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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Stephen Kinnock

   Cross-border Rail Links

   I know about and welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s strong connections to Wales. I recognise the connectivity benefits that WSMR’s proposal could deliver, particularly for passengers in Wales and the west midlands. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Transport has provided conditional support for the application, subject to the Office of Rail and Road and Network Rail being satisfied that services can be accommodated without compromising network performance or affecting the rights of other operators. I will certainly join him in making the case for that compelling project.

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2. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Stephen Kinnock

   Cross-border Rail Links

   I thank my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to her as the first female Labour Secretary of State for Wales. Wales is better off as a result of her work on rail, nuclear, steel and more. I recognise the central importance of the Cardiff Parkway project, which could unlock up to 6,000 jobs. I will do all that I can, working with the Welsh Government and private investors, to progress the delivery of that important project at pace.

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3. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sojan Joseph

   Representation of the People Bill

   It is a real pleasure to see this Bill back on the Floor of the House. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon) for her work on the Bill—it was a pleasure to serve with her in Committee—and I congratulate the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), on her appointment. As was acknowledged on Second Reading, there are significant concerns about the potential for cryptocurrency donations to undermine the integrity of our politics. These concerns were raised by many Government Members in Committee too, and we were reassured that amendments would be brought in at this stage. These concerns are not least because it can be difficult to determine the true source of the funds. During the Bill’s earlier stages, the Government committed to incorporating the findings of Sir Philip Rycroft’s review and ensuring that the recommendations were reflected in the legislation. I welcome the fact that Ministers took the time to do that, leading to Government new clause 72. This new clause would prohibit UK-registered political parties from accepting donations made in cryptoassets. Any donation made wholly or partially in cryptoassets would automatically be treated as coming from an impermissible donor, and therefore could not be accepted. The Government are proposing that parties take reasonable steps to identify anyone attempting to make a cryptoasset donation and, where such donations are received, to return them or otherwise dispose of them in accordance with the existing rules governing prohibited donations. New clause 72 also introduces a statutory definition of “cryptoasset” and gives the Secretary of State the power to update the definition through regulations. This is a sensible and proportionate measure. Since the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 was passed at the start of the century, the financial landscape has changed considerably, most notably through the growth of cryptocurrencies. This has created new challenges for regulators, law enforcement agencies and those responsible for maintaining public confidence in democratic institutions. After listening to many colleagues today, I think that some concerns remain unaddressed, so I hope that the Minister will address those that have been raised and close all the loopholes that have been mentioned. Government new clause 116 would introduce an annual cap of £100,000 on political donations and certain regulated transactions from overseas contributors. The cap would apply to individuals registered as overseas electors and certain individuals who are on the UK electoral register but have spent time living outside the United Kingdom. It is, of course, welcome that British citizens living abroad for more than 15 years have since 2022 been entitled to vote in UK elections once again. However, as Philip Rycroft noted in his review, while British citizens living overseas can legitimately participate in UK democracy and make political donations, donations from overseas electors present additional risks that need to be managed. We have heard numerous concerns in this debate, and I hope that Ministers will look again into those concerns and address the loopholes.

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4. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sean Woodcock

   Representation of the People Bill

   Public faith in our democratic system has been steadily eroded. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) provided some statistics on public opinion, and I will provide a few more. More than half of the public believe that politicians almost always lie, while only one in eight believe that we put the national interest above party advantage. That level of disillusionment did not emerge overnight. Broken promises, diminished opportunity and a growing distance from decision makers have left many people feeling unheard. Money and politics have deepened that divide and fuelled the perception that access to power is available to those who can afford it, creating a suspicion that influence can be bought rather than earned. This is no longer simply a question of public confidence; it is a question of democratic resilience. Hostile states and malign actors seek to weaken institutions and corrode trust. Disinformation poisons debate, blurs the line between fact and fiction, and encourages citizens to doubt what they see and hear. Every loophole in our political finance system is a potential point of entry for those who wish our democracy harm. Questions are also raised when voters see Members earning substantial sums from outside interests: public duty traded for private gain. Taken together, these issues foster a growing belief that politics is something done to people rather than with or for them. That belief has consequences. Where trust weakens, democracy weakens; where democracy weakens, those who seek to exploit division find opportunity. I welcome the measures in the Bill that seek to address much of the public concern around many of these issues, but rebuilding democratic legitimacy requires more than just tightening a few rules. It requires us to ask deep questions about whether our institutions still deliver the representation and accountability that people expect, and whether, if so many no longer trust the system, the system itself needs to change. For that reason, I hope that the Government will reconsider and commit to establishing a commission on electoral reform, not to pursue a predetermined outcome but to ask whether our political system is working as well as it should, whether it remains capable of rebuilding public confidence and whether it is worthy of the trust that is placed in it. The cure for public disillusionment is not less democracy; it is better democracy. The answer to distrust is not disengagement; it is accountability. The answer to frustration is not to retreat; it is to reform. That is not optional; it is necessary and urgent, and I urge the Minister to take that into consideration.

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5. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Samantha Niblett

   Engagements

   I congratulate the Prime Minister on his first Prime Minister’s questions; this is my first Prime Minister’s question too. I want to declare an interest: I chair the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health in the UK. The campaign for lifelong sex education that I launched with Cindy Gallop has received a tremendous response and support from many, including professionals in occupational health, medicine, nursing, public health and academia, the National Education Union and the police. I have discovered that the shame, guilt and embarrassment around talking about sex—and body parts like penis and vagina—are even leading to late diagnoses of health conditions including illnesses such as cancer for many people in my South Derbyshire constituency and across the country. I have discussed that with the Eve Appeal and with my constituent Louise Clarke, a GP who specialises in cancer of the vulva; they are really great for my campaign. As September is Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month, and as the summer of sex comes to a close, will the Prime Minister agree to meet me to talk about the campaign?

