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1. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Gordon McKee

   Civil Service Pension Scheme

   Saving for a secure retirement is a baseline expectation for the people I represent. For some members of the civil service pension scheme, that expectation has been replaced by unanswered emails, long phone calls and an indefinite wait. That frustration is compounded by the fact that they are not waiting for a favour but for their own money. I will never forget a woman who came to one of my summer coffee mornings. She had worked all her life and to mark her retirement had booked the holiday of a lifetime with her husband. Instead of being able to enjoy that holiday, it was punctured by the anxiety caused by Capita’s incompetence. There is a power imbalance: retirees know that they are owed and Capita knows there is a problem, but Capita is the only one able to fix it. People are left screaming into a faceless bureaucracy, somewhere inside which their pension is trapped. I know the Minister cares as deeply as I do, and I look forward to hearing of the work she is doing to ensure that we fix this urgently for my constituents.

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2. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing this important debate. I thank all hon. Members who are here this morning. Nine years on, a number of them have rightly raised the tragic incident at Grenfell Tower. As a London MP, I vividly remember the night of 14 June 2017. My son had been born a week earlier, on 7 June. Watching TV throughout the night was like watching a horror film with flames and black pieces, not knowing that the black pieces coming out of the building were people jumping. It is right that this House is united in continuing to scrutinise the pace of remediation and the support available to those affected. Many residents across the country have lived with uncertainty about the safety of their homes, their financial security and their ability to move on with their lives. We recognise the impact that building safety can have not only on people’s homes, but on their wellbeing and peace of mind. Nine years on from Grenfell, we have to be honest and say that there can be no justification for unsafe buildings remaining unaddressed. Although significant progress has been made, more than 4,000 buildings have been identified as requiring remediation, and too many residents continue to face the consequences of failures that they did not cause. That is why this Government are committed to speeding up remediation, ensuring that those responsible bear the cost of making buildings safer, and strengthening protections for leaseholders and residents. Our objective is clear: to remove barriers to remediation, speed up delivery and ensure that people can feel safe and secure in their home. Since the launch of the remediation acceleration plan, more than 420 additional buildings over 11 metres have completed cladding remediation through the Government-funded scheme and the developer remediation contract, meaning that some 35,000 more residents are now living in safer homes. The Government have approved £2.1 billion of funding for cladding remediation since the plan was launched and have committed to more than £1 billion to accelerate remediation in the social housing sector. But we recognise that further action is needed. We are considering how we can go further to protect residents, particularly those who fall outside existing protections, and to ensure that no responsible party can avoid its obligations. That is why we will build on the foundations established by the Building Safety Act through the forthcoming remediation Bill and our wider programme of building safety reforms. The Bill will provide greater clarity and certainty about which buildings require remediation and the standards that must be met. It will strengthen regulators’ ability to check delay and non-compliance. It will improve routes to recover remediation costs from those responsible and ensure that residents have a pathway to remediation even where responsible entities fail to act or are unable to meet their obligations. Taken together, these reforms will strengthen accountability across the system and help to ensure that buildings are made safer faster. I turn to some specific issues raised during the debate. The hon. Members for Surrey Heath and for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) raised the issue of PAS 9980. As hon. Members will know, PAS 9980 was developed by the British Standards Institution. The Government sponsored the BSI to review and update it to ensure that it remains fit for purpose and captures best practice, looking at the learnings since it was introduced in 2022. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath outlined, the BSI published an update to PAS 9980 yesterday. I do not agree with the hon. Member’s characterisation. PAS 9980 provides an industry-wide accepted methodology to enable qualified and experienced assessors to undertake the fire risk appraisal of external walls. It provides a consistent and proportionate building-specific approach to risk assessments and helps to achieve the right solutions for each building, keeping residents safe while preventing unnecessary and disruptive works. As the update highlights, it has improved the clarity of the structure and usability of PAS 9980, with the aim of achieving greater transparency and consistency by assessors. It does not, however, materially change how risks are assessed, so fire risk appraisals of external walls undertaken using a previous version of PAS 9980 will remain valid. Government remediation programmes require that fire risk appraisals of external walls be undertaken using this methodology. To further safeguard quality and ensure consistency in assessments, the remediation Bill will mandate how external wall assessments are carried out, to align with our best practice remediation programmes and ensure a nationally consistent approach to remediation work. It will also establish mandatory auditing of fire risk appraisals of external walls in law. This requirement will reinforce trust in both the assessors and the outcomes. I hope that that helps to reassure hon. Members. Several right hon. and hon. Members rightly mentioned the issue of fire risk assessors. Fire risk assessors perform a critical safety role, and it is essential that they are fully compliant and competent. We have therefore accepted the full recommendation in the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 report for mandatory certifications of fire risk assessors. To meet the recommendation, we intend to bring into law mandatory compliance requirements for fire risk assessors to perform that vital role, subject to parliamentary approval and timescale.

