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1. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

   Q I pass on my thanks to everyone at the NCA for their excellent work. We know how important it is for disrupting the organised, industrial crime that is taking place across borders. It is critical that we intervene and prevent dangerous crossings as early as possible. I wanted to put my thanks on the record for everything that the agency does. You mentioned the importance of deterrence. That is critical, and it is one of the key things that we want to achieve in the Bill. Could you say a little more about how you think the measures in the Bill will help to deter people and make interventions earlier in the process of illegal immigration? Helen Rance: In terms of deterrence, we are obviously a law enforcement agency, and we would not make specific definitive judgments on the different effects that the measures will have on deterring crossings or immigration. We very much think that deterrence is about a combination of factors, and is, ultimately, a matter for Government policy. However, we believe that the measures contribute to a system that is seen as firm, fair and less susceptible to exploitation by organised crime groups. It is likely that that will help the overall deterrent effect. The changes to appeals, protection status, asylum arrangements and the removal process might contribute to making the UK a less attractive target for the criminal networks that facilitate illegal immigration.

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2. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

   Q Thank you very much; I appreciate your responses. May I step back from just the article 8 measures and talk about the Bill in the round? What is your view on whether it strikes the right balance when it comes to honouring our obligations to refugees under the conventions? Are we balancing that with taking stronger action to deal with the challenges that we face internationally on illegal immigration? Is the Bill striking the right balance, or can we go further? Professor Ekins: In my view, the legislation does not strike the right balance, because it fails—as have successive Bills, I think—to take sufficiently robust measures in relation to the problem of illegal migration and people smuggling; I am thinking of the small boats crisis in particular. That is somewhat distinct from the broader problem of unlawful migration, which is clearly a problem—people overstaying, foreign criminals and so on—but the small boats crisis has particular features that warrant a particular response. To my mind, unfortunately, although the legislation tinkers with aspects of how the refugee convention should be understood in our law—perhaps we will come to that later—it seems, silently at least, to take for granted that persons who have contracted with people smugglers and made it across the channel are entitled to asylum and to remain in the UK. I think that that is a misunderstanding of the terms of the refugee convention, which do entitle us to expel persons from the UK, even when they are genuine refugees under the meaning of the refugee convention. That is a protection that all member states enjoy. It entitles us to expel them to other states, because they have entered in violation of our migration law. It would be different had they entered directly from a state where their lives were in danger, but no one coming from France is in that position. That makes that a structurally different position to other contexts, when people flee danger. The legislation simply does not address that feature of the problem. The measures it takes—which, as I say, I welcome as far as they go—simply tinker with the edges and do not address the central problem. Genuine refugees will cross the channel but, so long as contracting with people smugglers is a viable route to enter and thus to settle in the UK, that will persist. It is a logical and rational expenditure of funds, and it is a flourishing business so long as you do not care about the lives of people crossing a dangerous water. There is a failure to recognise the protections that we have as a country under the refugee convention. We may take action that would not place persons in danger—they can be removed to safe third states. As far as I can see, the Bill is focused on increasing administrative adjudicative capacity to process appeal claims more speedily. That is admirable, but it leaves untouched the central structural problem, which I and others writing for Policy Exchange have tried to draw attention to over the years. Dr Casey: I agree. I do not see anything in the Bill that would deter unlawful channel crossings. But, as has been mentioned, , depending on how the Bill is received in the courts, it might deter overstaying on visas and the breaching of conditions of your permission to reside. That could be valuable, as those are significant numbers, but I do not see anything that would deter unlawful channel crossings in any way. You could go further in the Bill and, for example, take advantage of provisions in the refugee convention that allow states to return those convicted of serious criminal offences or of threats to national security to their home countries, even if there was a risk of ill treatment. The refugee convention allows that, but it would not be possible within the confines of the ECHR. Article 3 puts a categorical prohibition on those kinds of returns even if the person being returned poses an enormous threat to the United Kingdom itself. So even if you did take full advantage of everything that the refugee convention permitted you to do to protect your own immigration system, the ECHR would pose even more stringent restrictions in many respects. Professor Ekins: I agree with everything that Dr Casey has said, but I would add that that is article 3 as—in my view—misinterpreted by the Strasbourg Court. Article 3 does provide a categorical prohibition on torture and subjecting people to inhumane treatment; as I say, that has been misinterpreted in recent decades to establish a much more far-reaching bar on taking action that exposes someone to a risk of such action from third parties. In 2021, we published a paper that addressed in close detail the misinterpretation of the ECHR and its far-reaching impact for immigration and asylum law. That Policy Exchange paper is backed by Lord Hoffmann, former judge of the House of Lords. It makes clear the problem in the Strasbourg Court’s reading of article 3—as well as its reading of article 8, I should add.