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6. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Samantha Dixon

   Representation of the People Bill

   I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) to her place. She has taken on an immensely challenging role, but one that I am sure will bring her great joy. It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, and a year has been an extremely long time for this Bill. The evidence of that is the hefty number of amendments that have been tabled; as each political event moves on and people fall on their swords, more amendments come forward. I know that it has been of real interest to Members across the House, as well as many civil society organisations, that the Bill should be crafted to respond to events as they happen. I pay tribute to the Bill team, who have responded incredibly well to the number of amendments that have been tabled and the legislative challenge that the Bill represents. The Bill removes barriers to voting that were put in the way of electors. It protects our democracy, as my hon. Friend the Minister described, and there are extremely important measures on votes at 16, as well as on automatic voter registration and the powers that will be taken to pilot it, so that we can find those lost voters who fall out of our electoral system and bring them back into democratic engagement. Committee stage was lively, and I certainly enjoyed it. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes)—I think we struck something of an accord. I have to refer him back to one particular point in Committee when he said, “We have a groundbreaking piece of legislation—I am sure when we get to Report stage, the Minister will now say in the Chamber, ‘the shadow Minister said this is groundbreaking legislation’. It has its bad points and very good points, but I accept that it is groundbreaking”.––[Official Report, Representation of the People Public Bill Committee, 16 April 2026; c. 393.] Now, neither he nor I are the Minister or the shadow Minister, but I think we agreed on that point, and I thank him for the spirit in which he and other members of the Committee conducted themselves. What we have to remember is that any political party, candidate or elected representative who abides by the rules that this legislation sets will be able to flourish in our political system, and those who do not can expect to be held very firmly to account. The only point on which I agree with the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam)—who I welcome to her place—is in urging my Labour colleagues to continue working constructively with other political parties. It is not the case that we as a Government have not engaged on this legislation. We have been at great pains to do so, and I urge her to continue to engage not only as the Bill progresses through this House and the other place, but as we go through the secondary legislation that falls from it. My final point is about the Rycroft review. The final recommendation from Philip Rycroft’s review concerned the organisation of the civil service in response to democracy and elections. He suggested that a permanent secretary be appointed to look after democracy and elections. We have just had the statement from the First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), about rewiring public services and government. It often felt to me that many of the areas that this legislation covers do not fall just within the remit of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; they fall within the remit of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Cabinet Office and even the Home Office. I urge the Secretary of State to consider all these things in the round and whether a more strategic Government position could be found in taking this legislation forward. There is sometimes a tension between the powers of the MHCLG and the powers of other Departments. I am sure that that will be debated this afternoon. It was an enormous privilege to take this Bill through Second Reading and Committee, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for bringing the Bill back in such a timely way on Report.

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7. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sadik Al-Hassan

   Engagements

   Q8. I am delighted that North Somerset is finally getting two fantastic new stations at Pill and Portishead with the reopening of the railway line, but—and I hate to sound greedy—with Bristol airport’s potential expansion on the horizon, it risks becoming one of the worst-connected major airports in the country. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that now we need a proper mass transit system for North Somerset and the west of England combined authority, linking Felton, the new Woodspring development, Long Ashton and the wider economic area?

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8. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ruth Jones

   Child Poverty

   3. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce child poverty in Wales.

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9. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ruth Jones

   Child Poverty

   I welcome the Secretary of State to his place and wish him well in his new job. As he will be aware, the Welsh Affairs Committee has launched an inquiry into child poverty in Wales, which stands stubbornly high at 31%. With a new minority Government elected in Cardiff Bay and many of the levers relating to child poverty split between the UK and Welsh Governments, what conversations has he had with Senedd Ministers regarding ending child poverty in Wales?

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10. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Rushanara Ali

    Representation of the People Bill

    I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on her appointment as the Minister for Democracy. I thank her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for the work that she and the brilliant officials in the Department did on this very important Bill, and I thank the Minister for tabling the Government amendments. I had the privilege of serving as her predecessor’s predecessor and working on the strategy that formed this important Bill. This is a significant piece of legislation, and the proposal to bring forward votes at 16 is important, radical and necessary. It is right that we give young people the right to vote when they can participate in other areas of life, and when they get the vote, political parties will absolutely pay much greater attention to their interests. I would like to see whether those who oppose this particular change go and canvass for the votes of 16 and 17-year-olds when they have the vote. We certainly will, because we believe that it is important to encourage participation from an early age. This Bill introduces important changes to tackle harassment and intimidation and to move towards automated voting, and it picks up on the important findings from the Rycroft review. This significant piece of legislation has been improved as it has gone through its different stages, and today marks another opportunity for my hon. Friend the new Minister to take on board some of the suggestions that have been made in the form of the amendments. I express my support for new clause 34, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), which would beef up our resistance to cryptoassets flooding our political system. I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurances that we are moving in the right direction, but we need to go further, as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee also pointed out. For reasons that are well documented, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill has said, the Bill must include digital tokens and meme coins accepted into crypto-wallets, as defined by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. My right hon. Friend has done a huge amount of work and provided an analysis to warn about the dangers of cryptoassets being used to drench our democracy with malign messages, fuelling populist hate and misinformation. We are seeing that play out in our streets and our communities at the moment. I do not think that I am allowed to make a plug for his excellent book on populism, but he has outlined that £200 million has already been spent in the UK on promoting division and undermining our democracy. That is terrifying. We need to put a stop to it, and that is why this Bill needs to go further. Nothing less than a full ban on crypto donations will do, and I hope that Ministers consider doing this now rather than coming back later. I have seen the ability of the enormously talented group of civil servants to move at pace in amending legislation and being more and more ambitious over time in making this Bill much more significant—from the time I started working on it to the end of the period when the strategy was published and subsequently. Where there is a will, there will be a way. In the interests of moving away from the incremental changes to which the new Prime Minister has committed, I hope that we can get this done in one go. I appeal to my hon. Friend the Minister to be bold and to get this done now. Furthermore, I support new clauses 41, 47, 82 and 83, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), which seek to tackle online harms and online hate in the context of elections and deepfakes, especially videos purporting to depict politicians and candidates. This has become more and more dangerous and serious. In the 2024 election, only a handful of candidates were depicted in AI-driven deepfake images, which were already presenting disinformation and causing damage to candidates’ election chances. Now, these have become more and more sophisticated, more and more problematic and, at worst, damaging and dangerous. It means that the elector often cannot see the distinction between a real image of a candidate and a deepfake-created image. Now—don’t get me wrong—I have seen some of those deepfakes, and some of them are quite entertaining. The problem is that the ones that are filled with poison and hate can do deep damage to the reputation of candidates. That is very damaging and is moving very fast. When citizens look at such material, we are asking a lot of them. We are asking them to make a distinction between what is real and what is fake in the context of social media, which is heavily funded with billions of pounds by tech companies. Ordinary citizens have to compete with that, and it is not feasible.  That is why it is really important that we make those changes. As I have said, when I worked on the election strategy that was the foundation for this Bill, it was challenging to get the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to do more. I therefore hope that those Ministers can work with my hon. Friend the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith and her Department to include the changes that are needed in the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central, so that we can get this done in one go, rather than waste time while damage is done at the speed of lightning in the form of deepfake and disinformation spreading, which is infecting our democracy and forcing candidates and elected representatives out of politics. Increasingly, too many Members of Parliament, candidates who did not make it here and those in local government and other areas of public life are asking: how is it going to be at the next election? As well as trying to keep ourselves safe, how do we protect our reputations when lies are spreading at breakneck speed? What is the point, and how do we protect our families when these lies are being spread online? How do we compete with that as candidates? How do we protect our protected characteristics? People of colour and people from minority faiths are particularly targeted, and women—female candidates—are being subjected to a scale of misogyny and hatred using deepfake and disinformation on a scale and at a level that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.

