What Britain's parties say and do in public, recorded from the source.
Every entry links to Hansard, Parliament, the Electoral Commission or the party's own channel. Every party is tracked by the same rules. Methodology
Labour Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Conservative and Unionist Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Liberal Democrats
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Reform UK
Latest entry 6 Nov 2026
Scottish National Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Green Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Plaid Cymru
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
For many of our young people, the hardest step towards obtaining work is the first one: walking into a jobcentre or youth hub and asking for support. Does the Minister agree that part of the approach of youth hubs, including the new hub in Wrexham, must be to reach those young people where they are, rather than waiting for them to come through the door?
1. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the youth guarantee trailblazer areas on young people’s life prospects.
Too many young people in Peterborough are starting adult life without the skills, support or training they need to get on, so I am incredibly proud that Peterborough was chosen as one of the first pilots for the youth guarantee trailblazer. However, we do not just have high levels of people not in education, employment or training; according to our chambers of commerce, we have high levels of businesses unable to recruit the staff they need because of skills shortages. This highlights one of the big mismatches—that between young people who do not have the skills, and employers who cannot find people to train and support in developing those skills. What more can my right hon. Friend’s Department do to ensure that young people and businesses can find each other as we invest in apprenticeships?
Faith matters in this country, and nothing strikes our shared British values more than attacks on places of worship. It is absolutely right that this Government call out the attacks on synagogues and other Jewish communal organisations, and it is right that Members of this House push the Government to do more to tackle antisemitism and make the resources available. There is also a wider hatred against other faiths in this country, and I am aware that in my gurdwaras, mosques and places of other religious faiths, people are worried about attacks on their communal spaces and their sacred ability to worship freely as part of modern Britain. What more can my right hon. Friend do to focus not just on antisemitism, which it is right to do, but on what support and funding are available to other places of worship, to ensure that modern Britain is a place where all our faiths have a place and are represented and protected?
First, I thank my right hon. Friend for his speech at UNGA, in which he committed, or recommitted, the United Kingdom to be a consistent and stable partner in upholding the shared values of the UN charter. That will be increasingly important as we enter the G20 presidency. I spent last week with the chairs of the Ukrainian Parliament’s British friendship group, Deputy Speaker Korniyenko and Lesia Vasylenko, and they talked to me about how this El Niño winter is going to be the hardest ever winter in Ukraine. Just this week, Kyiv’s sewerage system broke due to electricity outages because of Russian attacks. What additional support can we give, particularly to Kyiv, in terms of generators, solar panels, thermal batteries and other humanitarian support to ensure that they can get through the exceedingly hard and difficult winter that is coming to Ukraine?
7. What recent progress Alan Milburn has made on producing the final “Young People and Work” report.
Ahead of Alan Milburn’s report, in Gloucester there are over 2,500 young people not in employment, education or training. I have spoken with many of them across the last two years who want an opportunity but have been let down by the system. Something needs to change. At the end of November, I am hosting the Gloucestershire Futures summit with Gloucestershire county council. We have invited schools and colleges, local employers, healthcare providers, local government and the third sector in an effort to get everyone in the room to discuss how we can solve the problem together. I know the Secretary of State has a long list of constituencies to visit after today’s questions, but he also shares my determination to give every young person the opportunity to fulfil their potential, so will he or one of his team join us for the summit at the end of November?
T2. Parents of neurodivergent young people in my community readily tell me about the barriers their children face in accessing work opportunities. I am delighted that a youth hub is opening in Aldershot and Farnborough this year, but how will the Government ensure that every young person in my community receives all the support they need as that hub opens?
I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. To deter our adversaries, we are not only going to have to increase defence spending; we are also going to have to mobilise our financial markets. I welcome the many good conversations between the UK and Canada, but the founding of the defence, security and resilience bank will take political leadership. Will the Prime Minister take that step, stand with Prime Minister Carney, and ensure that Britain is at the forefront of building the financial power needed to deter our adversaries?