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3. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   I agree that many people will continue to question when the fire risk assessors will be in place. The Government recently launched a public consultation on the proposal to establish a fire risk assessor profession with consistently high levels of competency, whereby trust is rebuilt and a strong and diverse pipeline of talent comes forward to ensure that fire safety standards are met. We are currently analysing all the consultation responses, and the Government will publish a full response later this autumn, so hopefully my hon. Friend will not have to wait much longer. We recognise the additional pressures on building control and fire engineer capacity across the country. We have established the independent building control panel and the fire engineers advisory panel to examine the issues and provide recommendations on strengthening the system. The Government are committed to working with the BSR on long-term reform and exploring options for a more efficient building control system. Any future changes will be developed in consultation with the industry and other stakeholders.

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4. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   My hon. Friend will know that I will definitely continue to lobby Treasury colleagues very hard, and any help from colleagues around the House will be helpful. In the meantime, the current system includes a new initiative looking at digital building control programmes. I can confirm that over £45 million has been invested in growing the workforce to help to address the key issue of capacity, streamline the process and support development. More is coming, but a lot more needs to come through the pipeline. A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, mentioned the key issue of building insurance and the continuing financial strain felt by so many innocent leaseholders. They see their insurance premiums going through the roof, in some cases paying more than for their mortgages. In the remediation acceleration plan, the Government have committed to working with the insurance industry to explore options to address the insurance challenges faced by residents living in buildings that are undergoing remediation. To strengthen the evidence base, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched the remediation programme insurance survey, a UK-wide survey of buildings in Government remediation programmes. The findings, first published in July 2026, provide the most comprehensive dataset collected to date on insurance costs, premiums and claims and remediation status across more than 2,000 buildings undergoing remediation. The evidence is informing ongoing engagement with insurers and wider work to understand how insurance costs can better reflect improvements in building safety as remediation progresses. The Financial Conduct Authority is undertaking a short and focused review of the multi-occupancy building insurance market, and the findings will strengthen the evidence base on the next steps. The Government are also undertaking action to improve transparency and fairness in residential building insurance. We are proceeding with secondary legislation to prevent insurance commissions, which can be opaque and excessive, from being passed on by freeholders and managing agents as freeholders’ expenses, and to replace such arrangements with fair and transparent permitted insurance payments with a fee structure. Alongside that, we will introduce through secondary legislation a new transparency requirement for building insurance, including in respect of the disclosure of the relationships and financial arrangements among landlords, managing agents, brokers and insurers.

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5. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   I thank the right hon. Member for raising that point. He highlighted examples of various developments in his constituency, including Drayton Park and Highbury Gardens, underlining the fact that innocent leaseholders have continued to pay exorbitant fees for many years. It is really important that we get to grips with this, especially for new buildings. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will be discussing the matter in respect of the national planning policy framework and some other areas, and I will continue to discuss it as well. On the specific issue of backdating, it is important for us to look at clear insurance procurement—the pricing, the cover, the prescribed timeframes for providing information and the mechanism for challenging any future delays. Together, the measures the Government have outlined are intended to improve transparency, strengthen accountability and help to ensure that residents have a clearer understanding of insurance costs. There is a lot of jargon and hidden figures. We need to make sure that the costs are clear and that when residents challenge them, they get the right information back so that they can assess what they are being asked to pay for.