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3. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

   Q I am keen to come back to some of your comments on article 8. What is your analysis of how it has, slowly over time, come to protect those it was never originally intended to cover, and how can we safeguard against that in the future? Picking up on your point about the potential knock-on effect to article 3, Dr Casey, what mechanisms can we use to prevent article 3 being abused, essentially, on the back of our changes to article 8? Professor Ekins: On the article 8 point, my own view, which is substantiated in quite some detail in the 2021 Policy Exchange paper with the support of Lord Hoffman that I referred to is that, for a long time in the history of the ECHR, article 8 had nothing to do with immigration and asylum. It was not a provision that was understood to impose limits on the enforcement of migration law or on the deportation and removal of non-citizens, especially foreign criminals and so on. There was no connection there. A connection has been established in the case law by reading article 8 very expansively and then effectively requiring each particular decision to enforce the migration law of a member state to involve an individuated proportionality assessment about the impact on the particular person being removed—or, in relation to article 8, quite often on his or her family or maybe his or her extended family—and for that to pass judicial muster. As I say, I think that is an innovation in the case law of the Strasbourg court. I do not want to overstate its novelty—it is an innovation that has been going on for several decades—but it is not part of what the UK and other member states agreed when they agreed the terms of the convention, and I think it should be viewed as a misinterpretation of the convention. In a sense, the joint declaration of the member states earlier this year recognises that something has gone wrong in the case law of the Court; that it has read article 8—we will come to article 3—to establish a kind of Europe-wide migration and asylum law, beyond the terms agreed by the member states. That needs to be addressed and wound back. The thought that, in a sense, you are wronging a foreign criminal when you remove him or her from the UK so that he or she cannot maintain a connection with family is just fundamentally misconceived. In the same way, we are not wronging the offender by incarcerating him, which makes it very much more difficult to maintain a flourishing family life; the consequence is a side effect of the wrongful choice made by the offender. Something similar holds, I think, with the wrongful choice made by a person who violates our migration law. There are harsh consequences in many of these cases, of course, but they are not harsh consequences whereby the UK sets out to wrong someone’s family. That structure has to be more fully recognised. We should see that something has gone badly wrong in thinking that the right to respect for private and family life entails, at least in some cases, a de facto immunity to the application of migration law. Dr Casey: I agree with Professor Ekins entirely. The extension of article 8 into the domain of immigration law was a very conspicuous act of judicial lawmaking through the living instrument approach. As recently as 1985 in the Abdulaziz v. the United Kingdom case, you had the UK Government—Sir Peter Rawlinson, the Attorney General—arguing tooth and nail that article 8 did not apply to questions about entry into the UK or removal and that it was just outside the scope. They lost that case, and that has been the EHCR’s position for several decades since then, but it was not understood as part of the original compact when the convention was ratified. Professor Ekins: You asked us about article 3 as well, I think.

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4. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

   Q We share your commitment to safe and legal routes; they are an important way to fulfil our obligations. However, as you see, we have large numbers of people who are coming here through irregular means. What proportion of those arriving by irregular means does the Refugee Council think are genuinely fleeing war and persecution? Do you have a view on that? Jon Featonby: The easiest way to look at some of this is through the immigration statistics published by the Home Office. Since small boats really started in around 2019, the top nationalities have largely stayed the same. There have been people from Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and Iran, and the reasons why people would seek safety from those places are quite well known. Within that time, there have also been spikes from other countries. Quite famously, there was a lot of attention in 2022 on Albanians, but those numbers dropped quite quickly. That was probably a slightly different route from some of the other countries. The Refugee Council has done some analysis in the past on what you would expect the asylum outcomes to be for those nationalities. Historically, you would expect around two thirds of the people crossing in small boats to go on and get protection. That has dropped slightly in the last year because the overall grant rate has dropped, although one caveat is that because the Home Office has not published appeals outcome statistics for the last three years, it is quite hard to work out exactly what happens once some of those cases go through the appeals process.

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5. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

   Q What are your views on article 8 specifically? We know that the majority of our article 8 grantees have a history of immigration breaches. How can we best protect the immigration system while safeguarding family rights? Jon Featonby: There is only so much that I can say on this, with my particular focus being on the people we support at the Refugee Council. The previous panel mentioned that, with article 8 rights, there has to be a balance between having a controlled immigration system and a focus on individual cases. From the Refugee Council’s point of view, we will continue to support the individual application interpretation of article 8. We see that in our work with refugee families: for a family that has been forced to displace, it is very much not one size fits all; these families can look like all sorts of different things. One area where we focus a bit more on article 8, particularly around how the UK defines the core family, is the future system for refugee families to be able to safely reunite. We have shared our concerns around the suspension of that route. By our estimate, there are probably 20,000 people who have not been able to apply to be reunited safely through that route since it was suspended just over a year ago. For us, the important thing to remember about that route is that, for many years, nine in 10 of the visas granted to people on it were for women and children. In terms of family reunion in the future, we see it as important that some of the most vulnerable people who have been displaced from their homes and who are in danger have access to that safe route.