Birmingham has been piloting a jobs guarantee scheme since April. An employment roundtable that I ran in Selly Oak saw lots of young people who lack confidence in their communication skills to enable them get back into work after being on universal credit for 18 months. Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing how many pilot participants are still in work once the six months is over?
As a former MEP and as MP for one of the youngest constituencies in the country, it is important for me to say on the record that Brexit has been a disaster for young people. Opportunities that the EU offered, such as the ability to live, work and learn alongside our friends in Europe, are now gone, and Brexit’s devastating economic impact has been felt mostly by young people. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that a closer relationship with the EU would positively impact our young people, including those in Manchester Rusholme?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Sir Edward. I congratulate all the petitioners on the efforts they have made to secure such a number of signatures for this petition. After 10 years, I thought that maybe, just maybe, we might be getting somewhere. The Government are starting to talk positively about the EU, and they correctly describe the carnage, chaos and disaster that was the Brexit deal, and even at his conference speech, I thought I heard the Prime Minister talking positively about actually rejoining the EU. However, as with everything from this Government, we need to be cautious. From that heady talk about rejoining only a couple of weeks ago, we are now back to the familiar territory of a deal and an arrangement with the EU. I have just come from the Chamber, as many hon. Members have, and I listened very carefully to what the Prime Minister had to say about the EU. He described a perfectly reasonable deal. I quite liked what I heard from him on that—he is going to try to ensure a number of positive developments for the UK—but what he did not talk about was rejoining the EU. If I am not mistaken, that is what the petition asks for: it asks for the UK to renegotiate its terms and rejoin the EU. I am okay with what the Prime Minister is going to do on work experience, immigration and all the other things, but what we need after the disaster of the last 10 years is to get back to the territory of rejoining the European Union.
Sorry, I cannot give way. Labour have not so much opened the door on ending the chaos and disaster of Brexit; it is more like they have one tentative hand on the handle, unsure whether to wander through, and they are a little bit terrified of what they might find on the other side. We know that Brexit has been a disaster. The Prime Minister does not have to tell us that or explain it in detail; all of us have been seeing it for the last eight years. We are just grateful that this Labour party and Government are now listening. I secured a debate a few weeks ago to “celebrate” the referendum on the EU. The House of Commons Library briefing for this debate is roughly the same as the one for my debate. The overwhelming economic evidence, the consensus, about what has happened since Brexit could not be clearer—I say to my friends on the right wing of the Conservative party. It is absolutely clear that we have lost opportunity, diminished growth, and limited opportunities and relationships for our young people, and that will continue to happen with this Brexit. Where does the frenetic talk of the past few weeks leave us? What should we look at from now? The Government’s response to this petition—I am sorry to once again disappoint the petitioners—was to simply restate the failed Keir Starmer lines that they “will not be rejoining the EU”. They went on to restate that nothing will be done about the Government’s red lines: no freedom of movement and no rejoining of the single market. That position seems to be totally at odds with what we heard at the Labour party conference. I wish that they would revisit what was said there and give us all hope that we will somehow get back. If they start to get some ambition and aspiration and make that a real strategy, I will be right behind them. I will cheer them to the rafters: “Get us back into the European Union and you will be heroes—not just in your party or your constituencies, but across the United Kingdom.” However, from what I have heard today and been looking at, I am not seeing that commitment. I have to say that I am very disappointed. I know that Labour Members are all encouraged and excited by what they have heard, but I did not hear anything about rejoining the EU, which is what we and the petitioners want to hear.
This debate is about applying to rejoin the European Union. There was nothing about that in the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon. I am confused about the Government’s position. Is it an ambition and an aspiration? Is it an option to rejoin the European Union? If it is an option, how will it be considered? And if it is considered positively, how do we rejoin?