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6. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   I thank the hon. Member for raising a valid point about what lessons can be learned from what happens in the UK. As he has outlined, buildings right across the UK need to be safe. Every home needs to be safe; it does not matter where a person lives. I am very open to looking at areas of best practice, which we can share as we develop legislation. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, outlined the big issue with EWS1 forms, which has caused many homeowners a great deal of stress. The Government recognise the difficulties in selling and remortgaging homes, and the concerns for residents living in buildings impacted by building safety issues. We have continued to work with major mortgage lenders to improve access to lending for affected buildings and support the functioning of the housing market while remediation progresses. The hon. Gentleman referred to concerns about the validity of certain EWS1 forms. I can confirm that my Department is aware of those concerns, which relate to a fire engineer who was removed from his professional accrediting body and is, as I understand it, no longer operating in the field. Although I cannot comment on individual cases, it is important to reiterate that the EWS1 form is not an official Government form but an industry tool used by lenders and valuers to help them to understand the remediation status of participating buildings. My officials continue to engage with the mortgage lending industry to encourage it to take a proportionate approach when using EWS1 forms. The Government consider that lenders should be moving away from the forms, but there is still an over-reliance on them. The hon. Gentleman highlighted an additional bill of £4,500 because of the delay in getting an EWS1 form. We understand that EWS1 forms continue to be used by individual lenders, and the Government will continue to stress loudly that lenders should move away from that requirement. A number of Members highlighted the issue of cost and who pays for historical remediation. The Building Safety Act puts the responsibility for undertaking, and in most cases paying for, remediation on the building’s landlords, while making it very clear that developers must pay to fix buildings that they have developed or refurbished even if they no longer own them. Courts have new powers to extend liability to associated companies, thereby stopping complex corporate structures being used to dodge responsibility. This was not fair and took a mental toll on many homeowners. Where a developer cannot be identified or has not yet agreed to pay, public funding is available to address life-threatening cladding risk on residential buildings over 11 metres high, so that no leaseholder in those buildings will face cladding remediation costs. Many holders of qualifying leases are protected in full from non-cladding and interim measures—for example, where the landlord or its group meets the contribution condition or where the property value is below the set threshold. Other qualifying leaseholders have their costs firmly capped and spread over 10 years, with costs already paid out since 28 June 2017 counting towards the cap. For obvious reasons, in Greater London the cap is £15,000 and across the country it is £10,000. That rises to £50,000 for properties valued between £1 million and £2 million, and to £100,000 for properties valued at more than £2 million. The hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington mentioned the building safety levy, which will come into force on 1 October and will raise funds to pay for the remediation of cladding on residential buildings where the developer cannot be held responsible or identified. That is a key element for ensuring trust. Under the work started by the previous Government, 53 developers signed the developer-led remediation contract with the Government. The contract covers more than 2,000 buildings in England that are over 11 metres high and have life-critical fire safety defects. Developers have contributed and committed to pay or fix the matter, at a cost of around £4.2 billion. Any developer that fails to comply with the remediation obligations faces significant commercial consequences, including the imposition of statutory prohibitions, effectively preventing them from building new homes in England. We expect all developers to accelerate their remediation work without compromising safety.

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7. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   rose—

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8. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Florence Eshalomi

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   As of April 2026, developers had assessed whether remediation work was required in 94% of their buildings. Despite the progress, there is still a lot to do. Some developers are behind that stretch target and we will continue to engage with them. The Government remain firmly committed to building a safety regime that is robust, proportionate and protects residents while enabling the delivery of much-needed homes. We have listened to concerns and have already taken decisive steps to strengthen the regulator’s capacity, improve its processes and ensure it is fit for purpose. We will continue to work with the industry, residents and Parliament to ensure that the regulation delivers effectively. I am grateful for all the points Members have raised and will come back to them on any points I have not addressed, especially where they raised individual constituency cases. I look forward to the ongoing dialogue as we continue to address this really important issue.

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9. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Fleur Anderson

   Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison, and a delight to be called first. I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing this important debate. It is an important opportunity for me to raise with the Minister the many issues that my constituents are facing, which are similar to those that the hon. Member has just described. I welcome the Minister to her place as well. In having this debate, we remember all the victims and survivors of Grenfell. I also thank all the people across the country who have been campaigning on cladding. I have talked about cladding many times and yet we are still here; that is my frustration. I thank the previous Minister for Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for her work on the remediation Bill. The Bill will place stronger legal duties on landlords and freeholders to remediate unsafe cladding and other fire safety defects within clear timeframes. That is very welcome. I am also grateful to her for meeting with me to discuss a number of long-running cases that I face in Putney, and I am glad that the new Minister will continue that important work. I welcome the work of the remediation enforcement unit, the leadership of Lord Roe, and the work of the Building Safety Regulator, but I do not know why they are causing so many delays. I understand that 69 people work for the remediation unit and 500 people work for the Building Safety Regulator. I ask the Minister to look into their work and find out why they are not able to move so many developments ahead at the pace needed. There are long delays, a lack of clear guidance and a lack of connection between the different bodies involved, as I will demonstrate. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to several developments that are covered by the developer remediation contract with major developers such as Barratt Redrow and Taylor Wimpey. Despite those contractual commitments, many residents in those developments continue to face lengthy delays before remediation works, which have been agreed and funded, can begin or be completed. In some cases, fire safety remediation has been delayed because structural defects need to be addressed first—if there are problems with the cladding, that often comes with problems with the entire building. In other cases, residents are waiting for final fire risk assessments, EWS1 forms, remediation plans, contractor appointments, updated certifications, smoke extraction systems or the installation of cavity barriers. In all those cases, it is the people in the building who have to chase things up. One development in my constituency has been waiting for Network Rail to give permission for rear elevation works. Network Rail did not respond to the many repeated efforts by the project team to obtain the permission, so a specialist contractor had to be hired just to get a response, which added a lot of cost for leaseholders. In another case, many defects have been found at the same time in the buildings of a really large development. Hundreds of families have moved out and moved back, and they have just been told that they will all have to move out again in a rota system, all while fighting for remediation. They have been worried about the safety of their building—they had a waking watch and then they did not—and they cannot sell their homes if they want to, so they cannot get on with their lives. The impact on all those residents of six years of fighting is unacceptable. They cannot sell or remortgage their homes, and they live in uncertainty about when their buildings will finally be made safe. This is affecting social housing tenants too. For some badly affected social housing in Wandsworth, specifically the Eliot and Wentworth blocks in Wandsworth town, tenants have been waiting for the Building Safety Regulator to give the go-ahead. They cannot have essential kitchen and heating system replacements or other work in the building done until the cladding remediation is completed. The council submitted the application on 31 March. The Building Safety Regulator’s statutory response time for works to existing higher-risk buildings is eight weeks, but it immediately asked for an extension, which is worrying in itself. Here we are in September, and the council is still waiting for a response. The works will take 18 to 24 months. The blocks are in serious need of that repair and the other repairs they are waiting for. Although I recognise that developers have obligations under the developer remediation contract, my constituents are understandably asking what more can be done by the unit, by Ministers and by the Building Safety Regulator when progress stalls for different reasons. The challenge is not whether a developer has signed up to a contract, but how quickly remediation can move through the assessment, approval and delivery stages, especially when there are other bodies involved. To conclude, can the Minister explain how the Government intend to support and expedite remediation at developments already covered by the developer remediation contract? What steps can be taken to remove barriers that delay works, to speed up assessments and approvals, and to ensure that developers deliver at pace? The new legislation is very welcome, but leaseholders trapped in affected buildings need to know that existing remediation programmes will also be accelerated. They deserve not only stronger rules for the future in the upcoming Bill, but urgent action on the buildings that have already waited far too long for remediation to be completed.