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11. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Richard Burgon

    Representation of the People Bill

    I rise to speak to my new clause 22, to stop oil and gas companies donating to political parties. The context is the extreme heat; there were tens of thousands of heat-related deaths in Europe alone this summer, as well as dangerous wildfires and the droughts. All these things give us a terrifying glimpse of what climate breakdown means, and they underline just how dangerous it is to deny climate breakdown or delay the action needed to tackle it. The reality is that climate breakdown will shape our country for decades. It will affect food prices, whether people can live and work safely, and the functioning of key public services, as well as our economic and national security. We must do all we can to tackle climate change and protect people from its increasingly severe impacts. However, if we are to have a fighting chance of preventing the worst of climate change, we need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use. That will mean breaking the vast power that oil and gas companies have over our politics. That is where my new clause 22 comes in. Fossil fuel giants have not only driven us towards climate disaster, but have done so knowing the consequences. They did their best to cover up the science, and used their vast wealth and power to distract, and to delay action, so that they could keep raking in obscene levels of profits—profits that have soared even higher in recent years, while people have been hit with horrendously high bills. The principle of my new clause is clear: those profiting from and helping to drive this crisis should not be using their wealth to pollute our politics, spread misinformation and delay the action needed. It would put a stop to any donations from oil and gas companies to political parties and candidates at elections. Of course, the problem goes way beyond direct donations, but my new clause can be part of the action needed to break the link between fossil fuel wealth and the influence it seeks to exert on our politics. For example, research by the environmental investigations group DeSmog and The Guardian found that when the previous Conservative Government were considering new North sea fossil fuel licences, the Conservative party received more than £400,000 in one year alone in donations from individuals and companies linked to the oil and gas industries. That was part of what DeSmog estimated was the over £2 million donated to the Conservative party by fossil fuel interests between the 2019 and 2024 general elections. DeSmog research has also highlighted what it describes as Reform links to oil and gas interests. Beyond party donations, there is a complex web of fossil fuel interests, climate deniers, donors, so-called think-tanks and other organisations seeking to shape our politics, and no doubt they were delighted with the Conservative party’s shift against climate action in recent years. Those interests, as we have seen, have had huge success in shaping US politics. We need to avoid there ever being that scale of influence here. For decades, across the globe, oil and gas money has sought to buy influence to help delay the action that we desperately need. My new clause 22 is one step towards ending that, and I thank the cross-party group of MPs who have backed it. I hope that we can continue to work together to stop fossil fuel money polluting our politics. The decisions we take on climate action should be driven by the public interest, not fossil fuel interests.

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12. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Rachel Blake

    Representation of the People Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend for her comments about restricting donations. She has talked about loopholes and the new powers that the commission will have. One loophole I am concerned about is that around donations to candidates, the definition of “candidate”, and how that interacts with other parts of the legal framework. Will she share her thoughts on any progress that the Government are making on that loophole, and say whether there is a chance for it to be considered further?

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13. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Rachael Maskell

    EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK

    Thank you for chairing the debate, Ms Butler, and I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for securing it. If you ask the wrong questions, do not be surprised by the consequences. Brexit was about the politics of the time in the Conservative party, not about the economic future of our country. Let us remember the history and the poor deal that Lord Cameron tried to secure ahead of going to the country with this referendum. Our country is now poorer and more fractious. Trade is more challenged, and we see queues at the border, horizons closing to our young people and increased migration levels. We have to ask the value of the deal that was struck after 2016. As a country, we are now significantly weaker on the global stage in a more unstable world where we should be taking the lead as we did in Europe. Locally, we know that the consequences are significant. Our constituents are £3,000 poorer as a result, and they are now faced with the cost of living challenge. We have to dig deep on where we go next and ask the questions that should have been asked in 2016. How can we have a stronger and safer economy? How do we have good trade? How do we best control migration, collaborate on a destabilised planet and ensure that our interactions abroad bring people here at home better job security, financial security and, of course, hope for the future? As we move forward, yes, we need pragmatism, but we need boldness too. As the Minister enters the fray of negotiations, I ask him to look at rebuilding an economic union with Europe that will be of value to our constituents by ensuring that trade brings good-quality jobs and powers the research that drives our economy forward. On immigration, I ask him to consider the asylum and migration management strategy that Europe has adopted and look at a risk-sharing approach so that we can rebuild balance in our system to ensure that we are supporting vulnerable people in the right way instead of pointing the finger at them. That will help our communities and our country. And ultimately, our leadership will help our world.

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14. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Rachael Maskell

    Disability Living Allowance: Qualifying Period for Children

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her incredibly powerful speech. She is right that this is not a necessity; it can be addressed. Does she agree that the Department for Work and Pensions needs to ensure that parents get support from day one so that they can address the increased financial costs that they face from the beginning of a diagnosis, and the real need for parents to be present to support their child?