We cannot have this debate without making it explicitly clear that the situation in Scotland is different. Many Members have noted the disagreements in their constituencies, but England and Wales voted to leave while Scotland voted to remain by more than 60%. Given the consequences of what has happened since, that fact cannot be overstated. The context for people in Scotland was that two years earlier we were told by Westminster that, by choosing to remain within the Union, our future within Europe was secure and could be guaranteed. That turned out very much not to be the case. The fundamental promise for Scotland of remaining in the Union changed against our will, despite 60% of people in Scotland having voted to remain in the EU. It is no wonder that people in Scotland increasingly see their future not only within the EU but within the EU in an independent Scotland. As many have said today, what we have seen since 2016 because of Brexit is our economy suffering, our young people being limited, our agricultural businesses being strangled and our cost of living increasing year on year. That has been a clear consequence of a future that Scotland, unlike many Members’ constituencies, did not vote for. Scotland did not need to wait and see the consequences that we have discussed today; we knew that this would be a disaster.
I will not; sorry. Now the Prime Minister has acknowledged that economic and social situations have changed. So many of the promises made ahead of the Brexit referendum turned out to be false, aimed at pursuing the agenda of those who did not truly have the interests of the people at heart but were operating in the pursuit of their own objectives. The PM has recently stated that the realities of that decision have not benefited the people who voted for it and that many regretted their decision. That is a feeling that so many in Scotland understand, because the promises that those claims were based on turned out to be based on false realities.
I will not give way, in the interests of time. Yet although the decision made in Westminster and by Westminster in 2016 is apparently now up for relitigation —in what form seems as yet unclear—Scotland has been told that that same democratic privilege does not apply to us. But we cannot have a dual standard of democracy when it comes to reconsidering the consequences of referendums. We SNP Members have aspirations to be an equal and contributing member of the EU in our own right. What we are sure of in the SNP is that when Scotland does inevitably rejoin the EU, it will be on our own two feet—not as part of a Union begging and clawing its way back through different deals and trying to renegotiate and relitigate. It will be as a state in our own right, completely clear that our future has always been there. If the Government’s position is now that the outcome of a referendum can be reopened for discussion, then that same democratic principle must apply to Scotland. If the Prime Minister is prepared to set out the mechanisms for a clear and closer relationship with the EU, then he must also set out the mechanisms for an independent Scotland.
It is always very obvious when a Labour Government are in place, because the first thing a Labour Prime Minister will do is take a swing at pensioners—so it is not at all surprising that the Prime Minister is already abandoning his promises to WASPI women. How can pensioners, WASPI women and the public in general trust the DWP when the Prime Minister seems to find it so easy to say yes and make grand promises, when there are no consequences and those promises seem to have absolutely no meaning in practice?
The Prime Minister says that, when it comes to the relationship with the EU, the British public will be the boss. Given that Scotland last had a vote on whether or not to stay in broken Brexit Britain before Brexit was even on the cards, does he not think it is a wee bit cheeky to give the UK public the choice, the driving seat and the reins on whether or not to have a different future with the EU while refusing that same choice to Scotland on its future with the UK?
It is not always the most high-profile or senior politicians who are targeted; we know that in this House, to our cost. The Speaker’s Conference on security looked at the views of Members and candidates from all parts of these islands, and it specifically sought evidence from Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh candidates and MPs, who may not have the same jurisdictional or geographical issues as English MPs. Can the Home Secretary reassure me that Sir Stephen Lovegrove will listen to a range of voices and experiences, from different jurisdictions and geographies, so that appropriate recommendations can be made?
The Prime Minister, as a proud Unionist, will be acutely aware that despite Scotland voting overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, it was dragged out against its will because it is part of the United Kingdom. Since then, support for Scottish independence has only risen. Two thirds of the last 22 independent polls show support for independence, the Scottish Parliament has the highest majority ever of pro-independence MSPs, and it voted 72 to 55 in favour of a section 30 agreement for a referendum on Scotland’s future. In the Prime Minister’s own words to me last month, a “clear consensus” has now been met, so I ask him a simple question: what steps is he now taking with the Scottish Government to secure a legal pathway so that Scotland can decide its own future and rejoin the EU?