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10. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Fleur Anderson

    Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

    I welcome the visitor levy and the investment it will bring to London’s visitor economy. Has the Minister been listening to London Councils, which wants 50% of the money raised in each borough to return to that borough, so that businesses know it is going back to the things that they want, such as cleaning Putney High Street?

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11. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Euan Stainbank

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    Capita and MyCSP have failed public servants and ground lives to a halt. Derek tragically lost his wife Julie last year. We found that vital information in relation to Julie’s pension had been lost by Capita, and despite raising this in a previous debate, that case is still unresolved. Despite Capita’s supposed priority to death-in-service cases, it is Derek’s sincere and despairing belief that he will never get what he is entitled to. Tim retired in May. He sent everything he needed to immediately to Capita, which quickly confirmed it had received everything it needed, only to come back to Tim two months later requesting documents it did not initially send him. I could go on and on—terminally ill people waiting for hours on the phone; prison officers mentally battered and left for months without any updates from Capita. The fact that a single penny has been earned by Capita’s shareholders since it took on the contract is shameful. The fact that that contract was transferred to Capita on the cheap in 2023 is shameful. Minister, enough is enough. Insource this contract.

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12. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Emma Lewell

    Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

    South Shields tourism is largely made up of families from neighbouring regions who have saved hard all year round to spend a few days at the seaside, and even if the increase from this measure is marginal, they will not come. My constituents, family-run B&Bs, caravan parks, hotels and wider hospitality industry have been unequivocal with me that they do not want this measure. It is the wrong tax at the worst time. The extra burden on their business will tip my local industry over. Devolution works only when it reflects what communities want, so will my hon. Friend confirm that MPs, who are voices and local leaders in their communities, will be at the forefront of these proposals?

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13. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

    Q Ms Tennant, I represent Glasgow, which is one of the areas in the country with the highest need for asylum accommodation. We are a welcoming city and are proud of being so, but you can imagine that the welcome is being tested due to the infrastructure stresses that this is placing on us. You have a long and distinguished career in the United Nations and have seen when asylum housing and refugee housing works well and when it does not. Presumably, you feel that the confidence of the host community is in large part a determinant of that. In your assessment of what has been happening in Britain, particularly over the last decade, where do you think that that confidence level lies at the moment? Are you concerned that we are perhaps not in the place we should be in terms of people perceiving the rules-based order to be intact when it comes to asylum? Vicky Tennant: I would certainly say that the issue of asylum accommodation and the way in which the reception of asylum seekers and support to asylum seekers are managed has contributed to a crisis of confidence. As I said, the objective of restoring public confidence through a fair and efficient system is one that UNHCR absolutely welcomes. A key element is the fact that asylum seekers have been accommodated for very extended periods of time waiting for decisions on their claims. Simply by virtue of that fact, the volume of support and accommodation required while people are not able to work has grown over the years. We are pleased that there is progress in that space. It is a hugely challenging issue to address. However, alongside the work on how asylum support accommodation is provided in a way that fosters community welcome and community cohesion, the work on the system itself has to continue. That is certainly where UNHCR has brought our international experience to bear: we have really been leaning in and trying to work closely with the Home Office to see how we can have a system that is functioning more efficiently and getting decisions out more quickly, but also getting decisions right first time. That is where we go back to the discussion around the appeals body. The most important lever that could be pulled is to improve and ensure the quality of first-instance decision making, such as by ensuring that there is a second pair of eyes on those decisions, so that we do not see cases going into the appeals system unnecessarily. At the moment, there is quite a high rate of cases being withdrawn by the Home Office from the appeals system. That should not be the case. There is also quite a high rate of first-instance decisions being overturned. Those are cases that ideally would not be in the appeals system in the first place. That work on efficient, quality decision making in the first instance is also critical, and it then plays into the issue of asylum support and the length of time that asylum seekers are hosted in the community.

