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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,942 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Gideon Amos

   Business of the House

   In Taunton and Wellington, people recognise the need for new homes, and indeed have supported thousands of new homes. Taunton is the town that has grown most in the south-west—its population growth is 2% ahead of the national average. However, we do not accept the blinkered idea that that cannot go hand in hand with protecting our most precious green spaces, although the proposed new national planning policy framework will make that so much harder. The longest established environmental development charity in the world, the Town and Country Planning Association, has called the framework an unprecedented change. The public are debating it, and the Government are consulting on it. Can this House have a debate on the proposed new national planning policy framework, which is more far-reaching than the recent Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025?

   Hansard source
2. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Dr Danny Chambers

   Health Bill (Third sitting)

   I too think the hon. Member for Lichfield gave an excellent speech on the need for clarity, but there is another factor to consider. Not only is NHS England being abolished, and ICBs are having their budgets halved, but in Hampshire and other areas we also have local government reorganisation. We are going from having district councils and county councils to unitary authorities, and a mayor will be coming in next year. This is another level of reorganisation in the delivery of healthcare and social care, so there is a huge amount of change. However, there seems to be no clarity, at any level, on how this will affect services on the ground, because there are so many moving parts coming in at once.

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3. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Clive Jones

   Topical Questions

   Grassroots sports clubs such as Wokingham Town football club are at the heart of our communities, but many clubs struggle to find and maintain facilities and equipment. Would the Secretary of State consider convening twice-yearly meetings with grassroots sports governing bodies to strengthen collaboration and advocacy for community sport?

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4. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Clive Jones

   Business of the House

   Eight months after changes to FP69 flagging were made, GPs in Wokingham remain concerned that many patients marked for removal from lists are from ethnic minority backgrounds or other vulnerable groups. Will the Leader of the House make time so that Department of Health and Social Care Ministers can update the House on whether an equality impact assessment has been undertaken or whether one is planned?

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5. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Claire Young

   Business of the House

   Nearly seven years ago, National Highways spent £40 million building a ghost junction on the M49 that was left entirely unconnected to the local road network. South Gloucestershire council stepped in and is on track to complete the slip road this year, but National Highways now tells me that the junction is unsafe and cannot open, with no timeline for remedy, meaning my constituents will continue to have lorries thundering through their villages, shredding the roads. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the accountability of National Highways for this farcical situation?

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6. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Claire Young

   Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

   On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you could assist the House. The Department for Transport has this afternoon published the Heathrow expansion national policy statement, the HENPS, alongside supporting documents in a major consultation. Given the significance of this decision, with implications for communities across a wide area, for the Government’s own climate commitments and for connectivity across the whole of the United Kingdom, could you confirm whether the Secretary of State for Transport has given any indication to Mr Speaker that she intends to come to this House to make an oral statement? If not, do you agree that this House ought to expect the Government to come here first, rather than learning of major consultations through a written ministerial statement?

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7. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Claire Young

   Warehouse development in Pilning

   The lives of people in and around Pilning are blighted by giant warehouses being built under outdated 1950s planning consents, which lack modern safeguards. The Severnside Warehouse Action group has already presented a petition with over 2,500 signatures to South Gloucestershire council, and it now has over 3,500 signatures online. However, primary legislation is needed to resolve the problem. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage the planning authorities to revoke the 1957 planning consent for warehouse developments in Pilning, or to amend it as soon as possible to include appropriate conditions and restrictions to protect local communities. Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that the ongoing warehouse development in Pilning is having a major and lasting detrimental impact on local communities, including through loss of countryside, increasing noise levels, light pollution, a real risk of flooding, a big increase in traffic, and the devaluation of property prices; further declares that the development is taking place without any meaningful conditions or restrictions and without consultation with residents, as developers are relying on a planning consent dating from 1957; and further declares that this is a unique situation with a planning consent that was given nearly seventy years ago no longer fit for purpose in 2026. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to encourage the planning authorities to revoke the 1957 planning consent for warehouse developments in Pilning or to amend it as soon as possible to include appropriate conditions and restrictions to protect local communities. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003210]

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8. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Anna Sabine

   Ticket Tout Ban

   I would also like to start by congratulating the England football team on their win yesterday. While fans are rightly excited to finally see England bring it home this summer, some world cup tickets this year have surged to over £24,000. Fans should not be forced to choose between remortgaging their homes or missing out on supporting their country. Will the Minister therefore support the Liberal Democrats’ call for an international fans charter to safeguard supporters against unfair ticket pricing?

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9. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Andrew George

   Exchange of Cultural Artefacts: Greece

   1. What recent discussions she has had with her Greek counterpart on mutual exchanges of cultural artefacts. [R]

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10. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Andrew George

    Exchange of Cultural Artefacts: Greece

    There is an opportunity for another victory for the United Kingdom if we can find a way of co-operating. Clinging on to half of the Parthenon sculptures while assuring ourselves that we own them, when they were obtained in, at best, highly dubious circumstances two centuries ago, is not a great look for this country. Does the Minister agree that the imminent restoration of the British Museum provides the museum and the Government with a golden opportunity to engage in what would be a better look for this country—a gracious act, reflecting a partnership and a shared love of classical history, but also natural justice—and to see all the sculptures displayed in Athens, where they belong?

    Hansard source
11. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Green·Hannah Spencer

    Topical Questions

    Grassroots music venues in the constituency I represent, such as the Talleyrand, face increasing costs from business rates despite the emergency relief that has been provided. Can the Minister tell me how the music plan will help tackle the structural issues facing grassroots venues, such as the Talleyrand, and how it will secure the venue’s long-term future in our community and cultural landscapes?

