What Britain's parties say and do in public, recorded from the source.
Every entry links to Hansard, Parliament, the Electoral Commission or the party's own channel. Every party is tracked by the same rules. Methodology
Labour Party
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
Conservative and Unionist Party
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
Liberal Democrats
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
Reform UK
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
Scottish National Party
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
Green Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Plaid Cymru
Latest entry 10 Nov 2026
12,868 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
My hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituents, and for all those affected by this issue. I share his concerns about accountability. Although the matter does not sit with the Attorney General’s office, I will ensure that his question is passed on to the relevant Minister and he receives a response.
As I have set out at this Dispatch Box over recent months, Sir Brian Leveson said in his report that investment alone was not enough, and that reform was also necessary to bring down the backlog of 80,000 cases that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. Inaction just was not an option. The Ministry of Justice has had to take difficult choices. I remind the hon. Lady that, unlike the previous Conservative Government, we have invested in our courts, introduced unlimited sitting days and invested in victim services. We are doing everything we can to get the backlog down, so that victims can have their cases heard without having to wait years and years for justice.
The hon. Lady will know that I am not the spokesperson for my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield, but I am sure that, like all of us in the House, he is concerned about the unprecedented court backlogs that this Government inherited, and that he will engage with Ministry of Justice Ministers as the Courts and Tribunals Bill progresses through Parliament. Victims are waiting years for a date in court. That is why the Government have invested record amounts in the court system and will continue working to bring down the backlog.
The hon. Member will know that a national listing framework is being introduced to tackle some of the issues that he describes. He will also know that it was a manifesto commitment to introduce specialist rape courts. The Ministry of Justice is determined to do that, so that victims of rape and serious sexual violence are not waiting years for their cases to get to court.
This week, I announced the national roll-out of the early victims’ right to review scheme. From Monday, if the Crown Prosecution Service is considering dropping a case, rape and serious sexual assault survivors across England and Wales will have the right for that view to be reviewed by a second independent prosecutor before a final decision is taken. I have sat with advocates and survivors who fight every day, and are determined for the system to change. This week, we have changed it.
I commend the bravery and courage of my hon. Friend’s constituent in coming forward, and I am very sorry to hear about the additional trauma that they have faced waiting for justice to be served. As well as tackling the backlog to reduce delays, this Government are committed to supporting victims. In April, I announced an additional £5 million of Treasury funding to offer domestic abuse victims in Crown court cases a pre-trial meeting with the prosecution team. These crucial meetings will support victims in the lead-up to their trial. A similar service is already offered to victims of rape and serious sexual assault, and I am pleased that we are now able to pilot that for victims of domestic abuse in three CPS areas.
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and for everything that she has done on this important issue. The Government’s landmark strategy to halve violence against women and girls starts with prevention, by focusing on the root causes and designing interventions to tackle outdated societal attitudes. We are investing a record £20 million in education to address harmful attitudes and behaviours head-on, so that young people are taught to identify positive role models, and to challenge unhealthy myths about women and relationships. In trials by jury, the judge gives directions that each juror must evaluate the evidence before them dispassionately, putting aside any bias towards the victim.
I start by paying tribute to the tireless campaigning of Jade Blue. Jade was a victim of rape, but the CPS wrongly dropped her case just 13 days before trial. Ever since, she has campaigned for change. The early victims’ right to review gives rape victims the chance for their case to be reviewed before the CPS makes a final decision. If that had been in place for Jade Blue, her case would have continued, and in the pilot, cases that would previously have been stopped have carried on. I am determined that we will put victims at the heart of our justice system. Because of that, we are rolling out this scheme nationwide.
Tackling violence against women and girls is my No. 1 priority as Solicitor General. I oversee the unduly lenient sentence scheme, and where a sentence is clearly unduly lenient, I can refer the case to the Court of Appeal for review. Members of the public, and victims and their family members, can all refer cases to the scheme. It is an important way of ensuring transparency in our system, and that there is an ability to challenge, where things go wrong.