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6. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Thank you both for coming to give evidence to us today. You both emphasise the importance of evidence and evaluation. Can you give us some idea of what metrics you think we should use to judge whether our reforms have been successful? Dr Sumption: Obviously, there are several different goals of the Bill, and the metric used would depend on that. For the deterrence stuff that we have just been discussing, small boat arrivals and asylum applications are the most relevant ones. Some things that cannot be tracked now—at least, not in the published data—could potentially be tracked in future. For example, we actually have remarkably few statistics on human rights grants, including how many people are granted and what happens to refusals over time, or how many refusals are overturned in court. All those things could be tracked, but the data does not currently exist. My understanding is that it does not exist internally either, because the impact assessment used a sample of around 3,000 cases, rather than just using full statistics for many of them. I think there is probably some statistical work that could be done to try to track the impacts of the human rights measures a bit more. Also, the data on returns could be linked to the data on what happens to people before that return. For example, one of the potentially very important outcomes that the impact assessment looks at is how many people are refused as a result of the changes, but never actually removed from the country. I think most people would qualify that as an undesirable outcome in the sense that you have people who are still in the UK. and there may be costs associated with them. If they are destitute, the local authority will have to support them, and it increases the unauthorised population. Using the current statistics, we would never know to what extent that is happening, but in theory it would be possible to track all that stuff using the data. The other major metric on the impact of the changes to the appeals system would be how the backlog changes over time. Of course, you can then look at the numbers of onward appeals to the extent that that becomes a problem, which I am sure other witnesses here will discuss. It is about having data on people’s journeys through the asylum system and appeals system. How long does it take? What are the metrics on the accuracy of the decisions? How many decisions are overturned? I think all those would be important metrics.

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7. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

   Q I was asking for your view on potential metrics we could use in future, after the Bill has been implemented, to measure whether it has successfully achieved its aims. Alp Mehmet: I suppose the principal metric will be the extent to which it has sped up how long it actually takes to deal with someone who arrives, claims asylum, goes through the system and then has a decision made. It will also be the extent to which, having made that decision, appropriate action can then be taken—that is, the person is either removed or permitted to stay. It is going to take a couple of years, which is another problem I find with the Bill. Here we are again, proposing fresh measures, and however welcome or not they are, the fact is that it will be three years down the road before we know what their impact is. I do not think that matches the urgency the problem requires. If it does indeed discourage people from coming and from making repeat appeals, one after the other, I think that is a metric that can also be used to determine whether or not what was intended is being achieved, but it is going to be at least a couple of years, if not longer, before we know.

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8. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

   Q I would like to focus on the measures in the Bill—you made some reference to the ones on modern slavery. Could you expand on how those provisions might make it harder for individuals who have fictitious claims to stop themselves being removed? Tony Smith: The Bill is really about the asylum process, rather than law enforcement. I think the Bill last year was more about the law enforcement; this is about the asylum process. There are some good things in here. As I say, I applaud the article 8 reforms, because article 8 is often used as a lever quite late in the process. After someone has been here for quite a while and has been through the process, you suddenly get an article 8 claim because they have developed a connection in the UK. So I think that that reform is right and will help to reduce the pull factor. I like the idea of the tighter protection arrangements—the 30 months at a time. My only counsel against that is that the Home Office, in my experience, tends to automatically grant and grant and grant, because it is a lot easier than refusing, and that might just become an automatic turnover of grants for however long you allow people to stay. I think you ought to look at who is going home. If people go back to their own country on holiday when they have a claim for refugee status, we can establish that. We have the passenger information and can cross-match that to their asylum records. If people go back to their own country once they have been given some kind of protection status here, they should not be allowed back in, because they are clearly not in fear of persecution. The faster appeals process is absolutely essential. The problem with the appeals process is that it went over to the Ministry of Justice years ago, when the Home Office and MOJ were split up. The MOJ does not seem to have been really bothered about it—it has other things on its plate. The backlog is over a year now, so you have to try and get a grip of that. I do not know how you get that in the Home Office and how you persuade them, but I think it is a good idea. You really have to get that end-to-end process going right. I like the idea of recouping public funds from people, a bit like in the student loan scheme. If people have come here and been a draw on public funds, and they then get into the workplace, why would you not claw back some of that money into the public purse? I think that all those things might reduce pull factors. They are really good reforms. I am not saying they are not good measures; what I am saying is that, in my opinion, they are not good enough to stop the boats.

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9. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

   Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Could you say a little more about the article 8 provisions and how you think they might affect strung-out appeals and deterrence? Guy Dampier: On the strung-out appeals, the new immigration appeal authority is supposed to help tackle that. The difficulty there, which will touch on article 8, is that potentially the people being used will not be fully legally trained as adjudicators. There are examples of countries that have such a system, including Denmark, Canada and, I think, Norway, but all those have relatively high bars for people to become adjudicators—and in a lot of cases, I think that they end up being lawyers anyway. The Australians had a similar system. I believe that they cancelled it precisely because the paperwork was being done so badly that they had to redo things or the wrong decisions were being made. Although bad decisions are being made now, the new authority could potentially lead to worse decisions, depending on the quality of the people who come in. We cannot know that quality, but at the moment the lack of qualifications in the legislation is a potential danger. On article 8, we are seeing restrictions and a narrowing down of things, which is good and will reduce the number of people able to use it. But that will apply only to a minority of cases—even when we are dealing with people who have come here illegally. The majority of people claiming under article 8 now will not be affected. I believe that the Home Office estimates that something like 50% of those who will be refused if this legislation passes will remain in the country illegally; obviously, that is something of a problem.