    Hansard source
12. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Green·Dr Ellie Chowns

    Human Rights: Supply Chains

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am sure I speak for us all in extending warm thanks to you for stepping into the breach at the last minute to enable us to have this timely and important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing it. It is clear that UK business has global environmental and human rights impacts. UK business has impacts on climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, waste management, deforestation, and of course on human rights and labour rights, as we have already discussed. The Government have acknowledged those concerns. This debate comes at a particularly timely moment because, as the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green pointed out, we await with bated breath the Government release of announcements. I note that the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) tabled a question to the Secretary of State in January asking when the responsible business conduct review would be published. The Minister for Trade responded with one word: “Soon.” It is now five months later, so perhaps today’s Minister could assure us in her wind-up that soon really will mean soon. We would very much appreciate seeing that review. Although we have some parts of an existing legal framework—for example, the Modern Slavery Act and the Environment Act 2021—they are too narrow to meet internationally accepted standards. Single-issue measures such as robust legislation to prevent and address modern slavery, including through import and export restrictions of goods and services that involve forced labour, are useful but not in themselves sufficient to address the full range of human rights and environmental risks and harms. In particular, if they require companies only to report, rather than to take action, they do not have the force that we need. The UK risks falling behind its international partners. The UK was once a frontrunner on environmental and human rights legislation, but progress has stalled. The EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive will apply, of course, to UK companies that generate significant turnover in EU markets, meaning that UK businesses will face mandatory due diligence obligations abroad without equivalent domestic standards at home. That does not make sense. The UK would be better able to produce and sell goods and services in the EU single market, as well as continue to position itself strongly as a global leader on human rights, if we had our own mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence legislation. It is not just campaigners who are calling for that; business is calling for a new law. A clear majority of businesses surveyed by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law believe that current UK laws do not provide clarity or sufficient legal certainty on human rights obligations. Nearly three quarters of UK businesses believe that additional regulation would provide benefits, including greater legal certainty and a level playing field. Indeed, I met with people from a large business in my own constituency just a couple of weeks ago who made exactly that point. A level playing field is needed. Business is calling for it. As has already been reflected, major businesses including the British Retail Consortium, John Lewis Partnership, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Twinings are all calling for new mandatory due diligence laws on human rights and the environment. As we have also heard, over 160 businesses and investors representing trillions of pounds of investment are calling for the failure to prevent liability model. That failure to prevent model is what underpins the Bribery Act 2010. We already have the legal model in UK legislation that we can adopt in the same way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; it is simply about applying the wheel more consistently. Three parliamentary Committees have already recommended this. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has specifically recommended legislation modelled on the failure to prevent framework of the Bribery Act 2010. We have business calling for that legislation. We have parliamentary Committees and parliamentarians calling for it. The Good Business Matters pledge has secured cross-party support from over 80 MPs and peers from eight different political parties. We also have public support: 145,000 citizens have signed a petition calling for such legislation, and a YouGov survey indicates that three quarters of the British population support stronger legislation in this area. In summary, introducing mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation is not only the right thing to do to protect the environment and human rights around the world and to be consistent; it is good for our economy. We miss out on opportunities by not adopting such legislation. It is called for urgently by major businesses that want the Government to support them in showing leadership in this area. It is strongly called for by British citizens, who care—people in this country really care about the standards under which our goods and services are produced. We see that in the strong outcry about the continued import of goods and services from stolen land in Israeli settlements in the west bank; in the outcry over the import of goods that are produced under slave labour conditions by Uyghurs in China; and in the outcry over the import of goods and services that result in deforestation, environmental devastation and climate damage. It is time for the Government to act, and I very much hope that the Minister will assure us that they will do so soon.

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13. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Roger Gale

    UNESCO World Heritage Sites

    The Roman forts of Reculver and Richborough, linked by the Wantsum channel and the River Stour in east Kent, are ambitious to secure UNESCO world heritage site status. Those ambitions will be killed stone dead if the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero supports the building of a 90-foot-high converter station on the Minster marshes. Would the Minister have a word with that Department to make sure that does not happen?

    Hansard source
14. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Roger Gale

    Business of the House

    Mr Speaker, you will recall that on 16 April I raised with the Leader of the House the failure of Capita to administer properly the civil service pension scheme. Ever courteous, he passed that information and my concerns to the Cabinet Office. The deputy director of the Government People Group responded on 30 April, saying: “The Second Permanent Secretary at HMRC…is personally leading a specialist Pensions Recovery Taskforce to restore service levels…we are now focused on a backlog of approximately 25,000 outstanding pension quotations.” In response to my concerns about Capita, she said: “Capita is a strategic supplier to the government” and it has “more than 80 contracts across the public sector.” She also said, “we are holding Capita to rigorous account through every available commercial lever.” May I gently ask the Leader of the House whether it is not now time for the Cabinet Secretary to come to the House to make a statement and face questions on this matter?

    Hansard source
15. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Roger Gale

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    The hon. Gentleman referred to “reinventing the wheel”. There is no possible way that anybody can be really compensated for the loss of a child, a husband or a wife. However, those of us who still bear the scars of the thalidomide scandal are seeing the wheel reinvented again and again. Surely there has to be a system that allows compensation and allows the Government to act as the insurer of last resort and then to make claims against those who are actually culpable. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

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16. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Julian Lewis