I commend Voices in Bath and its important support for women. The CPS has introduced an enhanced service for victims of rape and serious sexual abuse. Victims now have a dedicated victim liaison officer, who they can contact throughout their case, and they are offered a pre-trial meeting with the prosecution. Following the success of that scheme, it is being trialled for victims of domestic abuse, and I have secured £5 million of funding to pilot a scheme in which victims of domestic abuse whose cases are in the Crown court are also offered that pre-trial meeting. We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to supporting victims.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for championing the role of independent domestic abuse advisers. They do incredibly important work. I will ensure that his question and comments about the specifics of the family courts are passed to a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, so that he receives a full response.
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important and powerful point, and I commend her on all her work to tackle violence against women and girls, and on the courage that she has shown. The presumption of contact changes are incredibly important, and will progress in the usual way, as the Bill goes through Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point: some research has shown a correlation between someone abusing their pet and domestic abuse. That is touched on in the cross-Government VAWG strategy. It is important that vets are aware of that research and that link, and can detect those issues and signpost and escalate when necessary.
This month, Ayrshire college won the UK training provider skills champion award at the Enginuity skills awards, for its work in development, engineering and aerospace. Engineering and aerospace remain critical for Ayrshire’s economy, and that national recognition demonstrates the vital role that further education colleges play in developing our young workforce. Colleges across Scotland continue to face financial pressures, despite delivering exactly the kinds of outcomes that Governments want. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the importance of investing in further education colleges across Scotland?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such a powerful speech; she always holds up a moral compass to us all in this place. Does she agree that those who deny access to medical treatment to children as young as four—who, while waiting for medical treatment, get to the point of near-fatal dehydration—and those who deny cancer patients in their thousands access to medical care in these settlements, are and should be defined as terrorists? If these settlers should be defined as terrorists, is it not incumbent on us and this Government to strain every diplomatic and every technological sinew to ensure that not one single pound of our money is spent enabling this behaviour?
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. Like others, I thank the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) for introducing the debate and for how he did it. I want to make a prediction. I think the remaining speakers are going to say that they support this campaign and that they want to see a difference, and they will acknowledge the gap that needs to be filled. Our challenge is making that pledge and those words real. I have been in debates like this before—we all agree that something has to be done, yet we come back and speak about it again and again. Perhaps, if we all carry this campaign forward, this is the time to actually make it happen.
Exactly. In a former life, I was an academic. UKRI does at times engage with academics to fine-tune such questions. UKRI provides funding to universities, if needed, to bring the very best people to the UK either temporarily or on longer-term contracts to help to make a difference in the UK. Those things are perhaps all part of the solution. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am grateful for the opportunity to support this vital debate. It shines much-needed light on a disease that is still under-resourced, as has been said, and it honours the legacy of a woman who dedicated her final years to fighting it: the late Susan Michaelis. I was not fortunate enough to meet her but, as a result of the excellent introduction of the hon. Member for Horsham, I feel I know a little bit about her and her character. I am grateful for that introduction. Lobular breast cancer, despite being the second most common form of breast cancer, has historically received a mere 1% of breast cancer research funding. Susan refused to accept that disparity and the Lobular Moon Shot Project is her legacy—but it has to be more than a project. Hopefully, progress will be her real legacy. The project demands better treatment for every woman who receives a lobular breast cancer diagnosis. That is why all of us are in the Chamber for this debate. I recently received an incredibly powerful letter from a leading oncologist, Dr Michie. She is based in Edinburgh, treats patients in Scotland and works closely with the community of those with lobular breast cancer. She expressed deep professional frustration on behalf of her patients, explicitly stating that lobular breast cancer has been neglected for too long. People who meet patients day in, day out and week in, week out still have a real frustration about the lack of progress. Dr Michie’s letter also highlighted the fact that lobular breast cancer is different from the more common ductal types of breast cancer, with an entirely unique tumour biology, different responses to drug treatments, and distinct and highly challenging patterns of spread. The different response to drug treatments is really important because, in the absence of proper treatments, women are often faced with a drug that was not actually designed for the condition that they have. Yet clinical trials rarely even present separate response data for lobular cases: today a grand total of zero lobular-specific clinical trials are actively recruiting patients in the UK. That should shame us, based on what we have discussed already in this debate, and on the scale and breadth of the campaign that has been run. Additionally, the incidence of lobular breast cancer is rising rapidly, climbing by nearly 3% annually. Because it does not form the typical lump, it is notoriously difficult to detect using classical imaging. That is 3% annual growth in diagnoses of this condition—I know that, as a Government, we are really keen on growth but not that kind. To fix it, we need to improve our pre-clinical understanding of how and why the disease spreads. I believe that the work package plan of the Lobular Moon Shot Project is precisely the kind of ambitious and collaborative plan that can help us to improve patient outcomes across the board. If people do not believe that, let us have a conversation about how it can be improved.