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10. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Thank you for joining us this afternoon. You mentioned in your earlier answer that there are not sufficient routes to claim asylum, but a lot of the people who come here, particularly on small boats, have come through another safe country. I think your organisation has said that individuals bypassing safe routes is a secondary issue. How do you think that that enables us to support a fair, rules-based international framework? Angela Afzal: Sorry; I did not catch the second part of your question.

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11. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Do you think it is fair for people to be able to circumvent an international rules-based framework by going through a safe country already before coming to claim asylum in the UK, or do you think that should have no effect at all on their asylum claim here? Angela Afzal: We have to acknowledge that the majority of refugees claim asylum and receive protection in countries neighbouring where they had to flee. Secondly, we need to acknowledge that the UK is about 14th in the ranking of EU-plus countries in how many asylum applications we have per capita—we are quite far down the list. The nature of our geography means that people need to be able to cross the channel in some way to reach the UK for protection. At the moment, there are not significant safe routes for people to get to the UK; we are talking about hundreds of them at the moment. In the absence of safe routes for people to get here, people who arrive here and have their claims processed should be granted the full entitlement to refugee status, so that the UK plays its part according to the obligations of the UN refugee convention. Ideally, we would want people to have the opportunity to travel here on a safe route from the region of displacement, so that they would not have to make the dangerous journeys to Europe in the first place. As things are at the moment, there is little alternative.

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12. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Thank you both for joining us. I want to refer back to the example you gave of the online case that you joined by mistake, where something had got to a judge that was a result of poor decision making. Does that not make the case for the IIAA, in that it was a waste of a judge’s time to have gone through that process? Having a quicker appeals process would have enabled that to be seen quickly and dealt with much more effectively. Building on that point, we have seen a 21% increase in the amount of investment and judges dealing with tribunal appeals, yet the rate of appeals and the waiting time are still going up. Surely, you must admit that there is an issue with the backlog, the time it takes and the small pool of people we have to draw from. Jacqui McKenzie: I think I might have confused the point. There are two separate things. The point I was making about the man from Iraq was about the lack of representation. That lack of representation, and people coming unprepared to do their appeals, causes judges’ time and the entire tribunal’s time to be wasted. That goes out of the system and it comes back in. The poor decision making is a separate thing. I do not know whether the refusal of that man, which brought him into the appellate system, was a good decision or not. We did not get round to that bit, but we see considerable poor decision making. I work quite a lot with the Windrush community. We keep seeing in the news, “They’re waiting for the Windrush generation to die.” I do not think that is true at all—I do not think the Home Office is that sinister—but we are seeing very straightforward cases taking two or three years to come to conclusion. The whole reason for that is the poor decision making. You get cases where the first decision is a zero, and then it goes up to six figures after two or three reviews. We are dealing with an elderly cohort, and these reviews go on for years and retraumatise the victims. I see the same sort of thing across my practice: poor decision making on a number of things, including human rights applications and asylum claims. I do not know how, unless things are improved in the first instance, we will reduce the backlog in either the existing tribunal system or the new appellate authority. Professor Singer: Just to clarify, that is bad quality initial Home Office decision making, as opposed to adjudicator decisions. Jacqui McKenzie: Home Office decisions, yes, absolutely.

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13. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q My point was, would it not be better to go to an intermediate tier, rather than take up the time of the courts? That is where we are seeing the backlog—the delay—because of the lack of available judges we have— Jacqui McKenzie: We have that; we have a review mechanism. The Home Office is meant to review; once you load something up on the tribunal portal, the Home Office is meant to review the decision. That is why we are getting costs in these cases, which is almost unheard of. I have been doing this work as a lawyer for 18 years—it is two years for training—and I have never seen anything like it. We are getting costs in these cases because of the poor decision making at the Home Office, even when there is a built-in review mechanism. A formal part of the process is that things go back to the Home Office for it to review. Professor Singer: I would add that if the problem this new mechanism is seeking to address is the lack of sufficient capacity among decision makers, the way that that could be most expediently addressed is simply by expanding the eligibility criteria for the existing tribunal system, to increase the pool of decision makers, rather than by having to staff an entirely new body, which the impact assessment itself says would be incredibly challenging.

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14. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q That was the question I wanted to ask: will this have the intended effect? Where businesses are not complying with transparency in supply chains, do you think the financial penalty will encourage greater compliance? Dr Buttle: I think it will, but the other thing to note is that there has not been very much enforcement by the Home Office of the Modern Slavery Act in the past. In addition to the penalties, we need some enforcement by a body; we would consider that in future that may not be the Home Office, and that the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade might be a better place to enforce this. If there is no enforcement, companies may still consider not complying with the regulations.