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15. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Rachael Maskell

    Disability Living Allowance: Qualifying Period for Children

    In the light of the fact that we are moving into a new era of a can-do Government, will the Minister look, together with clinicians, at the opportunity and benefit of delivering DLA from day one, and then bring the evidence back to the House?

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16. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Phil Brickell

    EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK

    As secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Germany I spend a lot of time meeting German businesses that want to invest in this country. One issue that comes up time and again is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman has made about business mobility and persuading German boards to invest in British companies to grow the economy, and one constraint on that is the ability of German professionals to come here. Does he recognise that point, and will he join me in paying tribute to Ulrich Hoppe, the director general at the German-British Chamber of Industry and Commerce, who does formidable work trying to resolve some of these issues to support the British economy?

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17. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Phil Brickell

    Representation of the People Bill

    First, let me put on record my thanks to the Minister and her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for their collective engagement so far on this Bill. As a former anti-corruption specialist for more than a decade and chair of the APPG on anti-corruption and responsible tax, I have had the pleasure of working with Members from across the House on this Bill in seeking to drive foreign interference, dirty money and undue influence out of our democracy. To that end, I wholeheartedly endorse a number of amendments: new clause 34 from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) on cryptocurrency; amendments 31 to 34 from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) on strengthening “know your donor” requirements; new clause 61 from my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on closing the political party start-up funding loophole; new clause 70 from my formidable right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) on reducing campaign spending limits; new clauses 93 to 95 from my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on foreign source donations and loans; and new clause 86 from my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on overseas donations. I hope the Minister will respond substantively to each of those amendments when she winds up. I want to focus my remarks on new clause 121 and amendment 151, which are in my name on the amendment paper. Both are ultimately about one deliverable that I know the Government want to achieve—namely, restoring trust in politics as a force for good. On new clause 121, I welcome the Government’s move over the weekend to expedite their existing ask of the Electoral Commission to review campaign spending limits. However, if the Electoral Commission concludes that spending limits should come down, we need to ensure that that decision is future-proof, and that is what my new clause 121 would secure. Critically, it would ensure that spending limits are set according to three key tests: first, the fairness of elections; secondly, the impact on the political parties; and thirdly, public confidence in electoral integrity. The new clause would also ensure that future increases could take place only following an independent recommendation from the Electoral Commission. This matters because politics is caught in an increasingly unsustainable fundraising arms race. In 2023, spending limits were increased unilaterally by the Government of the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) by 80%. The result was that the 2024 general election became the most expensive in British history, with parties spending £94 million between them. As spending limits rise, so does the pressure on parties to raise ever larger sums of money, and when the demand for money grows, it follows that the risk appetite for parties accepting donations, and therefore the window of opportunity for bad actors, also grows. The Rycroft review made exactly that point. Reducing spending limits can help reduce incentives to seek funding from problematic sources and lessen the pressures that fuel concerns about foreign interference in our politics. Secondly, on amendment 151 in my name, I welcome the Government’s decision in July to move to a profit-based cap on corporate donations—a clear improvement on the previous proposals, which would have tied the cap to revenue, and something that the APPG I chair had for months been calling for. However, two significant loopholes remain. Amendment 151 would close both loopholes by ensuring that only the profits of the donating company itself are counted, and by calculating donation limits using average profits over five years, rather than accumulated profits. That would provide a more accurate measure of genuine economic activity, and make it far harder for corporate structures to be used to circumvent the intention of the law.

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18. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Swallow

    Rewiring the State

    As the Government work at pace to move power out of Westminster and into our communities, I am keen for Bracknell to get a share of that. That is why I support devolution for the Thames valley. The First Secretary of State will know that leaders across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Swindon have written to her setting out their ambition for a mayoral strategic authority. That is excellent progress, but we have been here before and I do not want to see us lose the momentum. Will she set up a meeting for herself and her No. 10 North team with leaders and MPs from across the region so that we can sign on the dotted line, get this agreed and finally get the devolution that the Thames valley so badly needs?

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19. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Swallow

    Representation of the People Bill

    I chair the all-party group on schools, learning and assessment, and we conducted an inquiry on votes at 16. We were speaking directly to young people, and they are delighted that the Bill will empower them with the vote. However, they are equally concerned about misinformation and disinformation, and having the tools that they need to engage in the democratic process. Does the Minister agree that that is a key issue, and that if we are to empower young people with the vote, we must also empower them with the tools that they need to use that vote in an informed and engaged way?

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20. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Lamb

    Representation of the People Bill

    Regretfully, I think that the hon. and learned Member is confused about the constitutional process. That 67-year-old constituent of his votes for a representative to come to this place, and this place takes decisions on their behalf equally, on any part of the United Kingdom. This institution decided that it was in the best interests, and continues to be in the best interests, of this country and of Northern Ireland to maintain the Windsor framework in lieu of any better alternative on the table. I find using that issue to try to withhold the ability of 16 and 17-year-olds to have directly elected representation in this place to be spurious at best.

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21. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Lamb