Absolutely. Yesterday I met with activists from Cancer Research UK just outside Parliament, before they came in. Cancer Research UK had around 100 activists there who had been touched by cancer, in all its shapes and forms, and although that big room was full of people who were full of energy, they were just a tiny part of the footprint of cancer and its impacts across the UK—absolutely tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. We have to acknowledge the emotional impact on individuals and families, but also the economic impact. We should never be ashamed of talking about that. There is also the economic impact of bringing the best research to the UK so that our laboratories, universities and hospitals can work on this issues. All that is a push in the right direction. The Government and the bio-sciences sector are notoriously slow-moving. We need to expedite work in this area; a dedicated funding commitment from the Government to launch the Moon Shot Project would help do that. When we talk about housing, we talk about being builders not blockers. Maybe we should use the same narrative and energy for this matter. On a related note, while the fight for a new funding model is critical, we cannot afford to overlook the importance of immediate and compassionate support for people who have the condition. In my constituency we are incredibly fortunate to have the House of Hope, a wonderful charity that provides a safe space for women navigating a breast cancer diagnosis and for their families, including their husbands and children. As I understand it, they plan to start a support group to focus specifically on lobular breast cancer, which will meet for the first time on 11 August. I wish them well in that endeavour and I am wearing my House of Hope badge today. They actually gave me three badges with different designs, but I went for the glittery one because we all need a bit of glitter in our lives sometimes. I have always found the House of Hope to be an incredibly inspiring and hospitable place. I encourage any woman with a diagnosis in Edinburgh and the Lothians or further afield to check out the services it provides. I am sure the Minister would be welcome to visit any time and I can guarantee him it will be cooler in Edinburgh than it is in London right now. I return to Susan and her project. A clear and fundamental shift is needed in how we fund and prioritise research into this condition. I strongly encourage the Minister to actively engage with the project’s demands, meet with the campaign and agree a plan going forward for how we can address their concerns. As has been said already, 22 women will be diagnosed with this condition today and we need to give them and their families hope. I checked Hansard this morning: in the 2019 to 2024 Parliament, lobular breast cancer was mentioned 10 times. Just two years into the current Parliament, we have mentioned it 56 times. We need to stop talking about it in this place and actually start getting stuff done.
I appreciate that the Minister is substituting for another excellent Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson); I am sad that she is not here, because she is fantastic. We ringfence money for brain tumour research—I know that that community wants more money, so I am not saying it is the gold standard, but we have made that choice, because we recognised the public concern about brain tumours. There is also public concern about lobular breast cancer and the feeling that people who have it are being left behind. It is fantastic that we have better screening coming on board, but ultimately people need treatment if they are diagnosed during the screening process. The Minister highlighted the fact that there is a competitive bidding process. Is it the case that the bids are not good enough? If that is the case, can we invest money to improve the quality of those bids? As I said earlier, we could bring in better staff, perhaps from overseas, or invest in PhD students to work in this area.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my friend the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) for the initiative to lead this debate. Although she is not present in the debate, I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), who is a great campaigner on this issue. That really demonstrates the cross-party support for the Lobular Moon Shot Project. I also pay tribute to one of my constituents, Katie Swinburne. She is a mother of three and a very popular local schoolteacher, and she has lobular breast cancer. I first became aware of Katie through Dehenna Davison, who was the MP for Bishop Auckland before me. She did fantastic work supporting Katie as her constituent at the time, and anybody who knew my predecessor knows that she was a formidable single-issue campaigner. When I was elected, Katie asked to see me, and I was delighted to pick up the baton and support my constituent. In fact, this Saturday she is organising a fair and a tabletop sale in her village of Hilton to raise funds for the Lobular Moon Shot Project. Through Katie, I was privileged to be introduced to Dr Susan Michaelis and her husband Tristan Loraine. Susan was visiting Katie in her home in County Durham. Through the Lobular Moon Shot Project, I have observed a real sisterhood and solidarity among those who are campaigning together. I have never been in the position of being told that I have terminal cancer, and I find it difficult to imagine, but I can imagine people facing that have a choice about how they spend their remaining years, months and weeks on this Earth. Do they spend it on holiday? Do they look to enjoy all of life’s riches and pleasures? Susan chose