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15. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Turley

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Could you say a little more about where you think the IIAA will have an impact on improving public confidence in the appeals process? Stephen Webb: The problem with the immigration tribunals at the moment is that the reporting on judgments, in some cases, has been pretty shocking. The judiciary have not helped themselves in the way that most first-tier judgments are not routinely available. The only time you really hear about them is when they go up on appeal and are quite often turned down. The point about the famous chicken nuggets case is that it was not actually upheld on appeal. It was turned down, but it gave people a taste of the sort of things that might be happening in the tribunals. Obviously, there are recorded cases of tribunal judges coming from quite an activist background, which again seems very odd—I think the public would not expect that. From that point of view, there is an opportunity to reset and to have clear rules about impartiality. There is also considerable scope to speed things up, which will definitely be helpful. Certainly, a lot of cases are lost because of the time it takes to get to a hearing, so people can build a case. Maybe they will get involved, rightly or wrongly, genuinely or not, in making a political case. Maybe they will create it. They might start developing religious reasons or, indeed, article 8 reasons related to relationships formed in the country. The quicker a decision is made, the more likely it is that it will be rapidly upheld at that first stage. Those are all positives. It is going to be a big process to find these people—identifying them, training them and getting them ready—but in principle, I think it is a good idea.

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16. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Topical Questions

    Jimmy, the son of two of my Shipley constituents, was given an IPP sentence with a tariff of two and a half years in 2007. He remains in prison with no set release date, despite having passed his mental health tribunal. I strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s recent announcement to review these unjust sentences, but can the Secretary of State assure me that prisoners with autism, like Jimmy, will get the support they need to start a new life?

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17. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    I am pleased to be giving this statement on behalf of the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member. Before I turn to the findings of our report on Government compensation schemes, I want to begin by recognising the individuals and families whose lives have been profoundly affected by the events that gave rise to these compensation schemes. Behind every application, every claim and every payment is a person who has experienced loss, injustice or harm, often through no fault of their own. No amount of money can ever fully restore what has been taken away. Compensation cannot return lost years, repair damaged health, rebuild broken trust or erase the suffering that many have endured. Nevertheless, where mistakes have been made, public bodies have failed, or citizens have been harmed by the actions or omissions of the state, compensation represents an important acknowledgement of that injustice. It is one of the clearest ways in which the Government can accept responsibility, recognise the experiences of those affected and demonstrate a commitment to making amends. Properly designed and delivered, compensation is not simply a financial transaction; it is an expression of accountability and, crucially, compassion. It signals that those who have suffered have been heard, that their experiences are believed and that society recognises the wrong that has been done to them. For many people, the true value of a compensation scheme lies not only in the financial support it provides, but in the recognition and dignity it can offer. That is why it is so important that such schemes are fair, accessible, timely and centred on the needs of those they are intended to serve. It is against that backdrop that the National Audit Office conducted a review of the way that compensation schemes have been handled, and the findings of the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry were published last Wednesday. I want to recognise the sub-postmasters and their families affected by the Horizon scandal; the victims and bereaved families of the infected blood scandal; the Windrush generation denied the right to remain in the UK; and LGBT veterans, including Victoria from my constituency, whose service to her country was repaid with imprisonment and dismissal from the Royal Navy because of her sexuality. All those experiences have informed the Committee’s work. I particularly thank everyone who responded to our survey and everyone who gave evidence to our inquiry. Many of the testimonies we received were deeply moving, and all were invaluable. If the Government are to improve how compensation schemes operate in future, they must listen carefully to the experiences of those who have already been through them. Our inquiry found that, too often, people experience lengthy delays, complex processes and uncertainty about what will happen next. The vast majority of respondents to the Public Accounts Committee survey felt the schemes they had experienced were unfair. Three quarters told us that the claims process itself had been distressing or retraumatising. One respondent told us: “It has become a lumbering, slow bureaucracy. It is failing in its duty to get payments to people quickly.” Another said: “After decades of fighting for recognition, we believed we were finally at the finish line—and instead we are being treated with suspicion, as though we are trying to defraud a system rather than seeking acknowledgement of a wrong done to us by the state.” One of my own constituents, the wife of a postmaster, told me that the stress from the Horizon scandal caused alopecia and a blood clot. On applying for compensation, she was told that her suffering was irrelevant, despite being the co-owner of the post office. The compensation was paid to her husband, from whom she is now divorced. These experiences highlight why the quality of scheme design matters so much, and we heard many similar stories. Compensation is not simply about the final payment; it is about the journey that people make to reach that point—a journey that must be fair, transparent and humane. We heard from Sir Alan Bates, whose work was instrumental in exposing the Horizon scandal. He told us that schemes often end up reinventing the wheel. He argued for the creation of an independent organisation that is capable of carrying expertise and experience from one scheme to the next, which is what our report recommends. Peter Gibson, the chief executive at Fighting With Pride, which represents LGBT veterans, highlighted the importance of making realistic commitments that can actually be delivered. Kate Burt, representing those affected by infected blood, emphasised the importance of meaningful engagement with communities and of ensuring that lessons from previous schemes are genuinely applied. Victims have lost trust in the bodies administering Government compensation schemes—bodies that they view as responsible for the initial harm caused. The Committee therefore recommends—I am pleased to see the Cabinet Office Minister on the Front Bench—that the body administering compensation should work with individuals and organisations representing victims. Many claimants told us that they found it difficult to trust the processes administered by organisations that they associated with the original harm, which is why witnesses repeatedly argued that independence is essential if schemes are to command confidence. The answer is not to choose between independence and expertise; it is to combine them and establish an independent body that is capable of developing specialist expertise, preserving institutional memory, promoting good practice and earning the trust of those it is there to serve. A key recommendation of the report is that the Government should establish an independent body to design and administer Government compensation schemes. We should remember that, for many people, the compensation process is not simply an administrative exercise. Making a claim often means revisiting some of the most painful experiences of a person’s life. It means being asked to recall events that they have spent years trying to come to terms with, gathering evidence from decades ago, and recounting—often to complete strangers—experiences of injustice, discrimination, illness, loss and trauma. The Committee heard repeatedly that the process itself can reopen old wounds. Witnesses spoke of victims feeling as though they were having to fight the same battle all over again. That is why good scheme design matters so much: it is not simply about how much compensation is awarded; it is about ensuring that the process to get to the outcome is compassionate and designed around the needs of those who have suffered. I believe that this report highlights the unique role of the Public Accounts Committee. Our role is to look across Government to identify recurring challenges, to bring together evidence from different Departments and to ask what lessons can be learned. One of the clearest conclusions from our report is that the Government require stronger mechanisms for retaining and sharing knowledge across compensation schemes. Every compensation scheme is inevitably different, but the fundamentals of good scheme design are not. The Committee concluded that the Government need a more systematic approach to applying what has been learned. Reverend Clive Foster, the Windrush Commissioner, told us it is critical that impacted groups are involved in designing schemes from the outset, and that design is aligned with trauma-informed principles that consider how the claim process can be traumatising for people. Compensation schemes exist to provide redress, but they should also provide confidence that people will be treated fairly, confidence that lessons have been learned and confidence that future schemes will be better than those that came before. All those who shared their experiences with our Committee have given the Government a valuable opportunity to improve, and we should not waste it. Our responsibility now is to ensure that the lessons are not lost, stored away in reports or revisited only when the next scandal emerges, but that they are permanently embedded into how the Government approach redress. The Committee’s recommendation is therefore clear: the Government should establish an independent body to design and administer Government compensation schemes—a body that is capable of retaining expertise, carrying lessons forward and delivering redress swiftly, fairly and with the confidence of those it serves. Above all, it must be a body that is capable of restoring trust. The victims whose experiences informed our inquiry deserve nothing less.