    Representation of the People Bill

    May I express my delight at my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) making it on to the Front Bench? She is going to do a fantastic job. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I had 14 years in local government, and I was very involved in electoral administration in my area. So much of what we are talking about today involves the Elections Act. I was appointed to chair the Local Government Association working group that went through it, which was a cross-party group. By the end, we came up with a consensus viewpoint: based on the evidence and expert testimony we received, very little of that Act was thought to make much sense. I will not insult Conservative Members by saying that it was a nakedly political attempt to rig the electoral system to their benefit, but if they were going make a nakedly political attempt to rig the electoral system to their benefit, it would have looked exactly like the Elections Act. The basis on which they argued the case at the time was personation. It is vanishingly rare that people actually turn up and try and pretend to be anyone else at a polling station. I will deal with that in just a second, but I must respond to the remarks of the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), at the start of this debate. We knew that the Opposition would say something to try to explain why widening the franchise or making it easier for people to register to vote was a bad idea, but I was not expecting that. It was a good thing we had free hearing tests in Parliament just before recess, but I did not need one: the dog whistle across the Chamber was so loud that it was apparent to all of us. When Reform eventually turned up to say something, it was the exact same talking points. Conservative Members will not rebuild their party by aping the Reform party. Parties have had this issue time and again; what they are doing might play well within their own ranks, but it will not rebuild their party with the country. Although I have never voted for the Conservative party, I know that there are many moderate Conservatives who must feel a great deal of shame at what is happening to their party, which is driving towards the right and away from common-sense positions. Personation is vanishingly rare in our system. The reality is that someone would need to know that a seat was on an absolute knife edge to make it work at all. They could not do it as a single person going around all the polling stations—they would need hundreds of people to go around with them. It could not be rigged in a way that would not leak out; they would run into someone in the process. They would need decades of marked registers, which are available to purchase only for six months after an election. Someone would need so many people and to run such a well organised campaign, and even then, they could just get unlucky in the process. I can confidently say that personation has never changed the result of any national election, and it is very unlikely that it has affected a local seat. What has caused a real problem—personation is not a real-world problem—is foreign interference in our political system. We know there are people who we may soon be at war with who are trying to intervene directly in our elections. We know that questionable money is a problem. Frankly, Russia was pretty happy to give the Conservatives money at one point. We know that tens of thousands of people have been turned away from polling stations since the introduction of voter ID. We know that millions of people are not registered. One in seven eligible voters is not registered in our system, and individual voter registration helped to make that the case. Disenfranchisement in our system is an absolute travesty, and this Bill gives control back to the British public by re-enfranchising them.

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22. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for securing this debate. There can simply be no argument: Brexit has been one of the most disastrous decisions that the UK has made in modern times. This extraordinary moment of self-harm has irreparably damaged the British economy and society, and for what? There are longer queues at airports, bureaucracy at the ports and hundreds of thousands of boats crossing the channel every year. Let us never forget that there were no small boats before Brexit. Ten years on, Brexit has perhaps had the greatest impact on Cornwall, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) mentioned. Thanks to the tireless campaigning of the late Member for Falmouth and Camborne, Candy Atherton, Cornwall secured objective 1 status from the EU, which greatly supported our economic development according to all metrics. As was mentioned, Cornwall received over £100 million a year, which included support for the Eden Project, Newquay airport, our combined universities, superfast broadband and improvements to the A30. It was a transformational programme. The Vote Leave campaign promised that not a penny of that funding would be lost. It said that the money we sent to Brussels would be reinvested back into Cornwall, but that promise never materialised, and we are now looking to the Government to reinstate our economic development funding in the devolution deal that the Prime Minister alluded to at the Dispatch Box yesterday. We have lost not only our objective 1 funding, but the common-sense free trade we once had with our closest neighbours and allies. All told, Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster, and the time has come to rethink and renegotiate a relationship with our nearest trading partners, our allies and friends in the European Union.

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23. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    Meur ras —it is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important debate. I want to focus on SEND and home-to-school transport. On SEND, Cornwall is the 11th lowest funded of 151 local authorities, receiving less than half the per pupil funding of Kensington and Chelsea. Over the last eight years, the number of our pupils with an EHCP has almost doubled, but the delays in issuing EHCPs are far longer than average. In Cornwall, two thirds of those waiting for an EHCP wait for more than 20 weeks, compared with about 50% in England, meaning more stress and uncertainty for Cornish children and their parents. In a very large, long and remote coastal region, the additional costs of transport show up persistently in every aspect of Cornish life. Cornwall council’s expenditure on home-to-school transport has increased by nearly 300% over the past seven years—a far steeper rise than for our urban counterparts. When it comes to funding more broadly, being a coastal community with some of the UK’s finest beaches is actually a double-edged sword; in fact, it could be argued that we are damned by our natural beauty. Significant in-migration by wealthy English retirees not only places additional pressures on healthcare and our housing market but masks the true extent of deprivation in Treasury funding models. In my constituency, the average weekly wages in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle are nearly £100 less than the national average, and child poverty is currently at 35%. We were very thankful that the costs of being remote and coastal were recognised in the local government funding settlement for adult social care, but the cost pressures for home-to-school transport were not reflected. I respectfully say to the Minister that a principle cannot be half applied.

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24. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    I do agree with the hon. Lady. I cannot believe that in the 21st century it is beyond the wit of man or woman to calculate the major costs that affect our rural and remote coastal areas compared with the costs for our urban counterparts. We are not trying to deprive the services available in urban areas; it is about raising the level of services for remote coastal and rural communities to the same standard. That brings me back to my central point. Despite the rising costs and demands, Cornwall is being asked to do far more with far less, which is why we need a comprehensive, non-mayoral, Cornwall-only devolution deal that allows us to overcome some of the challenges of life in the Duchy.

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25. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    If His Majesty’s Opposition are so unhappy about the local government reorganisation, why is there not a single Opposition Member here to make that point other than him?

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26. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    On that specific point, part of the reason why there is a conflation of devolution and the local government funding settlement is that, because our local councils in some areas are so deprived of funding, they have to get funding from something like a visitor levy, which would not typically be allocated for that, in order to supplement the services they need to provide. That is potentially why there is a mix-up of views about devolution and the local government settlement. Does the Minister recognise that point?