to spend it in the service of others, campaigning for the science to be done to develop a cure for lobular breast cancer. She founded the Lobular Moon Shot campaign. Not only is that a campaign for better cancer research funding, but it has also developed a real solidarity among people suffering from this type of cancer. I was privileged to meet Susan and her husband and to learn about the Lobular Moon Shot campaign. As the hon. Member for Horsham said, this was not Susan’s first experience of campaigning. She had success campaigning on aviation safety, in particular on jet fuel and pollution in cabins, a potential cause of her own cancer. The Lobular Moon Shot Project has been successful so far in raising significant funds, which have been used to develop funding proposals for early work. As we have heard, there is an opportunity to fund significant research at Manchester University. I declare an interest as an alumnus of Manchester. I was privileged to meet the campaigners and the former Health Secretary. That led to a commitment from the Government to issue a highlight notice, which demonstrates the importance that they place on this type of research. I respect the Government’s approach, which has been to say that while we all want to find a cure and there is a need to do the scientific research, it is important to do that through a peer-reviewed process and through competitive funding rounds, because that is what produces the best science. It is, however, vital that those funding rounds go ahead and that the funding is made available to meet the need. As we have heard already, the unique aspect of lobular breast cancer is that it is very difficult to discover. It often goes undetected, and only 28% of cases are detected at stage one, compared with 38% of non-lobular breast cancers. There are 8,000 cases a year. The campaign is calling for the discovery science to be done. I appreciate that the Minister today is answering on behalf of the Department for Health and Social Care, but we also need engagement with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, because we need bespoke funding pools from UK Research and Innovation that universities such as Manchester can tap into, to make sure that this vital work gets done. I was privileged to meet Professor Rob Clarke from Manchester and hear about his work. I urge the Minister to take up this issue. Two years on since I was elected, and three or four years on from when I first heard about this campaign, progress has been made, but it is too slow. So many people are in situations that I cannot even imagine, and they are giving their time to campaign for something so important, not even necessarily for themselves, but for the generations that come after them. I implore the Government to listen to their calls and to do what we can to make sure that the correct funding pools are available so that we can, once and for all, get this research done and answer their pleas.
My hon. Friend just made an excellent point. We know the research questions that need to be answered. Does he agree that it should not be beyond UKRI to put out a specific call asking people, through a competitive peer review process, to answer those questions?
I think there is a space between the two approaches. As wonderful as the Lobular Moon Shot Project is, I fully respect why the Government say that we cannot allow campaign groups to dictate which universities get x millions of pounds for particular projects, and I see the value of there being a peer-reviewed process through a competitive ecosystem. However, there is a space where we can go beyond a highlight notice, whereby the Government could specifically say, “We want research that will answer these specific sets of research questions.” I wonder whether that is something that he could take back to his colleagues for consideration.
I declare an interest as the father of a child in receipt of DLA. “Not fit for purpose”, “degrading”, “dehumanising”, “stressful”—the findings of this report reflect what I hear from my constituents. As the Minister moves to the next phase—co-production—will he look at moving to a more personalised, individualised approach? A lot of the review’s findings relate to the application process and this sort of arbitrary gatekeeping around entitlement to money, when all people are asking for is support to live independent, dignified and productive lives.
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. She points out that Conservative and Labour Governments have for decades recognised these settlements as illegal, and now things are worse than ever. We have recognised Palestine, which is a good thing, but with the expansion plan and the promised further occupation, it is surely inconsistent for us not to have a complete ban on illegal settlement goods. If not now, when?
On the publication of data on avoidable deaths, new clause 84 states “where waits of more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments was a contributory factor.” Does the right hon. Member consider it likely that there is any great accuracy in the assessment of whether a death was avoidable?
When I was a young doctor—a registrar—in the 1980s, we had 300,000 beds in our health service. By the time I was a senior doctor in the 2020s, we had 140,00 beds—less than half the number of beds we had before. When I was a young doctor, corridor care did not exist; I had never heard the term. The hospitals were simply big enough. Does the hon. Member agree that the many years of decline in the total number of beds in our hospitals is an extremely important factor in the fact that we do not have enough beds for the patients sitting in the A&E departments?
