price Relief) Regulations 2026

    We are about to vote on a statutory instrument that will impose an additional tax on our farmers, going over and above the many other overheads that they are experiencing as a result of this Government. Fertiliser is already one of the most volatile and expensive inputs for many of our farmers and growers. Industry analysts project that the CBAM will add an additional £50 to £75 return on imported nitrous fertiliser, inflating farmers’ procurement costs by up to 20% to 25%. I would like to understand from the Minister what financial assessment the Government have made of the increase in costs associated with producing much of the food that this country likes to eat, and indeed much of the food that is exported too. There is also a structural flaw. Analysis has rightly identified that CBAM applies a tax on fertiliser inputs but does not directly provide a tax on imported goods. It is putting a tax only on the fertiliser that our UK farmers are utilising to produce food in this country, not on the imported food that we are bringing into this country. It is therefore not creating a level playing field.

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34. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Robbie Moore

    The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Calculation of CBAM Rate and Determination of Carbon Price Relief) Regulations 2026

    The Conservatives are clear that we will vote against the implementation of the CBAM. We are against the increase in costs associated with this tax on our fertiliser. A level playing field must be generated, but that is not what this legislation will implement.

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35. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Robbie Moore

    The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Calculation of CBAM Rate and Determination of Carbon Price Relief) Regulations 2026

    It is frightening that the Liberal Democrats will, I suspect, be voting today to impose an additional tax on our farmers on the cost of producing food. Foreign growers outside the UK and EU can continue to use cheap, high-carbon fertilisers without penalty, while that food has direct access to UK markets and supermarkets, undercutting our British farmers. The UK has virtually no domestic mass scale fertiliser production left, so there is no option but to import that fertiliser into this country, which will carry increased costs through this tax being implemented by the Government. The tax cannot protect the domestic sector; its functions are therefore a direct penalty on UK growers. I would also like to understand what assessment the Government have made of environmental implications. The mechanism is expected to apply a flat-rate tax based on weight or broad carbon categories. Industry specialists have noted that in this format it is likely to incentivise—accidentally, or maybe this is the Government’s intention—the use of nutrient-dense raw urea rather than cheaper, clean liquid options. That is completely contrary to DEFRA’s existing air quality policies, which actively discourage raw urea, due to high ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions. What assessment have the Government made of the roll-out of CBAM in relation to DEFRA’s own air quality policies, because they seem to be in contradiction? Will the Minister outline again when the rate will be announced, with its implication for many of our UK farmers? What timeframe will apply for implementation? What assessment have the Government made of the cumulative impact of all the other increases to the cost of food production under this Government? What interplay is there with DEFRA’s own assessments, undertaken with Minette Batters’s profitability review, and with the air quality targets that have already been set by DEFRA? I reiterate that I do not support this carbon tax. The Opposition will vote firmly against it when the Committee divides on the motion.

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36. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Robbie Moore

    International Update

    There are only just over five weeks to go until the European summit that the Prime Minister has announced. The Prime Minister makes reference to our farmers, but the agricultural sector is putting out huge warnings at the moment. I wonder if the Prime Minister could specifically reference and refer to CropLife UK’s detailed report, which outlines that aligning the UK’s crop protection rules with the EU would slash farming income by up to £810 million in the first year alone, trigger steep falls in UK crop protection, and significantly negatively impact the progress made through the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023. Can the Prime Minister comment on those concerns that are being made right now?

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37. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Rebecca Smith

    Employment Support: Young People

    I recently visited Portugal to observe a NATO exercise using maritime uncrewed systems, and the young man who drove our safety boat had done his apprenticeship at SeaRegs in Plymouth. However, it came to light over the recess that Skills England is consulting to axe the small commercial vessel crewmember level 3 apprenticeship. This 18-year-old did that apprenticeship for the Plymouth Cattewater harbour authority, but he would not have been able to qualify if it had been scrapped. The small enrolment numbers for this course reflect the specialist nature of the industry, not a lack of value. The apprenticeship gives young people in coastal communities such as mine a direct route into skilled jobs that support our national defence. So will the Secretary of State step in and stop this apprenticeship, and others like it that are also being consulted on, being scrapped?

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38. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Priti Patel

    Employment: Rural Areas

    Rural areas could create and support more jobs if they had the right transport infrastructure. Now that the Government have cancelled the A12 widening scheme, paused the dualling of the A120 and scrapped the A127 economic corridor in Essex, what will the Minister do to lobby his colleagues across Government to help support more rural job creation in Essex?

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39. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Peter Fortune

    The Modification of the Law (British Steel Limited Property Transfer) Regulations 2026

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. British Steel’s vitality and sustainability is very important to those of us on the Opposition Benches as well. When Scunthorpe faced crisis, it was a Conservative Government who stepped in. We provided financial support and kept the plant running and the workers in employment. We began the work with Tata Steel on a package to secure a future for steelmaking in Wales, and delivered an emergency loan to Celsa Steel to help it to continue trading during the covid pandemic. The Conservative party will never be indifferent to the steel industry. We agree with the Government that retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the United Kingdom matters, but they have offered no credible plan for making British Steel viable. I have a few questions. What is the Government’s strategy for profitability? What is their plan for the energy costs that make UK steelmaking uncompetitive? What is the timeline to commercial viability? We have heard no real detail that amounts to a serious industrial strategy for steel. The Government have spent their first period in office piling cost after cost on to British business—the national insurance increase and the Employment Rights Act 2025, and a regulatory burden that keeps growing. I would welcome clarity on how the Government’s approach for British Steel will succeed where the private sector could not. The Labour party cannot adhere to an ideological obsession with nationalisation that has nothing to do with what is best for steelworkers. We need to look forward, not back. We know that history did not end well for 1970s industrial policy, and the Government would do well to remember that. Let me turn to the specific provisions in the SI and a number of questions it raises in respect of accountability. I want to press the Minister specifically on regulation 7, which disapplies the Procurement Act 2023 to BCo and its group undertakings. The 2023 Act is meant to ensure transparency, competition and value for money in public contracting, to protect the taxpayer from poor procurement decisions, but here we have a publicly owned company operating entirely outside those rules. Will the Minister outline why the exemption is necessary, whether it will last indefinitely, and what alternative procurement standards will apply in its place? I have another question for the Minister about the broader nationalised steel sector. The Government will now own not only British Steel but Sheffield Forgemasters and Speciality Steel UK Ltd. These are complementary assets with different capabilities and different products, but they are all part of the same strategic picture for UK steel. The Minister touched on this, but some clarity would be appreciated. Will he outline whether there are any plans to allow Sheffield Forgemasters or Speciality Steel UK to make use of British Steel’s intellectual property or trademarks, or the British Steel brand itself? I would welcome the Minister’s thinking on that. British Steel can and should have a future, but taxpayers are now the owners of the company, and they deserve transparency, accountability and a credible plan for commercial viability. I look forward to the Minister’s response and, in particular, his answer on the procurement question.

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40. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Patrick Spencer

    International Update

    Can I just get clarity? The Prime Minister said that he wanted to increase defence spending, but then he backtracked. He then said he would prioritise welfare—sorry, he promised to cut welfare, before prioritising it over defence. Despite his making a commitment to not reopen the Brexit debate, that is exactly what he has now done. He said here in the Chamber that there would be no referendum. Does that mean he would consider taking Britain back into Europe unilaterally?

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