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27. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Global Tin Availability

    I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of levels of global tin availability on the economy. Meur ras, Mrs Barker. It is an honour to serve under your chairship once again for such an important debate, not just for the UK’s domestic energy security but for global climate change. We were expecting more numbers when colleagues thought this was a Tinder debate, but when I explained that it was a tin debate, the numbers dropped off slightly. The ill-informed may associate tin with cans, but in fact our cans are made almost exclusively of aluminium and contain no tin. More learned colleagues will know that tin, which is used in virtually every electrical device, is increasingly indispensable in the technologies that underpin modern industries. The digital economy, the green economy and the artificial intelligence economy—tin is foundational to each. However, as with other critical minerals, the overconcentration of processing and supply among a small number of countries a long way from western Europe presents massive economic and geopolitical risks. While debates about critical minerals are often focused on lithium, tungsten, nickel and rare earths, tin is often inexplicably overlooked. I have to declare an interest, not only as an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on critical minerals but as the MP for the constituency of the last tin mine in the country to close in 1998. However, it is not only in Camborne and Redruth that the stirrings of excitement are almost palpable. Every single Cornishman and Cornishwoman across the globe will celebrate the return of an industry that goes way beyond just a job. Cornish tin may invoke something far more visceral and emotional, but before becoming a little starry-eyed about the return of Cornish tin mining, I feel it is incumbent on me to highlight tin’s new practical applications, the strategic case for it and the opportunity that we have in this country to rise to the challenges of global supply constrictions. About half of all tin is used as solder for electronics. It is simply unrivalled in connecting components on circuit boards, enabling electrical conductivity while preventing oxidation. As a result, it is integral to almost every piece of modern technology—every smartphone, laptop, data centre server, semiconductor, telecommunications network and advanced manufacturing system. They all totally rely on tin. Without tin, there are no circuit boards, and without circuit boards, there is no new industrial strategy. The 21st-century growth sectors—those at the global technological cutting edge—are increasingly driving demand for tin skywards. Electric vehicles require up to three times the tin of a combustion engine vehicle. Tin demand for solar panels has trebled over the last five years. Tin is required in 5G infrastructure, emerging battery technologies and renewable energy. Interestingly, tin is increasingly important in the development of AI. AI is often discussed in terms of software and algorithms, and less so the vast physical infrastructure that sits behind it, but from the racks to the power modules and networking switches, tin is essential to the physical architecture. In the fabrication of advanced AI chips, molten tin droplets are struck thousands of times per second by high-powered lasers as part of the extreme ultraviolet lithography process used to manufacture cutting-edge semiconductors. As Governments and companies invest billions in data centres and computational capacity, demand for tin in the UK is soaring. In the growth-driving IS-8 sectors alone, demand is expected to grow at an average of 19%, year on year, until 2035. Between now and then, a cumulative total of more than 27,000 tonnes of tin will be required. Here is the crux of the debate. Although demand is rapidly expanding, huge questions remain about the security and resilience of global supply. Extraction and processing are currently heavily concentrated in six countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Bolivia and Peru. Those countries currently supply over 90% of primary production, while China alone refines more than half of global tin. With that comes blindingly obvious risk. We have seen in the strait of Hormuz what happens when a state weaponises its control of a choke point in global supply. The ramifications spread rapidly through entire economies. With tin, the UK is even more exposed to such global shocks because we currently produce none. We have already seen what happens to pricing with localised disruptions over the past few years: Myanmar’s 2023 Wa state mining ban; export licensing issues in Indonesia; and military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Because the tin market is relatively small in volume compared with other metals, it is the least traded by volume on the London metal exchange. Those modest disruptions have fuelled massive price increases. In 2025, the tin price surged 40% and has rallied a further 34% this year to date, rising to nearly £40,000 a tonne. Come 2035, there will be an expected shortfall of 85,000 tonnes per year in global supply. I will say that again: come 2035, there is expected to be a shortfall of 85,000 tonnes per year in global supply. The challenge with tin is also one of geology and ethics. Many producing regions are experiencing declining ore grades, often between 0.3% and 0.8%—I will come to it later, but the grade at South Crofty is well over 1%—and that means greater volumes of material must be processed to achieve the same output, which inevitably increases costs. At the same time, there are legitimate concerns about environmental impacts, labour standards and illegal mining activity throughout the global supply chain. I ask the Government to recognise the following. First, tin is fundamental to our advanced economy. Secondly, demand for tin will continue to far outstrip the inherently risky global supply chain. Thirdly, therefore, tin production and processing should be considered of strategic national importance, and an investment case for a tin smelter, based on UK economic security, should be developed as a priority. When it comes to UK critical minerals, we are falling well behind competitor states such as the United States, Canada, France and Australia. The US has announced more than $40 billion in funding for critical minerals projects since 2022, alongside major equity stakes in domestic mines. Our friends and neighbours in the member states of the European Union have committed more than €6 billion to critical mineral projects in this year alone. The UK has committed a tiny fraction of that sum. In that context, I turn back west to Cornwall. For four millennia, Cornwall has supplied tin to Britain and the world. Tin mining is woven into our history, identity and DNA, nowhere more so than in my constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, where the old engine houses still grace our landscape. Tin is once again one of Cornwall’s greatest opportunities. Anchored by £28 million of National Wealth Fund investment, Cornish Metals is on course to reopen the South Crofty mine that shut 30 years ago. Hopefully, that will be achieved in 2028. South Crofty has the highest grade of unmined tin in the world. It is expected to produce up to 4,700 tonnes annually, equivalent to up to 1.6% of globally mined tin production, which could meet the demand from Britain’s growing IS-8 sectors. That is one mine; there are hundreds of mines across Cornwall with critical minerals. The range of those critical minerals is yet to be defined, but there is an awful lot of exploration going on at the moment. Nationally, this offers an opportunity to strengthen domestic supply resilience, reduce dependence on overseas extraction and support the development of strategic industries. For Cornwall, South Crofty could be transformative. My constituency of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle contains some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. Weekly median wages are £95 less than average, and the number of young people claiming unemployment benefits has risen by 26% this year alone. The opening of South Crofty will directly support hundreds of skilled jobs and thousands more in the wider supply chain. Multiplying that by the number of mines shows the importance of critical minerals to the Cornish economy. If we are serious about good growth being felt in every postcode, we must champion this kind of investment. I have previously raised concerns in the House about the UK’s domestic processing and refining capacity. At present, tin mined in Britain would need to travel to east Asia for processing before returning in a form that British manufacturers can use. That is economically, geostrategically and environmentally dire. What steps will the Government take to strengthen domestic critical minerals supply chains? What progress has been made in implementing the critical minerals strategy? What consideration has been given to supporting domestic processing and refining capacity? Can energy support schemes such as the British industrial competitiveness scheme play a greater role in ensuring that our critical minerals projects remain internationally competitive? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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28. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Perran Moon