I wonder whether the hon. Member remembers that in 2010, when I believe there was an election—[Interruption.] Yes. The point I wish to make is that at the end of the previous Conservative Government, before Labour came back into office, waiting lists had reached an absolute record. Under the previous Labour Administration, waiting lists came down to almost nothing, but after 2010 they crept up and up, and by the time of the election in 2024 they had reached a record. I think she will recognise that Labour Governments have had strong records of reducing waiting lists, which is what we are doing now. We are only getting started, but it would be good to have some words of encouragement.
I think the principal reduction that the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston described was a result of the change of practice in the way that psychiatry was managed. During that period, we closed the asylums—large hospitals on the outskirts of almost every town and city. That was the result of a change in clinical practice—the idea that patients should be managed within the community. However, we continued to close acute beds, and it is the acute beds in the district general hospitals that are the problem we are talking about.
Although it is true that hospital management could concentrate on dealing with the waits in A&E, surely it needs to concentrate on the flow through the entire hospital. Every department and everybody involved in the hospital has to be thinking all the time about the flow through the entire hospital. That involves having a pharmacy that is open at night and ensuring that social workers are there when they need to be—it involves all manner of things. Simply concentrating on a particular statistic in an A&E department will not actually deal with the problem.
Would the hon. Member comment on what I consider to be almost the most successful and important Bill that our new Government have passed, on the effective abolition of cigarette smoking? As time goes by, that will save more lives than anything else we could possibly think of. I recognise that it was the initiative of the previous Government, but the fact that the new Government have managed to get it over the line is a massive achievement. That is very much underappreciated and certainly not spoken about anything like enough. We will never do anything as important as the abolition of cigarette smoking.
Public health used to be clearly under the aegis of the national health service. Some years ago, public health officers became employees of the local authorities, and the thing became somewhat separated from the NHS. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must join public health more closely to the activities of the national health service? Public health was at the very foundations of the national health service. I do not know whether other Members have, like me, read A. J. Cronin’s famous book, “The Citadel”, which describes the health service’s origins; in fact, I understand it was the book that the original politicians had all read. It has a marvellous description of a typhus epidemic, caused by an infected drain running down the middle of a street in a little Welsh mining village. The doctors had been completely unable to get any of the authorities to deal with it, so one night—they were ex-military—they put a little dynamite in the drain and blew the whole thing up. That is well described in the book, and it just shows how public health was absolutely integrated into the foundational principles of the national health service.
I sit on the Home Affairs Committee, and we have lately been discussing the matter of serious organised crime, and vape shops in particular. It turns out that many of the vape shops are in fact not really shops; they are places for laundering money. Specifically, they launder money in relation to drug businesses and the drug trade, which is another huge public health matter that I am sure the Minister will agree needs to be dealt with. We were informed that about 10% of this country’s adult population are using illicit drugs, and that for the most part those are being delivered via the post office. Does the Minister agree that that is a massive public health issue that will also need to be urgently addressed?
Much of the conversation around those trade deals relates to pharmaceuticals from the United States. Our patients should be able to access the best available treatments, whatever deals we cook up. We must support innovative research based in our own country, particularly clinical trials for new medicines. To do that, we need to support clinical academics—the doctors who work in universities and organise research. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the number of clinical academics fell under the previous Conservative Administration? Most clinical academics are now very senior, and we are not recruiting replacements effectively. We need to look after our home-grown pharmaceutical industry so that we do not need such trade deals.
Will the Minister acknowledge that the uplift in the carer’s earnings allowance is a very significant measure that this Government did introduce?
Since I have been an MP, I have visited a number of schools in my constituency, and I have always been struck by the number of children who are carers. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I think that is a very under-recognised group of people, whose lives are completely dominated by the fact that they are carers for their parents.
My wife is an educational psychologist, so I have lived this, in a vicarious fashion, for the last 30 years or more. I understand how the system for special educational needs has evolved, particularly the role of the psychological services and how children are supported. As a result of a series of reforms, in particular during the years of austerity, the services provided by local authorities to schools—particularly the schools’ psychological services—became much more focused on psychologists providing reports to inform the distribution of resources, and much less focused on educational psychologists actually being in schools supporting children. I would like to see a change, such that educational psychologists and their expertise are back in schools, in classrooms, supporting teachers. Time and again when I visit schools, they say, “Let’s get educational psychology support back into schools.” I think that is something my wife would support.