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18. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    No, that was not something that the Committee specifically looked at, but I totally agree that many victims wait far too long. The length of time it often took to set up compensation schemes, and their complexity—often resulting in cases taking a long time to reach a decision and therefore compensation taking a long time to be awarded—were things that repeatedly came up in the Committee. We urge the Government to make sure that is much more timely in future.

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19. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, I am very well aware that the Hughes report is still in the Government inbox, awaiting a response. I also have constituents who are victims of the pelvic mesh scandal, which obviously particularly impacted women, and I hope that we will soon hear the Government’s response to that report. Hopefully, they will be able to bring forward more swiftly a Government compensation scheme that works, co-designed with the victims, as our report recommends.

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20. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I guess I return the compliment—although I am not sure I always enjoy his contributions to the Public Accounts Committee! However, I certainly recognise that on this and other issues, it is also important to get behind the reasons why these scandals happened in the first place. That obviously was not the purpose of our Committee’s inquiry—it was to look at compensation schemes—but valuable lessons must also be learned about why these scandals occur, whether in relation to the Post Office, infected blood, or the treatment of LGBT veterans in the armed forces. I do appreciate those points.

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21. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    I agree with my hon. Friend—another colleague on the Public Accounts Committee. The report is very clear that much more needs to be done to try to reach victims; there is a concern that the LGBT veterans scheme is closing while victims remain. It is important that institutions use the data they already hold to reach people directly, and that the evidential burden is as low as possible while still maintaining protections against fraud.

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22. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    I thank my hon. Friend for being such a champion for those in her constituency who suffered from the decisions that impacted on the Windrush generation. She is absolutely right. We heard significant evidence, not least from the Windrush commissioner, about the poor treatment and the difficulties people were having in seeking redress, in particular the complexity and, as she points out, the lack of legal support. The report recommends that, where possible, it should be clear from the start whether victims would have access to legal support and also that that should be more consistent. I agree with my hon. Friend’s suggestion.