    Global Tin Availability

    I thank everybody who has contributed to this debate. Perhaps next time I should actually advertise it as a Tinder debate, and we can educate people while they are here. I will thank a few people specifically. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) is very knowledgeable, particularly in the areas of midstream and downstream work; he talked about processing supply chains. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) mentioned the Kernow industrial growth fund. Right now, that fund is being used for exactly what it was designed to do—to support some exploratory mining opportunities, among other commercial opportunities in Cornwall. He also mentioned unblocking planning and permitting issues, which we need to take on board. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall is a superb champion for Cornwall Resources, which is doing amazing things to maximise the opportunity in tungsten. She talked insightfully about the local benefits, including in relation to the skills agenda. We really need to tie that agenda in with our devolution deal, which I know the Prime Minister has mentioned several times in the last 48 hours. For us in Cornwall, the skills agenda will be critical—excuse the pun—to maximise the opportunities in this particular sector. I totally agree with the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), about the exploration that is urgently needed on these critical minerals. I heard what the Minister said, but we are not just talking about tin, tungsten and lithium, the three we know about at the moment; we know from previous records that we also have nickel, cobalt, uranium, silver and many others, but we need the data that exploration can provide and we need support in that regard. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies), clearly grasps the importance of Cornish tin mining. He also mentioned energy costs; perhaps that is a debate for another day but, because of our Cornubian batholith, which is the granite formation on which Cornwall sits, we have vast geothermal opportunities. We are looking at whether there is a commercial case to make use locally of that geothermal energy to drive some of our industrial regeneration. I have already mentioned the importance of aligning this issue to the devolution deal. Really, this debate was more of a clarion call to Government to focus very closely, not only on lithium and tungsten, but on a huge opportunity within the tin sector across the whole of Cornwall. Finally, I warmly extend an invitation to the Minister to visit the South Crofty tin mine. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the impact of levels of global tin availability on the economy.

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29. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Paula Barker

    Employer National Insurance Contributions: Small Businesses in Hampshire

    I will call Alex Brewer to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

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30. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Noah Law

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    I am sure that the issues in Shropshire that the hon. Lady mentions are the same as those that we in Cornwall have experienced. Does she agree that the move to a mayoral share of income tax is not a detriment to non-mayoral areas like ours but an opportunity to reset the model? We have seen integrated settlements and money being thrown at mayoral regions, but this is an opportunity to turn the taps off for those regions and turn them back on for areas like ours that have not proceeded with a mayor.

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31. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Noah Law

    Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities

    Does the hon. Member recall the enormous slashing of the budget of Cornwall council under his Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government?

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32. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Noah Law

    Global Tin Availability

    I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon)—the Tin Man —for securing this important debate. I would like to concentrate our focus, no pun intended, on the midstream and downstream applications of tin, of which Cornwall is the cornerstone and which is an important part of the supply chain, as well as on some of the blockers to securing the supply that my hon. Friend talked about so eloquently. That is not to say that I do not worry about the upstream mining opportunities, but it is fair to say that Cornwall’s riches are abundant on that front. Yes, there will be bumps in the road, and yes, there will be successes and failures, as there have always been in the relatively high-risk business of mining, but what I really worry about is securing midstream processing. In the case of tin, it is the crucial smelting process that will enable us to keep our supply chain onshore. I will give a brief nod to Cornwall’s other, perhaps less famous but equally important critical minerals—namely lithium and tungsten, which are under our feet today. There are many more, but it is fair to say that, as it stands today, the big three—if I can use that term—are tin, lithium and tungsten. It is imperative that, across each of those three mineral resources, where we now have absolute clarity and visibility on the security of supply upstream, we start to think about the next stage of building those supply chains. Practically, what do we believe the Government can do to ensure that that happens? Let me start with why the Government should be involved in such a high-risk business. The fundamental question is what market failure are we trying to resolve here? No matter what a person’s ideology or political perspective on this matter, we have to accept that there is no way to build a supply chain like this from scratch and just leave it to the whim of the market. The example of China, where there has been huge state involvement, is perhaps an extreme one, but there is no way essentially to build a domestic supply chain of this kind from scratch by simply leaving it to the whim of individual firms to go out and do the right thing. That is why the Government’s involvement is crucial. We are not trying to solve a trick here; it is basic economics that the Government have a role to play in ensuring that we nurse the development of those supply chain projects, from a nascent idea or from something that various firms are thinking about on the side but which is not core to their business. Those junior miners already have a proper job on their hands, and it is not reasonable for the Government to snap their fingers and expect the processing opportunities to come about. That is where Government support is really valued. We already have the Kernow industrial growth fund, and I am hugely grateful to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), and to those in the Minister’s Department, for the work that they undertook to help us secure that investment, which is already being put to work on a pipeline of projects not just across this most promising of industries, but in many other Cornish industries besides. It will create those desperately needed jobs and help us to secure our industrial supply chains. What can the Government do? It is imperative that we involve ourselves wholeheartedly in the upstream development of those projects, work with credible industrial sponsors and source the financial capital needed. That is not to say that we should do it all alone. Private and public partnerships—which we are already seeing through partners such as the National Wealth Fund and the industrial growth fund—need to thrive to ensure that we create the conditions for success. Of course, there are many blockers, too, and it is important that the Department works with colleagues across the Government. For example, where there are challenges in getting a grid connection, securing appropriate transport links or unblocking planning barriers, we need a joined-up, cross-Government approach. I am proud to say that in Cornwall, the groundwork has been done. We have the visibility and the makings of a plan for how we might build that supply chain out. We have done the substantive work and the number crunching, and we have worked out what the capital need is and how much of it can be privately invested versus publicly catalysed. I ask that the Minister continues his work with us. The work has already begun, and I am incredibly grateful for his time and interest in this sector, but I implore him to bring colleagues from across the Government to meet the challenge and to help us secure the vital tin smelter and solve the energy cost issue, which is probably the immediate need. I implore him to go beyond that for the home-grown supply chain, in an industry in which I know Britain can succeed and Cornwall can be at the forefront. I implore him to work across Government to get this to the top of our agenda and make a success of it for everyone in Cornwall and Britain.