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    Like others before me, I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford). He is the driving force behind the all-party parliamentary group, which has done so much to highlight this terrible tragedy. I was struck by what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said about having been alerted to this as far back as 2010. In my case, it was not quite so far back; it was 2015, but that is still more than a decade ago. I spoke in this House about the case of my constituent Lesley, which illustrated how long it often took for victims of contaminated blood to discover that they indeed had been infected. I pointed out that in 1970, she and her future husband had been involved in a serious road traffic accident, and she had to receive no fewer than 44 pints of blood. For many years, she knew nothing about the fact that she had been infected, although over those years she had many visits to GPs and hospitals, with numerous symptoms of illness, and considerable pain and suffering. It was only in 2014 that she finally discovered that she had been infected with hepatitis C by NHS contaminated blood. Another example of a constituent who is in regular contact with me and my office is Stephen. He came to see me in August 2023. He was diagnosed as haemophiliac as an eight-year-old in the late 1960s. He thinks that he was infected with hepatitis C in 1974, which persisted for nearly 15 years before it eventually cleared from his system. He says that although it did not inhibit his professional life too badly, it had a deep impact on his personal life. He was married in 1986, and he was constantly having to have testing for fear every time that he had to have a transfusion that he might be being infected. He was told in quite firm terms not to have children, and he said that he was often too scared to have treatment. Once he had quite a bad leg injury, which led to complications, and his fear of treatment led to him being effectively disabled for a period of time. Stephen’s brother’s case was far worse, because he was one of about 400 chronic hepatitis C victims of this scandal. To this day, he can only effectively live on a day-to-day basis; he cannot plan because the complications of his infection mean that whether he will be able to do something will depend on how he is on the day in question. In Portcullis House on Tuesday, we benefited from briefings from a number of organisations that are concerned with this scandal. I will briefly touch on a couple. One was a campaign about a condition of which I was previously unaware, called thalassaemia. This rare blood disorder requires sufferers to have a transfusion every three to four weeks—a blood transfusion every month. These people are at a very high risk of having been infected, and many of them were. These regular blood transfusions deposit more iron into the major organs, which, coupled with the hepatitis C virus with which they had been infected, maximises the prospect of their developing cirrhosis and liver cancer. The drug interferon has been mentioned a couple of times already. I am old enough to remember when interferon was first regarded as a great breakthrough in the treatment of some cancers. Sadly, like so many medical interventions, it has side effects that can be harmful. Taken in combination with what these patients are also suffering from by way of infection and, in the case of thalassaemia sufferers, the build-up of iron, the interferon used in their cases also has complicating adverse effects. That was a point impressed on me at the briefing by the representative of the Terrence Higgins Trust, who pointed to the additional negative impact of treatment with interferon, which was for a significant time the only option available for HIV-positive patients. I am indebted to the Haemophilia Society for briefing material that I hope will simply add to the excellent statement and laying of the groundwork in the opening speech so ably delivered by the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst. The Haemophilia Society draws attention to one or two specific points that I would like to put before the House. We all acknowledge that the infected blood community has fought valiantly for the truth for decades. We also accept that the Government are clearly committed to compensation following the inquiry. The debate now focuses on how to deliver that commitment and how to make sure that people are compensated without further delay and that the compensation is truly fair. In this connection, I would like to make reference to a detailed opportunity I had virtually to participate in exchanges with senior people—in fact, the most senior people—at the Infected Blood Compensation Authority back in June last year. Again, that was at the initiative of the chairman of the APPG, the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst. My participation was online, but I was able, as was he, to discuss all these matters with the interim chairman at the time, Sir Robert Francis; the chief executive, David Foley; and other key officials. In particular, we were able to talk directly with members of IBCA’s cases team. I must say that I, for one, found them to be both compassionate and empathetic. I was very impressed with the calibre of people who are involved in this agency, and I am hopeful that if they are given the direction they need and the resources they require, they can succeed. I got the feeling that this is an organisation that really does want to help the people it has been set up to support, not an organisation that wants to be in any way obstructive. I hope everything can be done to encourage it. I know that it is operating in uncharted waters with a tragedy of this magnitude, but I hope it can succeed in overcoming the obstacles that have been causing the delays. More than two years have passed since the Government accepted the need for compensation, but the majority of eligible people are still waiting to begin their claims. That includes infected people not previously on a support scheme and affected people—namely, the partners and family members of those who are sadly no longer with us. We have heard concern from the community that progress has slowed while IBCA works out how to grapple with these categories of claims in a process that it calls test and learn. Every month of delay matters, because many infected and affected people are elderly or seriously ill. We would like to know from the Minister his latest assessment of the timescale by which IBCA will compensate each of the categories of claimant. IBCA’s latest figures show that just 30 affected people have been paid compensation so far. Over 14,000 affected people are waiting to start their claim. At what point does the Minister expect IBCA to truly start making a dent in those very large numbers? In particular, we would like to know what specific steps are being taken to accelerate compensation payments over the next 12 months. Finally, there is an issue to do with claims that relate to the estates of those who died before the scheme commenced. Those who survived until the scheme commencement are rightly entitled to financial loss compensation from the date of their infection right up to the national age of healthy life expectancy that they should have had. In contrast, those who died before the scheme started have their financial loss calculated only from the date of their infection until the date of their death, which may have been a lot earlier than the normal expectation of a term of life that would have been their lot had this catastrophe not befallen them. There can be no doubt that this creates a stark and unjust two-tier system. Those who died earlier will often have suffered the same or worse than those who died later, and the financial loss to their estate is clear, yet the Government’s position seems to be that those killed by their infections the soonest deserve less compensation and recognition than those who survived for longer. In many cases, this amounts to a very substantial reduction in compensation—potentially decades of lost earnings. Bereaved families should not receive lesser justice because their loved one died before the scheme was established. The result is that timing, not harm, is determining value, meaning that compensation depends on whether someone survived long enough to see the scheme introduced. As I said, this is about avoiding a two-tier compensation system. In conclusion, I would like the Minister to explain how it can be in accordance with natural justice for those who died earlier due to their infection to receive less compensation than those who died later from a similar infection. Will the Government commit to reviewing their position on estate claims, to ensure families are not disadvantaged because their relative died earlier?

    Hansard source
17. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Wright

    Polling Stations: Blind and Visually Impaired Voters

    All voters, including blind and visually impaired voters, should be able to vote independently and secretly. In its reports on elections in 2024 and 2025, the commission found that there have been improvements to the support available and that returning officers provided a range of accessibility equipment and support. The commission will publish a report on the May 2026 polls in the autumn, including consideration of accessibility. However, there is more to be done, and the commission has recommended improving awareness of the support available, including providing clear information on poll cards and in polling stations.