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23. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Anna Dixon

    Public Accounts Committee

    I commend my hon. Friend for all her years of work on the Public Accounts Committee and for her leadership and foresight in making sure that the work was done by the National Audit Office. We did hear some examples. In particular, the infected blood compensation scheme is not run by the Department of Health and Social Care, but has a degree of independence from being run out of the Cabinet Office, and that makes a difference. There were some examples where there had been some co-design with victims, but those examples were too seldom. Unfortunately, across the examples we looked at, there were simply too many examples of things that went wrong. In learning those lessons, we need to make sure that the emphasis in any future Government compensation scheme is on co-design, timeliness and fairness for victims.

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24. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Andrew Cooper

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I completely agree with the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) raised about Capita’s unacceptable performance. Sadly, despite repeated promises from Capita that it would prioritise, escalate and expedite such cases, too many of my constituents continue to live with the consequences. One constituent has been waiting nearly 11 months for their bereavement case to be resolved. Despite Capita’s assurances that it would clear stock cases involving bereavement by 1 September, that one remains pending. I am also concerned that Capita appears to be providing constituents and their MPs with incorrect and often conflicting information. In one particular case, my constituent and I contacted Capita separately, and I additionally raised the matter with Ministers in the Cabinet Office. Shockingly, my office received a different answer from the one that Capita provided directly to my constituent, and we both received a different answer from the one given to the Cabinet Office. That is three different answers on one case. The ineptitude is simply staggering, and no one will be surprised to hear that that case is still outstanding. In the meantime—

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25. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alistair Strathern

    Topical Questions

    T7. Failings in the family court system are having a heartbreaking impact on too many in my constituency. In one instance, a mother and her child have been waiting since last November for non-molestation papers to be served. In the meantime, they have had not one, not two, but eight failed court hearings where process failings have meant the papers could not be served, exposing them to risk and continued stress and strain over a very long period. Will the Minister meet them to discuss how we can put this right and fix the broken system?

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26. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Unregulated Child Contact Centres: Risks

    12. What assessment he has made of the risks to children and families from the use of unregulated child contact centres.

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27. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Unregulated Child Contact Centres: Risks

    In cases where family court proceedings lead to child removal, parents can be forced to use unregulated contact centres—it can cost hundreds of pounds for just a few hours of contact—because of a lack of accessible, regulated contact centre provision. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of this situation on the welfare of children and families, and will his Department initiate a review of current arrangements?

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28. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Topical Questions

    T3. I recently met a high street law firm that has offices in Whitby, Scarborough and Filey. As a small company, it worries that the Government’s proposals to take a proportion of the interest earned on client accounts could lead it to shed jobs and, potentially, premises. Will the Minister outline what assessment she has made of the impact of these proposals on the viability of high street solicitors?

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29. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

    I welcome this step towards devolution, but York and North Yorkshire is a huge mayoral authority. In order for my constituents to feel the difference, we must ensure that money generated in Scarborough and Whitby is spent locally, not in the city of York. Will the Minister consider what he can do to ensure that locally generated revenue benefits the communities that produce it?

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30. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Fracking Ban

    I thank the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) for securing a debate on this important issue. I first became aware of small-scale fracking when Europa Oil & Gas applied to explore for gas at Burniston, a village just on the edge of the picturesque North York moors in my constituency. I was surprised to discover that companies can still submit applications of that kind. I was surprised that it was not blocked by the moratorium on fracking that was introduced after earthquakes linked to fracking operations in 2019 at Preston New Road in Lancashire. It turns out that that is because UK legislation defines fracking based on fluid volume thresholds—1,000 cubic metres per stage or 10,000 cubic metres in total. That leaves a legal loophole for oil and gas companies to exploit. Because Europa Oil & Gas’ plans fall below the legal threshold, they are not calling it fracking, but “proppant squeeze” instead. Let me be clear: proppant squeeze is just hydraulic fracturing at lower fluid volumes. The intent and technique are the same. Europa wants to explore for and to extract gas, through causing the rock to fracture by injecting a substance into it at pressure. That is fracking. There is strong evidence to suggest that small-scale fracking carries the same risks as larger-scale operations, particularly around seismicity. A report recently published by Professor Haszeldine at the University of Edinburgh found that earthquakes from high-volume fracking and low-volume fracking are equally large and equally unpredictable. That echoes findings commissioned by the then Oil and Gas Authority into events at Preston New Road, which also showed that seismic impacts cannot be accurately predicted regardless of fluid volume. Faced with this advice, why would we take the risk of allowing small-scale fracking to continue? Other environmental concerns with fracking remain, too. They include potential groundwater contamination from methane migration or the chemicals in frack fluid, methane leaks, air pollution, and damage to the landscape. And of course, fracking at any volume leads to more greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to climate change. After experiencing the hottest summer on record, I hope that the environmental consequences of continued gas extraction are at the forefront of our minds. In the Labour party manifesto, we made a commitment to ban fracking. Our forthcoming energy independence Bill commits us to doing the same. Unless we implement a full ban on fracking, companies like Europa Oil & Gas will continue to exploit the existing loophole. Rathlin Energy is about to start small-scale fracking at its West Newton site in East Yorkshire—one of 66 current licences across the country. Our Labour Government talk about banning fracking and safeguarding the places we love. I have the greatest respect for the Minister and appreciate the time that the Department has spent discussing this issue with me, but, respectfully, does he not see that unless the Government act boldly and close the loophole, communities across the country, such as those in West Newton and Burniston, will have fracking operations on their doorstep? These communities love where they live—do they not count? It does not matter to them whether it is a mini-frack or the full-scale version, as the net result is the same: drill pads, drill heads, gas flare and noise 24/7, with lights during the exploration stage and continuous heavy goods vehicle movements. We cannot say categorically that small-scale fracking is safe for the environment. The Government have called for more evidence on its safety, but the sad truth is that it looks like the evidence will be gathered on the back of another incident like Preston New Road. I do not want that for my community in Burniston, and I am sure other hon. Members and hon. Friends do not want it for theirs. Unless we legislate to ban all forms of fracking in our upcoming energy independence Bill, our fracking ban will be symbolic rather than material. We have a unique opportunity to show climate leadership. We have an opportunity as a Government to stand up to the frackers, to make our legislation watertight, to safeguard the natural environment, to listen to the concerns in our communities and to meet our climate commitments. By introducing a comprehensive ban based on process and intent, we can finally put an end to fracking once and for all.