We have more than 1 million young people who are not in education, employment or training. This is simply a crisis, and one of the reasons for it is that businesses—particularly small and medium-sized ones—are not taking on apprentices. Will the Secretary of State take this chance to support Reform UK’s apprenticeship wage credit, which will provide direct support to small and medium-sized businesses when they take on a young apprentice?
We now know that Iran has targeted bases on our soil. We already knew that Iranian agents who had been charged with terrorism offences entered the United Kingdom on small boats, so will the Prime Minister do what Reform UK would do—declare a national security emergency, because we have a gaping hole in our borders right now, send the Royal Navy into the channel, and shut down the entire asylum farce, once and for all—to truly fulfil his duty as Prime Minister, which is to keep the British people safe?
It is abundantly clear to me that if the attack on the home of my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) had been properly investigated, instead of brushed aside in some combination of incompetence and political bias, Ann Widdecombe would still be alive today. Instead, she was brutally murdered because of two-tier Britain. Let that sink in to everyone in this place. Why did it take the death of Ann Widdecombe for people to begin at least to wake up to what is happening in this country?
The Prime Minister confirmed that the incident at RAF Fairford was likely to have been co-ordinated in Iran. Can he comment on the serious suggestions that some of those who have been arrested and then bailed had Iranian diplomatic immunity?
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. My colleagues will ask questions about MPs’ security, but I want to touch on RAF Fairford. The Government’s own terrorism tsar, Jonathan Hall KC, has said that in incidents of serious terrorism, more information should be put out faster, sooner and in more detail to prevent misinformation. I asked the Prime Minister earlier whether there was any truth in the suggestion that some of those arrested and then bailed had Iranian diplomatic immunity. He gave the hospital pass to the Home Secretary, so let me repeat the question. Can any more be said about that, and about whether those arrested could be not only British nationals but dual Iranian-British nationals?
Last week I got a telephone call from Nottinghamshire police to tell me that I was on a kill list of 100 MPs, former MPs and VIPs. I strongly believe that it took a leak to the press before the police actually contacted me and my Reform colleagues sitting here. Can the Home Secretary tell me when she first became aware of that list?
As ever, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy). I congratulate the petitioners, but I am afraid the heart sinks in this debate. I think it took less than three minutes before we heard about the 350 million quid on the side of the bus, which is one of the great canards. Of course, that was paid; one of the few things that Theresa May actually did for Brexit was make that very significant increase in the NHS budget. We have heard about the migrant return scheme under the EU, which was never used and never actually returned any migrants.
I am just going to keep going. I do not think we are actually having a debate; we are just exchanging our speeches, so I will not give way. I sympathise with the points we have heard, such as those made about zoos, Spanish delis or Freddy and his band. It is clearly very frustrating how the EU has treated its close friend, the UK, after Brexit, and that has had very unfortunate consequences for those businesses. We need to look at this issue from a much bigger perspective, and here the facts are much more contested about the overall benefits and costs of Brexit. When we talk about these always cited statistics on the decline in GDP since 2026, we are comparing an unknowable counterfactual with what has actually happened in the real European Union and the UK. Here, as the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, the UK has done better than our European competitors. Let us just be straightforward about this: the whole of Europe, including the United Kingdom, has suffered economically over the last decade. Different sectors have prospered and suffered in different ways. Although we have not suffered in services exports, we have suffered in goods exports, and I recognise that. However, those goods losses overlap with stupid political choices made by our sovereign United Kingdom, particularly in respect of energy policy. Where we have also suffered and struggled is where our regulations have remained aligned with the EU. The fact is that European regulations have caused Europe to decline, and where we have also declined, it is because we have remained aligned with them. Mario Draghi, the former Italian Prime Minister and chairman of the European Central Bank, wrote a brilliant report that conclusively demonstrated how much it is the EU itself that holds back European growth, and why it is so regrettable that Britain has remained aligned in so many sectors. Let me quickly state what actually works for prosperity and what drives economic growth. Last year’s Nobel prize winners won for their brilliant work demonstrating why there has been sustained growth in the world for the last 200 years. It is not because of market share or market access, as valuable as that is; it is because of innovation and technology. It is because of a regulatory system, largely derived from the United Kingdom, that enables businesses to prosper. The key aspects of that system are light-touch regulation and legal certainty, which are features of common law and the United Kingdom’s economy. Legal systems matter, and the civil law system that the EU operates and applied to the UK is different, as it involves heavy regulation and legal uncertainty. Where we have remained constrained by EU law, such as in electric or self-driving cars, we do just as badly as the EU. However, where we have diverged—where we have used our Brexit freedoms—that is where we are prospering. Of course, AI technology is the key evidence of that.