    Hansard source
18. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Wright

    Polling Stations: Blind and Visually Impaired Voters

    As I have said, the commission will review what happened in the May 2026 polls and make any further recommendations it feels necessary as a result. The hon. Lady makes two important points. It is important that equipment is available, and she will know that tactile devices have been found by the commission to have been available in every polling station. Her other important point is that people who are blind or partially sighted need to know about that, and communicating that information is crucial—she is absolutely right.

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19. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Jeremy Wright

    Polling Stations: Blind and Visually Impaired Voters

    I will certainly make sure the commission hears what the hon. Gentleman has said. He will appreciate that judgments on these things are often for returning officers or for those managing individual polling stations, but he makes an important point about access. As I say, I will make sure the commission hears what he has said.

    Hansard source
20. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    Human Rights: Supply Chains

    It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you. I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern-day slavery. I remind Members that it was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, that first published the paper “It Happens Here”. We were then able to get the Government to initiate the Modern Slavery Act—the first legislation of its kind in the world. We were all very proud of that Act, but sadly it really has no enforcement. Government and suppliers have no obligation to check. They are supposed to make a declaration, but we know that many of those declarations are in fact deliberately false—they know they will not be checked, and therefore they do not have to worry about it—so while the Act is great, it is rather toothless. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate and making such a good opening speech. I will not repeat all he said, although I agree with so much of it. In the limited time I have, I want to focus on certain issues. First, the reality is that slave labour is not only a massive punishment and a human rights abuse on a scale, like genocide, wider than anything else; it is also commercial. Countries such as China use slave labour as a way to undercut markets, compete unfairly and drive businesses out of business—particularly here in the UK, as we have experienced. One of the big issues is the net zero determination and what we wish to do to clean up the environment because the biggest providers of solar arrays, wind farms and the technology are, in fact, based in China. The big problem is that the Government have two conflicting requirements. Quite rightly, they want to get on with cleaning up the environment; but they also know that if they cannot buy from China without a clear set of supply chains that are without slave labour, that will cost more money. That impacts the pace and the way in which they can provide a cleaner atmosphere. We have to say that one thing is more important than the other, and that is the human rights of those people being abused in places such as China. At the end of the day, we cannot go to bed at night with any grace if we say that we put up more solar arrays and wind farms but those were supplied by factories where people may have died, been abused, or had their lives and families destroyed. We know that China, in the case of Xinjiang, is committing a well-established genocide on such a scale that children are now in forced education camps. Millions of adult males are in forced labour, many producing the polysilicon that goes into arrays made in and around Xinjiang. The women, unbelievably, are being forcibly sterilised. The birth rate in Xinjiang has gone off the edge of a cliff. China is going to eradicate an ethnic group; it is very much the policy of the Chinese Communist party to have Han Chinese in charge of China, and nobody else. It also makes money from the fact that people in slave labour, as I said earlier, are producing goods much more cheaply than anyone else can. Look at what we are not doing: we are not checking supply chains. On this issue, I have been in opposition to whatever Government have been in power—neither the last Government nor this one have made a big effort to check those company declarations. I have had responses from this and the previous Government saying that they were doing their best and trying hard. It is not good enough to do one’s best or try hard; the question is: what is the best? Look at what is happening in other places. I point to the USA’s Act, which basically outlawed all use of slave labour anywhere in supply chains and put the means in place to check that. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States creates a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or partly in Xinjiang, and other places using slave labour, are made with forced labour unless importers can prove otherwise. That is how it is done—we tell importers, “You must now prove to us that you have avoided any slave labour in your products. Failure to do that has you banned and fined.” It is immediate. They do not simply sit there saying, “Well, other bits of Government are helping us”, because to be honest, the Government do not have the ability to check themselves. They do not have what it takes, but there are companies out there that do this regularly. I have met the representatives of one such company. Forensic companies such as Oritain, based in New Zealand, specialise in using forensic science to check where goods were made. From that, it knows the footprint and the likelihood of slave labour. It will immediately investigate a company’s declaration and can challenge it. If it challenges it, the US Government will ban and fine the company. That has led to a whole rerouting of supply chains across China for the US market. Sadly, it has also meant efforts have been redoubled to put slave labour products into markets such as the UK, because it is known that the UK is a soft option. When we look around the countryside of the east of England and elsewhere, we see a load of arrays. I would bet that the vast majority were made with slave labour because no checks were carried out. The reality is that we have to do more. The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I greatly supported, has now become toothless. Section 54 needs to be upgraded. There needs to be a punishment. Government need the ability to prosecute immediately, and supply-chain checks must take place. I end with this. The reality is that the legislation is a mess. With colleagues on both sides of the House, I successfully tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Act 2025, to ban the use of products made with slave labour. It was a classic rebellion, and we got it done. Yet when I checked, I saw that next to nothing had resulted from it. There is that offence in the legislation, but the Government have done nothing to call out any of the companies still selling those products. We put a similar obligation into the Health and Care Act 2022, but next to nothing has been done on that—no declarations and no speeches to Parliament about what the Government have done. We cannot go on addressing this issue in a piecemeal way: it has to be done across the board. That is why I support the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green in his call for the Modern Slavery Act to have teeth and for section 54 to be implemented. Any business that, having been checked properly, is found to have misdeclared itself and its supply chain should be punished—it should be banished from importing to the UK and face financial and even criminal penalties. That way, we will stop this practice.

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21. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    Human Rights: Supply Chains

    Could we get a commitment today that the Government will look carefully at what countries that are well in advance of us, such as the United States and some European countries, are doing, to make sure that we urgently get on to resolving this issue, rather than delaying with another review and more debates? We know what needs to be done, and surely we can get on with it pretty quickly.