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14. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (First sitting)

    Q Mr Featonby, thank you, and your counterparts at the Scottish Refugee Council, for the work you do to look after the vulnerable; we are very grateful. Of course, that work can go on only if there is public confidence in the system. As you know, applications have risen steadily since 2021. From your perspective, what is the urgency for a change in the legislation to return the trust and confidence in the system that have been eroded over the last few years? Jon Featonby: There are definitely some positive signs that the Government should be quite proud of. Around the time of the election, we published a report that looked at the state of the asylum system. We described it as a “system in meltdown”, largely caused by the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which had seen productivity in the Home Office drop to its lowest level since the height of the covid pandemic. Since then, the Home Office has done a much better job of being able to make decisions quickly. The latest statistics we have show that about 75% of initial decisions are made within six months of somebody making an application. That is a good thing. We think some Government priority should be given to how you make sure that people have confidence in the asylum system. That system needs to be doing its basics right: making decisions as quickly as it can that are right the first time; supporting refugees who are found to be in need of protection to get on with their lives, rebuild their lives and contribute fully to UK communities; and providing a way for people who are found to be not in need of protection to be removed safely and humanely. That is where we see some challenges in the Bill. We do not think it addresses some of that context. The previous panels touched on how the backlog in the asylum system is now at the appeals stage, which is an almost inevitable consequence of dealing with the initial decision backlog. There will be more decisions and therefore more refusals, and therefore more people will go into that appeals process. There are probably three times as many people in the appeals backlog as in the asylum backlog itself. Some of that will work its way through the system as the Government get more on top of the asylum system—what officials refer to as having friction within the asylum system—where the number of decisions they are making is roughly the same as the number of people entering the system. As a result of the speeding-up of decision making in recent years, we have also seen a reduction in the quality of some decisions, which we think has put unnecessary pressure on the tribunal and left people stuck in the asylum system, and in accommodation, for longer than they should be, at cost to the taxpayer and to those individuals. That is borne out by the appeals statistics that we now get from the first-tier tribunal, which show that in the last year, in two thirds of appeals that were disposed of, either the tribunal granted the appeal or—as is increasingly the case—the initial decision was withdrawn by the Home Office, because once the appeal got towards the tribunal hearing the Home Office found that it was not going to be able to defend the decision. That is why we think there should be a laser focus on initial decision making and on what else can be done to reduce the appeals backlog. One of our concerns around the IIAA is that the appeals backlog is an urgent problem that needs to be dealt with now, but the best case scenario is probably that the IIAA starts to hear some cases at the back end of next year. It may well be the next election before the IIAA is really up and running. We think that more urgent things could be done without having to rip up the entire tribunal system as it currently is.

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15. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Mr Mehmet, you made some initial commentary about welcoming the Bill but suggested that it is not sufficient to reduce the small boat crossings. Why, then, are small boat crossings already down 41% even before the Bill has been enacted? Where does this legislation intersect with the need for further law enforcement across borders? Does it intersect with the fact that small boat crossings rose after we left the European Union and we have had less of an armoury and less flexibility to deal with them? You highlighted the American experience of reducing immigration and returns, but presumably you are not advocating a model with the level of aggressive behaviour of ICE agents. American citizens are being shot dead in the streets. Alp Mehmet: I am not quite sure how you link what is going on at the border and Americans being shot in the street.

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16. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q You are suggesting that the Americans have been very successful, and I am politely retorting that the overall model being used there does not seem very British. Alp Mehmet: Well, I think securing your borders is totally British, frankly. We have been doing it for millennia. We seem to have forgotten that we are a sovereign state and can decide who can enter our country and who cannot. That aside, the Americans have certainly locked the border. Anyone who makes their way into the United States via the southern border is returned. I am not suggesting that we put a massive wall on the south coast and just let them get on with it. However, I believe that detaining people on arrival, dealing with them quickly and returning them to France or wherever they have come from is doing something similar—in other words, stopping people from entering the country illegally. The Danes have also introduced measures that I do not think we ever will. For example, if people arrive with money or luxury goods, those are confiscated. The Greeks are not admitting to it, but we know from reports that they are pushing boats back to Turkey. If we were to do all those things, I have no doubt that we would stop the boats coming over. The only reason the people arriving on them increased from 299 in 2018 to 41,000 last year and 18,000 so far this year—which is still massive, frankly—with over 210,000 arriving since 2018, is that they can and that, having arrived here, they get to stay. That is what we have to address, and that is what the Bill does not address.