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31. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Fracking Ban

    Does the hon. Gentleman accept that he is somewhat a voice in the wilderness? Fracking is unpopular with Reform voters—they do not want it. I am speaking in this debate to represent my constituents in Scarborough and Whitby, but can he honestly say that he is doing the same for his in Boston and Skegness?

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32. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alison Hume

    Fracking Ban

    Does the Minister accept that using proppant squeeze is a loophole, because the industry has started using it to get round the moratorium, and therefore it needs to be included in any ban?

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33. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Sobel

    Fracking Ban

    North Yorkshire council’s planning committee rejected the Burniston site that the hon. Lady has mentioned not just on seismicity grounds, but because of issues of groundwater pollution, traffic and a whole range of other issues. Although these low-level fracking sites are technically legal, they still have a range of issues for us to deal with.

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34. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    Last week, the Leader of the House announced that the Courts and Tribunals Bill will return to this House on 13 October. I have been clear that my priority is to reduce the Crown court waiting list and enable victims to have their day in court more quickly. I look forward to working with experts in this House and beyond to deliver that.

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35. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    I would always caution the hon. Gentleman about believing reports. When there are things to be said, they will be said from the Dispatch Box. I think he would expect that I, as the new Lord Chancellor, and my right hon. Friend the new Prime Minister will look at every aspect of business in the Ministry of Justice to ensure that it is delivering for victims and for the public at large. The hon. Gentleman knows the legislation is coming back, and I look forward to discussing it in its fullness when it does.

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36. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    The shadow Secretary of State seeks to run ahead of the process that is going on at the moment. It is very important that Parliament has the opportunity to consider this really important legislation in the spirit that he talks about, and we have now reached Second Reading. I have been in this place for nine years, and legislation very rarely looks the same at the beginning of the process as it does at the end. My offer to him, and indeed to colleagues from across the House, is to engage in the conversation. If they have concerns and wish to see things changed, let us have that conversation.

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37. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    This is interesting: the Opposition do not know how to deal with either the new Prime Minister or the new Government. When we talk about wanting to improve things in the collective interest of the country, we mean it. The hon. Gentleman offers to be my correspondence secretary, but I do not think that is quite the answer.

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38. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    Thank you, Mr Speaker. I reiterate my commitment to the hon. Gentleman and to the House: if people have an interest in the legislation and want to discuss it, our door is open.

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39. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Trial by Jury

    I assure the hon. Lady that we will consider all evidence that is submitted, and certainly evidence submitted by those experts who I talked about in my opening answer. I am afraid that we cannot quite accept the hon. Lady’s characterisation. We will look at these things very closely and have that interaction through ordinary parliamentary processes and beyond, because I think we have a shared interest in this. I would caution the House about defending the status quo when we all know—because it is in our constituency mailbags—that our constituents are waiting until 2029 for trials, and soon it will be 2030. That is not justice, either. Yes, it behoves us to make important changes to the system to help address immediate capacity challenges—as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) has done—but it also behoves us to look at longer-term structural changes. As I say, I look forward to working with colleagues on that.

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40. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Alex Norris

    Foreign National Offenders: Deportation

    The Government have increased foreign national offender returns by 41%, with more than 3,000 foreign national offenders removed directly from prison last year through the early removal scheme. From next year, new powers will enable most determinate sentence foreign national offenders to be deported immediately after sentencing, and I have established a cross-Government taskforce with the Home Office and the Foreign Office to maximise removals.

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