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22. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Gavin Williamson

    Business of the House

    I think Members on both sides of the House are deeply appreciative of the work of civil servants right across the country. To pick up the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), we have a real issue here. There are pensioners in my constituency who have dedicated their life to the civil service but are not in receipt of their pension from March. As a Member of Parliament who continuously writes to those administering the scheme to follow up these issues, I know that they do not have the courtesy to even respond and say what they are doing. Can the relevant Minister come to the House as a matter of urgency to make a statement on what is being done to support our civil servants who have retired?

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23. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Christopher Chope

    Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

    The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon. Member to ensure that his ideas and recommendations can be taken forward, because we do not want to have to wait until Baroness Casey’s report in three years’ time?

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24. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Christopher Chope

    Business of the House

    The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?

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25. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

    Topical Questions

    Recognising the answers that the right hon. Lady gave earlier, may I ask her to ensure that before the charter review comes out, she absolutely emphasises the need for radio news? Many people do not get to watch television news—I am sure she will be travelling later today and will not be able to watch the TV. May I ask her at this early stage to ensure that the BBC recognises just how important these radio news programmes are?

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26. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Rishi Sunak

    Business of the House

    My constituents and I are deeply concerned about proposals to develop what would be one of England’s largest onshore wind farms right next to the Yorkshire Dales national park. With turbines as tall as the Gherkin, it would have a huge impact on the visual landscape in one of the most beautiful parts of our country and could damage our precious peatland in the moors, which, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, is a natural resource that we are lucky to have. Will he join me in praising the work of Councillor Thompson and the Hope Moor wind farm action group for organising our community? Will he support both their and my efforts to ensure that our local voices are heard loudly during the process?

    Hansard source
27. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Nigel Huddleston

    BBC Funding

    Last year the BBC lost another 300,000 licence fee payers. The BBC’s current scale and financial model is clearly unsustainable. Yesterday the BBC announced controversial cuts, including “The World Tonight” and “Money Box Live”, without anyone in Parliament expressing a view. That is not right. The Government appear to be restricting parliamentary debate about the future of the BBC. They announced the BBC charter via written statement, not a debate. They have already ruled out some alternative funding models and consideration of the size, scope and scale of the BBC’s operations, leaving the BBC to take action unilaterally. Will the Secretary of State reconsider the scope of the charter review, and ensure that Parliament has a proper say on the future of the BBC?

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28. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Nigel Huddleston

    Topical Questions

    I echo the Secretary of State’s introductory comments and congratulate England and Scotland on a great start to the world cup. Since coming to power, this Government have cut funding for school sport, listed places of worship, tourism marketing and so much more, yet they have found billions for welfare, Chagos and inflation-busting pay rises for their union mates. Last Sunday, the Secretary of State went on telly to say that she was in discussions about cutting DCMS spending even further. Well, where and when? And who is to blame: is it the Prime Minister, for his weakness and failure to tackle welfare spending, or is it the Chancellor, for her utter economic incompetence?

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29. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    We have saved the best till last. I call Dr Peter Prinsley.

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30. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    Dr Prinsley, you have done yourself proud with that contribution. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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31. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    I call the shadow Minister.

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32. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. I have received no notice from Ministers that they intend to make a statement on this matter. The House knows that I have no power to compel a Minister to make a statement, but Mr Speaker has repeatedly stated how important it is that significant announcements are made here in this House first. Ministers on the Front Bench will have heard the hon. Member and I, and no doubt they will respond in due course. The hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has also informed Mr Speaker that she will not proceed today with her debate on the potential merits of a full ban on fracking.

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33. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mr Andrew Snowden