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17. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Something else has changed since 2018, which was part of my first question. How do you reconcile our reduced flexibility to deal with European nations outside the European Union in relation to this issue? Alp Mehmet: I am sorry, Dr Ahmed, but that is just not so. I dealt with the European Union and worked in it many years ago before I retired, and I also monitored the exchanges on the Dublin agreement and the various incarnations of it: it did not work. Very few people went in either direction, and it took aeons—months and months—to arrange everything. It was no deterrent.

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18. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Good afternoon. I just wanted to pick up on the point about those invocating article 8 of the European convention on human rights. You said that the number was small, but I understand that around 77,000 people end up caught in those crosshairs. From your experience and perspective, what guidance do judges need, if you do not believe that a change in the law on article 8 is necessary? More widely, where do you believe the country is? The prerequisite of a functional asylum system is that it needs to command the confidence of the vast majority of the public, but in relation to article 8, do you think that criterion is met currently? Jacqui McKenzie: Sorry, can you just repeat the first part of the question?

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19. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    I think it was either yourself or Professor Singer— Jacqui McKenzie: Oh, the numbers—sorry. The number that I referred to as being small is the number of cases that the Home Office say will be refused under this new system, which I think is 11,700. Professor Singer: It is 11,700, and the Home Office impact assessment estimates that 55% of those will, in any case, remain in the UK, because it is not possible to remove them back to their home country due to legal or logistical challenges. It is anticipated to have quite minimal impact in practice, so it is quite a significant legislative change to make for quite a limited impact overall. Most of the public attention is focused on the issue of foreign criminals, for example, but the House of Commons Library briefing for the Bill indicates that, at present, only 3% of foreign criminal appeals are allowed on a human rights basis, whether under article 8 or otherwise. Again, the impact is quite minimal. The most significant impact that the changes to article 8 will have is on children and families. We will see more children without their parents and more separated families, and I think in quite unconscionable ways that will actually be quite upsetting for the public. For me, setting out an interpretation of article 8 in domestic legislation does not change the meaning of article 8 as a matter of international law, and it does not change what the UK’s obligations are. Decisions are either in line with the UK’s obligations, in which case the legislation is not necessary, because the courts are already doing article 8 determinations themselves and doing their own balancing exercise on the basis of the existing legislation that we have, or they are more restrictive than the UK’s current legislation, which puts the UK at risk of not complying with its obligations under the European convention on human rights and the convention on the rights of the child. Jacqui McKenzie: I agree with that. I think you are aware that the figure I referred to as being small was not the overall 77,000. What we think of the 77,000 is another matter; some of us might say even that is not a huge number of people, especially when we look at how long some of those families have been settled in the UK, and the reasons why some of them are still in the immigration system, when their parents and grandparents may well have been settled. It is this point about redefining what a family is and breaking families up that concerns me more than anything.

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20. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q I must declare that I was once involved in a first-tier tribunal. Obviously, as parliamentarians, we are sometimes heavily involved in such matters on behalf of constituents. In the case I was involved in, it could be seen from space that there was going to be only one decision, yet it took a long time to get there. The persons present in that case seemed to be, let us say, overqualified. From your perspective, how will the IIAA affect the workload of the first-tier tribunal? Daniel Flury: Clearly, as the IIAA grows, the expectation is that the work of the first-tier tribunal will decline. I am the senior responsible officer for a programme that is essentially managing that decommissioning process—that decline. As Neal says, there is still a pretty significant backlog of just under 152,000 appeals sitting in the system. There is still quite a bit of work to be done. The current approach in HMCTS and the judiciary is simply business as usual until further notice. We are striving to sit more and be more productive. We are striving for output, and I feel that we are partially succeeding this year. Over time, in the years ahead, that work will decline and we will eventually wind up the operations.

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21. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q By what order of magnitude do you think that could happen, and in what timeframe? Daniel Flury: In terms of how quickly it could happen, I think the expectation is that this should all happen as quickly as possible. We are working with the Home Office on a number of assumptions around its expansion and our contraction. It is quite difficult to put a timescale on it just yet, but I think the expectation, certainly from the Home Office, is that it should happen pretty quickly. Our overall planning assumption is that we expect it to be somewhere between one and three years.

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22. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q On the spectrum of complexity in these cases, clearly, many of them are straightforward—like the one I was involved in—but there are others that have elements of complexity that are sometimes apparent, sometimes not. For the benefit of the Committee, could you lay out some of the safeguards that are in place to manage that complexity? Daniel Flury: It is principally the judge’s role to manage the complexity of a case, obviously supported by legal representatives. In terms of the support that HMCTS can offer, we have a programme, which applies to all courts and tribunals, of reasonable adjustments that we offer appellants, claimants, defendants and so on. The rest is primarily provided through legal aid, legal representation and the judge safeguarding them in that case.