Today we are launching our petition to save Scout Dike activity centre in my constituency with fantastic local campaigners Darren Padgett and Nick Stubbs. We are campaigning against Barnsley council’s plans to sell off this valuable community asset for development. Scout Dike activity centre has served local people for generations and offers an incredible outdoor space—including a Quidditch pitch—for young people to gain life skills, confidence and access to wildlife in the heart of our beautiful South Yorkshire countryside. Selling it off snuffs out these opportunities forever. Will the Leader of the House advise me on how I can work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to reopen the centre to benefit the next generation of young people?
I welcome the review and thank disabled people, who have shaped it. Last year, I was pleased that the Minister accepted my amendment to the Universal Credit Bill to ensure that co-production with disabled people was put at the heart of the Timms review before any future changes to PIP were brought forward. Today’s rich and important findings demonstrate why “nothing about us without us” is so crucial in shaping Government disability policy. How does the Minister plan to ensure that colleagues across his Department—as well as Alan Milburn and Sir Charlie Mayfield, who are reviewing ways to close the employment gap for disabled people and young people with mental health problems—learn from the Timms review and integrate the voices of disabled people? Will the Minister agree to come back to the House with the full findings of his report and to ensure that changes to PIP are joined up with the findings of the two other reviews, so that there is strategic coherence across Government policy on getting more disabled people into work?
For my constituents in West Dunbartonshire, a community geographically far removed from Palestine, the horrific injustice being inflicted on the Palestinian people resonates deeply. They look at the systematic confiscation of Palestinian land, the draining of Palestinian water resources and the suffocating restrictions on movement, and they quite rightly see an intolerable violation of human dignity via the illegal Israeli settlements. In 2009, when I was a councillor, my West Dunbartonshire local authority became the first council in Scotland to pass a unanimous trade ban on anything made or grown in Israel. The ban was extended in 2010, and again in 2011, to discourage investment and trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and it remains in place today. Later, as provost during the 2014 Gaza war, I made the decision to fly the Palestinian flag from Dumbarton town hall—the municipal buildings. We were the first council in Scotland to do so. Yes, that was met with a backlash, but it sent a message of hope. It raised awareness of the suffering and deaths of people in Gaza and the west bank, and it showed that they were not forgotten. We must not forget them here in this place either, 12 years on. It was a simple act of solidarity from a small local authority thousands of miles away from the occupied territories, but a combination of acts can make a real difference. That is why I support today’s call for a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Yes, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point. I think all hon. Members in the House have had the same volume of correspondence from our constituents, emphasising the strength of feeling up and down the United Kingdom. Today, the situation in the west bank and East Jerusalem is at breaking point. Settler violence has reached an all-time high, displacing entire villages in a blatant abuse of human rights. Yet as the crisis rages on, the UK is not doing enough. I appreciate that we have finally recognised the state of Palestine, but we need to go beyond that and take decisive action. The Charity Commission is being urged to investigate 32 British charities that have funnelled at least £28 million into these illegal territories—a figure that has been boosted even more by the British taxpayer through gift aid. We are inadvertently helping to fund infrastructure on stolen land. We should be funding peace, not obstacles to peace, and not apartheid. Furthermore, the settlement enterprises know exactly what they are doing and they know that it is wrong. We know that because they routinely mislabel Palestinian products as being produced in Israel to sneak them into international trade markets and bolster the settler economy. Any goods or money obtained via trade with these illegal settlements are tainted by criminality, which is not something that our country should be associated with. They are the proceeds of crime that underpin Israel’s illegal occupation. I welcome the actions that our UK Labour Government have taken so far. We have sanctioned extremist Ministers and violent settler networks, and we have updated the business risk guidance. In May last year, we also rightly suspended negotiations on a free trade agreement with Israel. But guidance and warnings are no longer enough. We must ensure that the illegal settlements have no viable economic future. On 7 June, I proudly signed the letter co-ordinated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) calling on the Foreign Secretary to introduce a ban on trade with illegal settlements. By delaying, we are falling behind our international allies: Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and even, we hear, the EU.