    Stoma: Public Toilet Provision

    It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd, especially on what I think is your birthday—thank you for choosing to spend your special day talking about public toilets with us. I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for calling this important debate. Not only is he the most industrious contributor to debates and question times across this House, but he champions matters that really cut to the heart of why we are here and that really matter to people in their everyday lives. Anyone who has supported a loved one, family member or friend who has gone through the process of requiring a stoma will realise that you often do two things together: laugh and cry. If you do not do the laughing, you will just spend all your time crying. As hon. Members can probably already tell, this is quite a personal subject for me. A little irreverence and humour is a good way of dealing with the issue of stoma care and inflammatory bowel disease. In fact, I would say it is essential. It also helps to break down the barriers and the embarrassment of talking about the subject in the first place. We have had a good explanation of what a stoma is, namely a surgical opening to allow waste to leave the body. It usually comes at the cost of having significant amounts of intestine, or in many cases the entire colon, removed, which is as painful, damaging and difficult to recover from as you would imagine. However, the conditions that often lead to someone requiring a stoma involve—let us be honest—talking about poo, and the British public are not particularly comfortable talking about. So although the hon. Member for Strangford has outlined what a stoma is, most people are embarrassed about them. As I said, one way people get around that is by having a sense of humour. I have met many people with stomas; a very close loved one has a stoma, and I have met many of the friends she has made over the years during her many hospital stays. Among the things I have picked up on is what you call a stoma once you have one. The names are quite creative, and the naming process is, first, quite humorous and, secondly, about a degree of taking ownership of it. I will run hon. Members through some of the names that people come up with for stomas, so that we get beyond just a “surgical opening”. Some are ones that I have seen in research, and some are from people I know who have a stoma. Most of the names are a play on words, such as a rhyme with stoma, or references to poo or pumping—apologies to Members in advance, but hopefully there will find something in this for one of you. As an opening gambit, there is Paloma Faith, which is a good name for a stoma. Winnie the Poo is another one. Another favourite of mine is Vladimir Poopin, just because it takes the mick out of a dictator. To take something straightforward and simple, there is Windbag, which is pretty much what we are talking about. Captain Craptastic is another good one. Others include Donald Trumps and Bilbo Baggins. Finally, my favourite is Louis Shitton, which I think is excellent—I am delighted to have got that into Hansard. I hope that that gives a bit of insight. People who have had to have a stoma because of their suffering have been through difficult times, but they are remarkably resilient people, many of them with a great sense of humour. Every Member in this House will have a constituent who has inflammatory bowel disease, colonic cancer or another of the conditions that leads to a stoma, and we will all have constituents with stomas—that is beyond doubt. Many conditions can lead to people requiring a stoma, although that will depend on how controllable a condition is in any individual person—whether they get Crohn’s or colitis flare-ups or whether the cancer is caught and treated early enough. Given all those things with a similarity of issues, Members will have hundreds, if not thousands, of constituents who have a stoma or who know someone directly affected. The conditions themselves are embarrassing. It is not just about having a stoma, when you have got to that point; by the time you get to having one, you have usually been through years of having to deal with a condition and having to suffer it in silence, because you do not want to talk about it. There is also a lot of misunderstanding; a lot of people think that Crohn’s and colitis, for example, are some form of irritable bowel syndrome. Even well-meaning people suggest eating less spicy food or not eating brown bread, because they do not realise that the condition generates internal ulcers in the most painful place they could possibly be, and that those bleed internally, creating internal blood clots that need to pass through your system urgently, in an incredibly painful way—whether you had a Madras on Friday night makes absolutely no difference to that condition. Toilet provision is so important for people with stomas as well as those with the conditions mentioned. That is important to remember, because we can look at the number of people with stomas—Colostomy UK has provided a helpful briefing ahead of this debate—but that would give you a very distorted view about the total number who require access to toilets due to health conditions. As other hon. Members pointed out, when someone who has a stoma goes to the toilet, they are either going to empty it or change it. Changing it is not a quick thing and if there is a leak, which is something anybody with a stoma lives in absolute fear of, that needs to be urgently dealt with. Visualise where that would be on your body. Even if just emptying it, the proximity to the toilet means also getting very close to the floor and the toilet itself. People suddenly become experts in the cleanliness of toilets and which companies keep clean toilets and which do not. It goes back to remembering the human in all of this, and not just taking it from a purely clinical and public health perspective. Imagine going through years of dealing with a health condition that leads to needing major surgery that is life changing and life threatening in its own right and results in a stoma. Regardless of your age, but especially for younger people in this hyper body conscious world, that is not something that you want—it is not something that you are proud of—and it is something that you are often embarrassed about and will try and conceal and hide. Imagine having been through all of that and having recovered and just about psychologically coming to terms with having a stoma—and you want to go out. You want to pick up the courage to go out. You find some clothes that for the first time you think cover it so you do not feel self-conscious about it. You go out, you feel sexy, you feel confident. It is a big boost. Then you either need to empty the bag or have the dreaded leak, and there is nowhere to do anything about it. As one of my friends—I apologise in advance, Chair, but I am quoting—said: “Imagine getting dressed up for date night and then having to go and crawl around on a piss covered floor simply to change your bag.” Would that do anything other than knock your confidence, dignity and self-respect? It is not fair. There seems to be a general consensus among forums and things I have read that we men need to have a little more care and attention in toilets than women do and that the standard in male toilets is often significantly lower. However, it is a point none the less. That is what I want to get across in this debate; I do not want to talk about the stats, figures and percentages. Every one of those numbers has a human being behind it who is trying to get on and rebuild their life under immense physical, psychological and emotional damage. That is what makes this so important. There are also other issues including access to private toilets. All of this cannot fall to local councils. I have been working and campaigning on this since I was elected as a county councillor in 2017. I moved a motion in full council—those were the days—around access and the card that people can carry that says they need access to the private toilets in a commercial facility. We have our own experiences of that in our family. These are pre-stoma but they highlight the conditions as well. When shopping you suddenly feel the urge to go, and, as we have already established, you are not having a poo or a pump but are passing blood clots in an incredibly painful way and your body is trying to get them out of your system and you cannot contain it, and poo will come out with them. You are shopping and have decided to go out—even though, as hon. Members have already highlighted, a lot of people plan their journeys around that—you show your card to a member of staff and they point-blank refuse to let you use the private toilets. You soil yourself in the middle of the shop, and then you do not go out for a long time afterwards because of the embarrassment. I do not want to name or shame any individual companies that may have been involved in that example, but if I say that their slogan is “You can do it if you…it”, Members can draw their own conclusions. That chain was horrific. From my lobbying, I believe it has got an awful lot better of late. It is about raising understanding in organisations of what the cards are and why people carry them. That goes back to stigma and the “Not every disability is visible” campaign, which I pushed to be rolled out across Lancashire all those years ago. These conditions are not visible. Someone may look physically well but experience that urgency. We must make sure that people with stomas, advanced Crohn’s, colitis and so on know that they can get a RADAR key. People need to know where the toilets are. Lots of different people have tried this in lots of different ways. We already accept that councils cannot be responsible for providing a toilet in all places at all times. If someone is going to go out and they are dependent on toilets being nearby, they need to know that there is a network of companies and commercial organisations that will let them use their toilets, even if there are not a lot. It is just about pubs and hotels knowing that sometimes, someone may need to come in. I know it is really annoying when non-paying customers come in and use the toilets, but having those apps is important so that people can plan their days out and their journeys with confidence. There are knock-on benefits to the NHS and public health of helping people to have and maintain normal lives post traumatic bowel surgery and helping them with the psychological recovery. If they had to quit work, that could help them to get back into work. Stomas can be noisy. They rumble and pump. They are bowels, just on the outside of the body, or moving to the outside of the body. Dealing with that is hard enough. Therefore, people may not wish to empty or change a bag at work. They may wish to go somewhere near work to do it. They may work on the tools, in an outdoors job where they do not have routine access to toilets. There are knock-on benefits to the Government and to the Treasury of helping people back into work, stopping people becoming ill with mental health issues from lack of confidence and emotional damage, and helping people to manage their condition better so that they are not continuously spiralling and going back into the NHS. It is not just about doing the right thing and the moral obligation to those people. The hon. Member for Strangford has already outlined Colostomy UK’s requests for things that could be advanced through building regulations to make toilets more stoma-friendly and the general need for more public toilet provision. I am sure it will continue to lobby effectively on that. A lot of the time, this is about the role the Government can play in creating awareness among public bodies and organisations about why this is important—the human element that I have tried to outline. This is about people’s lives and the quality of life of some of people who deserve our support the most. It is about simple things, such as making sure that councils have nice, clean toilets, that toilets are open and that people can access information about where public and IBD-friendly toilets are. I am about to start repeating myself, so I shall end my speech, which is probably a personal best for inappropriate Hansard contributions—I look forward to reading them back. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for securing this debate. This really is an important topic, and I know the debate will mean a lot to people. As I said, a lot of people with these conditions do not want to talk about it. They want to hide it. They suffer in silence. Their voice will not be heard. They will not contact their MP to ask if they can have better public toilets as they have a stoma or IBD, because they do not want people to know. It is therefore really important that we, as their elected representatives, are their voice. I hope that we can be their voice today, and I look forward to what the Minister and shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), have to say.