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23. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q I have a couple of questions. The IIAA is a big change. It is causing a lot of anxiety, understandably, because of the spectre of the complexity of cases. From your perspective, what insurance policies are there to make sure that the complexity is matched by the level of adjudication? Bas Javid: Everything we do within my team and the wider system, we do with compassion, respect and dignity. For every person we come across, whether that is a voluntary return or an enforced return or a foreign national offender, we follow the rules of policy and law. Our strapline is stop, manage, remove and protect; safeguarding and vulnerability form a huge component part of what we do, day to day, and how we run and manage our operations. On the benefits that the IIAA will bring in terms of speeding up and discontinuing successive claims, it will obviously allow us to manage and process people much quicker, and it will certainly separate the people who have legitimate claims from those who potentially do not.

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24. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Zubir Ahmed

    Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Minister, you heard me earlier mentioning my home city of Glasgow and my constituency of Glasgow South West, which has the highest number of asylum seekers. There is real pressure on local infrastructure and housing, compounded by some ill-advised housing policies from the Scottish Government. Can you provide some reflection on why the measures in the Bill are necessary, and what impact it will have, not only on restoring trust and public confidence in the immigration and asylum system, but on social cohesion more widely? Anna Turley: I think you are absolutely right. This is such an important issue to all of our constituents across the country; it is one of the biggest things that comes up on the doorsteps in all the conversations we have. Everything is seen through the prism of fairness in this country, and rightly so. That is what the Bill is aiming for, through a number of measures, such as repayment of support and so on. This is about fairness; if people come here, we want them to integrate and to settle. If they have a genuine right to be here, we will always provide that, but we also have to be conscious that, in a country where our resources are not infinite, we have to have a managed system, where we remove those who have no right to be here and ensure that we support people in a way that is compliant with our international obligations, but does not go over and above them, which perhaps in the past we have done too much. In 2024-25, for example, the entire cost of asylum was £4 billion. At a time when our public purse is under strain, that is a challenge. We are working hard to do everything we can, all the way up to the source, to prevent the illegal movement of people across this country—the people trafficking that we have seen—and to disrupt the industrial network of gangs that exploit desperate people who wish to come to this country. We are doing that through doubling our investment in the National Crime Agency, working with the French to reduce the number of boat crossings, and processing and removing people. The key part of the Bill is the speeding up of appeals. That is one of the most important ways that we can accelerate the process. Nobody should have to wait 72 weeks for an asylum appeal. No one should be able draw things out and exploit the system through last-minute loopholes, using provisions that are designed genuinely to protect people but that are being exploited to draw out cases. This is a matter of fairness and due process, and of making a system that is fair and well managed so that it is fair both on the taxpayer and on those who are here genuinely fleeing persecution.

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25. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Scott Arthur

    English Whisky: Single Malt Definition

    I thank the Minister for his statement. If the Secretary of State made this decision, I am disappointed that she was not able to come along today to answer this question, as I think there are real concerns here. The sector in Scotland is 100 times bigger than the sector in England; if it is going to grow, I wonder what the target market is if it is not people who are currently drinking Scottish whisky. When the Minister visited the distillery in Aberdeenshire, did the people there explain the importance of the malt whisky brand and why it should be protected? It does seem that this decision today will weaken that brand.

    Hansard source
26. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Scott Arthur

    Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations

    This report does not make easy reading, and I cannot imagine how the families feel when they even just look at it. I want to pay tribute to the vast majority of NHS staff right across the UK who do a great job every single day, including my fantastic wife. The families’ legal team have been very clear that they expect all the recommendations to be implemented, and they are asking for a timeline for that. I know that cannot be given today, but it would be good to hear the Secretary of State say that her ambition is for all the recommendations to be implemented in full as soon as possible. The timeline is really important. Chapter 39 is about one of the more difficult problems. It talks about culture, and says that in the past, there has been an overreaction to blame culture, which means that some managers have been unwilling to confront bad behaviours. Will the Secretary of State commit to addressing that most difficult of problems?

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27. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Peter Prinsley

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. Let me tell Members about two men. The first is Adolfo Hernandez, the chief executive of Capita, who has an annual remuneration, I believe, of £1.6 million. The other is my constituent, a man who gave 33 years of service to the Metropolitan police and, despite giving ample notice of his retirement, did not receive his pension for at least six months. He wanted to fund his daughter through university, but was unable to do so. He took out loans from the police. He then developed cancer and is under treatment at my local hospital. He has finally received a quotation for his pension. This is an utter disgrace and we in this place must surely be able to do something about it. We all came to this place to change things. Surely, this is something that we can change. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view.

    Hansard source
28. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Allison Gardner

    Sepsis Awareness Month

    Prevention is key, and an estimated 20% to 30% of sepsis cases are urosepsis. I have just learned today from my campaign with Good Housekeeping magazine of a gentleman who lost his wife due to urinary tract infection-related sepsis. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we are to really tackle sepsis, we also need to look at infection sources and get better diagnostics and treatment for those, particularly for ones such as UTIs, that are still not properly focused on?