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33. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Noah Law

    Rewiring the State

    I welcome the steps taken by the First Secretary to ensure that strategic authorities such as Cornwall have the capacity to deliver on our growth agenda, but I want to ask specifically what steps she has taken to ensure that both national and local government have the financial analytical capability to identify those most promising investment cases and help shepherd them towards success.

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34. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Nick Thomas-Symonds

    Strengthening the Union

    We saw the practical benefits of the Union with the Minister’s swift action on military personnel coming to deal with the wildfires. Will he join me in paying tribute to the farmers and firefighters who dealt with those wildfires, and does he also agree that, as climate change makes them a more regular occurrence, we need a long-term plan to deal with them?

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35. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Neil Duncan-Jordan

    Representation of the People Bill

    It is clear from this debate that the public have lost trust in politics and the political process, and that is linked to them seeing money have an undue influence on the decisions that politicians make. In 2015, just 1% of private donations came from individuals or companies giving £1 million or more. By 2024, that figure had risen to over a third. We have seen the obscene amounts of money that some MPs have made doing second—or even third and fourth—jobs while they are supposed to be representing their constituents. Equally, we know that businesses that donate to political parties are often in line for Government contracts in return. That has got to stop, because if it does not, more than half of all political donations could soon come from just a handful of individuals, leaving elected politicians increasingly reliant on the patronage of a small elite. We will have wealthy individuals and companies with influence over the direction of our country, despite never having won a single election. New clause 26, in my name, would begin to address those concerns. It would ban political donors from securing government contracts from the Administrations they paid to elect. Over the past 25 years, companies that donated to political parties have secured £60 billion-worth in government contracts, including during the covid era. In the middle of a national crisis, people needed confidence that decisions were made on merit and in the public interest, not shaped by big donors. The Government are quite rightly starting to claim back some of the covid contracts money, but they would also benefit from distancing themselves from those donors who are only interested in the party as a vehicle for achieving their own ends. In this debate, we are rightly having a wider conversation about our democracy. There is scrutiny of a Westminster-centric political culture in which communities have often been left behind. Redistributing power on the basis of place is one side of the coin, which must go hand on hand with redistributing power on the basis of wealth. According to a recent Oxfam report, the super-rich exert influence in three main ways: buying political influence by funding parties and candidates; gaining direct access to decision makers and institutions; and shaping public opinion to defend elite power. That is why I am supporting amendments to limit donations from harmful lobbying interests and place stronger caps on what wealthy individuals and private companies can give.

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36. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Natasha Irons

    Engagements

    Q7. A wise man recently called for“good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart.”In Croydon, these cannot come soon enough. Gatwick’s expansion could provide Croydon’s young people with world-class employment and training opportunities close to their homes, but the previous Conservative Government’s cuts to rail infrastructure investment around East Croydon station could still put them out of their reach as they cannot physically get to them. Will the Prime Minister look again at the Croydon area modelling scheme, back my campaign to unblock the Croydon bottleneck and outline what this Government are doing to give young people in Croydon East access to the opportunities they deserve?

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37. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Stella Creasy

    Representation of the People Bill

    I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role. I also pay tribute to everyone who has played a part in this Bill to date, because for all our ambitions for the things we would like to change in the world, if the process by which we make those changes is not fair and free, we will not be able to achieve anything. We all know and understand that. Like everybody else, I recognise that new clause 31 is out of scope. I would gently suggest to the shadow Minister that there are many versions of proportional representation and electoral reform—those of us who have nerded out over this for years know that. We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on domestic abuse and those supported by many of my colleagues from east London—maybe that says something about politics in our part of town—about abuse of candidates. I know well what my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) has been through, and it is a testament to her character that she is here fighting for change. I also support the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) on crypto donations. I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics. It takes something for us in this House to be lectured by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, but we are being lectured on this. It is like turkeys being told that Christmas is a good idea. IPSA has pointed out to us that only 28% of the public think that MPs care about their local community at all—so two thirds of our constituents think that we are here out of our own self-interest—and only 4% think that we are doing anything good for the country. The difficult question that we all have to take on the chin is: in whose interest do the public think we are acting? From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets. We have heard a lot of quotes today, so let me bring in William Blake, who said: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but foresight is better”. We have all seen it. We know that money is coming in. We know that this is something different, and we know enough to know that it is a problem.

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38. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Stella Creasy

    Representation of the People Bill

    That is incredibly welcome news. Will the Minister commit that this Government will always act to protect the integrity of the next general election?

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39. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Julie Minns

    Representation of the People Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon) for all her work on the Bill. I also welcome the Minister to her place. I will speak briefly to new clause 48, tabled in my name. I thank the many Members from across the House who have supported it and the Royal National Institute of Blind People for its assistance and support in drafting it. The Bill takes a significant step towards strengthening and protecting our democracy and extending the franchise. However, we must recognise that one group of voters remain disenfranchised and unable to vote independently and in secret because they cannot see the ballot form in front of them. I first worked on the issue of accessible voting at the 1997 general election, when I had the privilege of working for Scope on the “Polls Apart” campaign. “Polls Apart” shone a light on the physical barriers that disabled people face when exercising their right to vote. It went on to secure changes in the law to remove many of those barriers. Nearly three decades on, however, blind and partially sighted people still cannot reliably vote independently and in secret.

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40. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Julie Minns

    Representation of the People Bill

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That right was first enshrined by this Parliament in 1872, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) said earlier in the debate. More than 150 years later, blind and partially sighted people are still being denied that right. It is time that was brought to an end. One of those people currently denied that right is my constituent John, who on arriving at the polling station with his guide dog at the last general election found that there was no usable tactile device. John had to fold his ballot paper to make creases as reference points and ask the staff to read out the names in order as he navigated the creases to identify his candidate of choice. Unlike me and most of the people in this Chamber, John could not be sure that his vote was private, accurate or truly his, because he was dependent on someone else verifying it for him. John’s experience is echoed by RNIB research that found that only a quarter of blind voters said they were able to vote independently and in secret, while two thirds had to rely on a companion or polling station staff. New clause 48 offers a practical way forward, and I am grateful to the Minister for engaging constructively with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and for indicating the Government’s readiness to act, as the Bill moves to the other place, to give blind and partially sighted voters the right to vote independently and in secret.

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