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34. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mr Andrew Snowden

    Stoma: Public Toilet Provision

    The hon. Member touches on a point that I started but never finished in my walkthrough of life with a stoma, and it relates to children. I have a four-year-old. I have read the stories of parents trying to deal with children who are months old, not years old, and require stomas. As parents, we know what it is like managing a day out, but imagine trying to manage it for a child with a stoma. Imagine trying to give that child as normal an upbringing as possible. Unfortunately, the reality for that child is that they could face bullying and self-confidence issues from everything that goes with having a stoma. Those parents should be able to plan normal days out and provide normal lives for their children, so ensuring that schools and councils manage public toilets in a way that is friendly to people with stomas is important. I cannot feel anything other than real heartache for families who have to deal with that as they try to do their best by their child.

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35. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mr Andrew Snowden

    Stoma: Public Toilet Provision

    Having been a councillor and served on the front bench of a council, I know about delivering these facilities, and I feel for councils when it comes to doing so. As has been said, the reality is that even if councils want to do their best, and they know what is best for their local areas, funding is tight. We all know that ever-increasing adult social care bills and so on are creating bigger burdens on local government finances, and statutory requirements will always take priority over other things. I do not want to create a system that ends up costing more than opening the toilets themselves through its complexity and bureaucracy, but it is really important to place some greater requirement on councils to understand the provision and fill the gaps. If the Minister is looking for a commissioner for the crappers in the future, it may be a role for me!

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36. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mr Andrew Snowden

    Stoma: Public Toilet Provision

    The Minister is being incredibly generous with her time. She probably entered this room and, having seen only one Back-Bench Member, thought this debate would not get close to 4.30 pm—but here we are. I have two points. First, is there a greater role for section 106 moneys, potentially through planning processes, in supporting public toilets? The Minister gave a really good example of creative thinking around ownership of toilets in parks and cafés. My sister will kill me for saying this, but when she was growing up she had a phobia of metal toilets. I think it was actually just a phobia of unclean spaces. A lot of people would rather use a well-kept toilet in a private business, where they will not be judged for using it—provided it is not at the far end and they do not have to walk past all the tables with everyone looking at them—than use a public toilet that, by its nature and because it is not in a manned location, cannot always be guaranteed to be as clean. I think that is a great example. Will the Minister work with colleagues in local government to see whether that can be rolled out more, and consider how section 106 moneys might help to create more of an incentive for commercial operators who might not otherwise be able to afford it, or for whom it might not be viable?

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37. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mims Davies

    Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

    (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the progress made since the publication of Dame Louise Casey’s review into group-based child sexual exploitation, and the impact of recent developments on confidence in the Government’s statutory inquiry.

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38. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mims Davies

    Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

    I thank the Minister for her answer. It has been one year since Dame Louise Casey’s stark and deeply troubling review of group-based child sexual exploitation, known rightly as the rape gangs. She exposed what we now know was a culture of institutional blindness, weak data and fragmented accountability and a reluctance to confront uncomfortable truths and ultimately to stand up for women and girls who have been systematically abused, or a culture where people simply chose not to act for the bigger fear of being labelled racist. It is disgraceful. Deep concerns remain that progress on justice has been too slow, and in some areas is simply superficial. The Minister has rightly warned of a box-ticking culture. This Government talk a good game, but recent ministerial Home Office resignations have raised serious questions about what they are delivering in practice. How does the Minister respond to the deeply distressing but bold testimony of Fiona Goddard, who has bravely highlighted that some of the men convicted of abusing her have been released early, with others potentially due for release soon? These are Labour’s choices, and we warned about them. What action is being taken to rebuild the confidence of the victims in this process? Does the Minister deeply regret opposing measures to prevent early release in such heartbreaking and horrific cases? Finally, how are the Government ensuring that sentencing and post-release supervision reflect the severity of these crimes? I remind the House that we warned them about the consequences of their dire choices for the safety of women and girls. What are they going to do about it? Will anything change before the next election, or is this issue simply in the long grass? Survivors’ voices and community concerns need to be heard. This is a matter of justice, accountability and trust. This Government need to step up and protect our women and our girls.