The AI that the hon. Lady used to write her speech is the benefit of Brexit, and we all benefit enormously from the UK’s leadership in this enormous sector. We attract as much investment in our AI sector as the whole EU27 combined. That is what divergence looks like, and that is what growth looks like. What is happening is that the EU—and I am afraid the Government—is deliberately locking the United Kingdom into its regulatory system, so that it becomes increasingly apparent that there will be no opportunity to leave. [Interruption.] I am very unclear about the speech times, Sir Edward. Have I gone over?
I have pages and pages to go, but I will end on this point. The opportunity remains for the United Kingdom to prosper from the tremendous decision that the British people took 10 years ago. Because of poor Government choices, made under the Conservatives and Labour, the United Kingdom is suffering. However, the answer is not to take a step back into the EU.
I know that the people of the Falkland Islands will be reassured by the Prime Minister telling President Trump and the UN General Assembly that the clear and declared will of the islands is to remain British, but will he please afford the same rights to the people of the Chagos islands? Surely, all citizens of overseas territories should have the right of self-determination and the right to stay British.
I commend the Prime Minister for his statement and specifically for his acknowledgment of the significant harm that Brexit has wrought on our communities. I welcome his desire for a serious conversation about the long-term relationship with the European Union. Does he agree that for any dialogue to be serious, it has to include a the full range of options, including membership of the customs union, the single market and possibly the European Union?
If we want to support young people into employment, we must address the barriers they face long before they enter the workplace. One is child poverty, which is why the Plaid Cymru Government will pilot the Cynnal payment. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the £10 a week payment for children in households receiving universal credit will be disregarded for benefit purposes?
Every local area should have a youth hub—the benefits are so very clear. The Minister is promising an expansion of youth hubs, so when can we see one in Bath?
In Bath, we led the rebellion against Brexit, and I have raised time and again here in Parliament how the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deal has harmed hundreds of small businesses in my constituency. We have already heard this afternoon that endless paperwork and red tape harms not just the food and drinks industry, but all business sectors, and small businesses in particular. While I recognise that the Prime Minister is focusing on the next six weeks, can he outline his ambition for negotiating cuts to the red tape and endless paperwork for businesses across the board, to support small businesses like those in Bath?
I am listening to the shadow Minister’s speech with incredulity and watching the faces of the wonderful people in the Gallery who have come but are not able to speak. I wonder whether he has actually had those discussions. I think we are the only country to have ever left, and there have been significant comments from Ursula von der Leyen and others that we are not going to be treated exactly the same. Unless the shadow Minister has actually had those meetings, it would be very unwise to say that is fact.
rose—
The Minister has 40-odd minutes.
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. This struck me earlier when the Prime Minister talked about the importance of the British public being the boss throughout this. The Minister has been clear about all the available options, but if the British public are to have their say, which presumably would require a general election, referendum or something similar, is there not a risk that we end up pushing all of this into the long grass again when we know that the longer it takes, the worse the situation becomes? Is there any opportunity for short-term changes that can move this closer?