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29. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Allison Gardner

    Sepsis Awareness Month

    There is also the issue that the infection source is not recorded. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to make significant improvements to this if we are to prevent sepsis? It is a slight repetition, but the lack of data collection worries me.

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30. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Deirdre Costigan

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    My constituent Sarabjit partially retired last year. Capita wrongly worked out her pension, and over a year later she has still not got the money she is owed. Another constituent, Inderjeet, retired after 39 years in the Met police to spend more time with her parents, who live abroad, but five months later she has still not had a penny and her mum has sadly died since then. This is affecting real people’s lives. I know the Minister is new to the job, but I congratulate her on how she has already grasped the nettle on this issue. We have had two virtual surgeries offered to us next week for both those cases, but could she confirm the new deadline we should be working to, in order to ensure that Sarabjit and Inderjeet get the money they are due?

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31. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Deirdre Costigan

    Reoffending Reduction Programmes

    From 26 October, Labour’s new respect orders will mean that those persistently involved in antisocial behaviour in Ealing Southall can be required to attend drug and alcohol rehab to reduce reoffending. What work is the Minister doing with the Home Office to ensure that our courts have the guidance they need in advance of 26 October, so that both the police and the courts can act immediately to make Ealing Southall safer?

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32. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Deirdre Costigan

    Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

    Southall Broadway attracts wedding shoppers from across the globe, so local businesses welcome the overnight visitor levy as a great opportunity to get investment in the town centre. However, unlike other mayoral areas, London is not a combined authority. What can the Minister do to ensure that is reflected in the design of the levy in London, so that the mayor and London boroughs can jointly shape how it operates, and places such as Southall do not lose out because they are in London?

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33. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Danny Beales

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    Time and again this issue is raised in the House, whether at business questions or in questions to Ministers, and we are assured that the situation can and will get better. We are given deadlines and meetings. My constituent Mark’s case was even taken off the tracker, and my office was assured by Capita that the case was solved. Then, last week, we found out that it still had not been resolved and he still did not have the pension he was due. Barbara had to fight six months for her late husband’s pension. She dealt not only with the grief of losing a husband, but with not being able to get the pension that was owed. Frankly, it is disgraceful that we are treating anyone like this, let alone public servants who have served for many years and deserve a peaceful retirement. Instead, they are having to battle the system to get what they are owed. What out of pocket expenses will be covered? People are having to pay extra for legal support and to get extra documents reprinted and sourced, as well as getting by day to day. At what point do we draw a line and say, “Enough is enough,” end this contract, and bring it back in house or give it to another supplier that can actually provide what it is paid for?

    Hansard source
34. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Danny Beales

    Topical Questions

    T6. Vulnerable victims and witnesses of crime deserve full and proactive support from the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. Yet one of my constituents struggled to get clarity about what protections would be put in place should they give evidence in court, and also whether their victim personal statement was even properly considered during the sentencing stage of the trial. Will the Minister outline what is being done to better support victims, particularly vulnerable witnesses, to ensure they get proper advocacy in the court system?

    Hansard source
35. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Danny Beales

    Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

    Every year, millions of people travel through Hillingdon, to visit the country or the city of London or go to Heathrow, and stay at hotels near the airport. That creates real costs for local communities—policing, street cleaning and transport impacts—and addressing those threats to the tourist economy requires funding. As such, I support this measure, but can the Minister assure me that those issues that are often locally driven and funded will also get support in a mayoral-led system?

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36. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Danny Beales

    Student Loans

    I thank the Committee for its work and for the report. I completely agree with the Chair’s presentation of the level of mistrust among graduates and learners when it comes to the broken system. Does she agree with me that this is not simply a communications issue? It is not about telling people more clearly how bad a deal they have. Fundamentally, this is a broken system—a bad deal that is having massive intergenerational impacts. Does she agree that we need a full and thorough review of the student finance and loans system?

    Hansard source
37. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Siobhain McDonagh

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    Order. [Interruption.] Congratulations to the Minister—right on time.

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38. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Siobhain McDonagh

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    I call Ian Byrne.

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39. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Siobhain McDonagh

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    Order. Everyone can see the nature of my dilemma. I lost a wager with the previous Clerk by suggesting you would not all be here because there was a one-line Whip at 4.30 pm, but you all are. To clarify for Mr Stuart and other Members, I should say that the Doorkeepers have informed me that the Minister was here in plenty of time, but was caught in the mêlée as people left. I regret to inform all of you that, with the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I am imposing a time limit of one minute on Back-Bench speeches. Even then, I cannot guarantee that everybody will get called, so please do not take interventions.

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40. 15 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Siobhain McDonagh

    Civil Service Pension Scheme

    Order.

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