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39. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mims Davies

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery). Where to start? Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute on behalf of my constituents. I congratulate the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) on securing and opening this debate and on all his sterling work. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have constituents who stick in my mind and who I want to stand up for. My constituent Robert Ellinor has given me a huge understanding of the terrible injustice in this particular area, just as the Webster family has done in your own constituency. I thank Robert, who is from East Grinstead and who I have known for some time. He has done sterling activity and parliamentary engagement on this subject, which affects him, and with the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood. I am keen to raise points on behalf of Josie, from Turners Hill, and her father, Andrew Quin. Much of what I will say today will be her words, on behalf of her father. It reflects much of what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) has said, and it also reflects engagement that I have had with the Cabinet Office on behalf of Josie and her father. Josie writes: “I am writing to you as my family is one of the first 15 families to be asked to begin our compensation claim for the estate of an infected blood victim, this being my dad, Andrew Quin who passed away in May 2020. We are now a few weeks into the claim process and frustratingly and sadly I feel my dad is being completely failed by the core route and I’m doubtful at this point that the proposed supplementary route is going to be any different, for the following reasons: CORE ROUTE: My father was infected with Hepatitis C and developed cirrhosis of the liver, we believe around 2017, which puts him in the severity level 3 of the core route. However, in 2018 my father underwent a 12 week course of Harvoni Hep C treatment… after completion of the 12 week course, it not only failed but at the very same time, my father was also told he had developed Mantle Cell Lymphoma, which could have been a side effect of the Harvoni treatment or could have simply been caused by the Hep C. My father was told he was too ill to undergo full chemo, due to his liver cirrhosis and other ailments caused by the Hep C, and so he did not have the required 2 rounds of chemo needed to qualify for severity level 4. My father died on 16th May 2020 from Hep C liver cirrhosis and lymphoma. What could possibly be more severe than the above? To summarise, my father died because he was infected with Hep C, which caused liver cirrhosis and gave him lymphoma, ‘for which he was too ill to receive the required 2 rounds of chemo’ and consequently he died! Yet my father does not qualify for the highest severity level 4?” That is the highest severity level. Josie continues: “Ironically, had my father’s health not been as severely impacted by the Hep C, he would have been well enough to have had the required 2 rounds of chemo, in order for him to qualify for severity level 4 of the compensation scheme, and may have even still been with us today! I believe my father has been discriminated against for being ‘too ill to receive 2 rounds of chemo’, which I find utterly disgraceful! SUPPLEMENTARY ROUTE: The supplementary route, requires victims to have had at least 12 weeks’ treatment of Interferon, in order for them to be considered for the next severity level, this being a level 3 or a new level between 2 and 3. I strongly object to this as some victims, including my father, had such severe side effects, such as chronic depression and a mild heart attack, etc, that they were un-able to sustain 12 weeks of Interferon. Not that this would even benefit my father’s claim as he is already in severity level 3 due to him developing cirrhosis—i.e. the supplementary route is no help to my father either. To summarise, once again, I believe victims who were too ill to sustain 12 weeks of interferon treatment are being discriminated against. I do not believe anything could be more severe than the death of an infected blood victim—‘a death which was caused by their infection!’ At present neither the core route nor the supplementary route addresses this injustice. I would sincerely appreciate your help and support in this matter—help to identify and rectify this injustice—in order to bring about the rightful justice the infected blood victims deserve. As the family of an infected blood victim, we desperately want to put all the hurt and pain behind us, but we cannot do that if we are still discriminated against and unfairly treated.” This week, Josie wrote to me again. She was very keen that I speak in this debate, and I am very grateful to her. She wrote: “The letter you forwarded me from the Minister for the cabinet office stated that infected blood victims would not be discriminated against for not being well enough to receive treatment, however, IBCA will not recognise this despite my making them aware of what the Minister for the cabinet office stated in their letter. IBCA have stated that in order for them to recognise this statement and not discriminate against victims who were not well enough to have treatment, this statement made by the Minister for the cabinet office would have to be made law.” Josie urged me to raise this issue today in Parliament, on behalf of “all the victims who were not well enough to receive treatment, because as it stands, victims who were not well enough to receive treatment and have died as a result of their infections will receive less compensation than those victims who were well enough to receive treatment and survived. I’m sure you will agree that this is an injustice and needs to be addressed” today. Those are Josie’s words. She and families like hers must get justice and proper compensation, and must feel that the process works for them and reflects the impact on them and their loved ones. We know that all of this is so wrong; we must make it right. I hope that the Paymaster General can give Josie and many families like hers the comfort they deserve.

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40. 18 Jun 2026·Parliament·Conservative·Mike Wood

    Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

    I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for their thoughtful, measured and often heartbreaking contributions. I would particularly mention the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) for securing and leading this debate, and my right hon. Friends the Members for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who spoke movingly about cases involving their constituents and the heartbreaking effects this scandal has had on them. The infected blood scandal remains the most devastating treatment disaster in the history of our national health service. The scale of the tragedy—the lives cut short, the families shattered, the trust destroyed—is something this House and indeed the entire country must never forget. The victims of this scandal, those infected and those affected, have spent decades fighting the establishment for truth and justice. Now that the truth has been laid bare by Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry, it is the duty of the state—and that means all of us in this House—to deliver that justice without further delay. It is entirely right that we begin by recognising the significant progress that has been made, because the establishment of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, with the commencement of actual payments, represents a monumental milestone in this decades-long journey. In doing so, I again place on record my profound gratitude for the foundational work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) when he was the Paymaster General. It was under his determined stewardship that the Government accepted the moral case for compensation and passed the legislation needed to establish the delivery body to administer this scheme. He faced an incredibly complex technical challenge, but his deep personal commitment to the infected and the affected communities ensured that the crucial groundwork, including the initial framework for multibillion-pound interim payments, was laid. I know that the Paymaster General and the dedicated civil servants at IBCA are building on that foundation and working intensely to stand up a complex compensation scheme from scratch. We welcome the fact that more than £2.1 billion has been paid out to more than 3,200 victims. For those living infected victims who are already registered with existing support schemes, these payments offer a long-overdue measure of financial security and tangible recognition of the horrific wrongs that they have endured. Getting billions of pounds out of the door to those who need it is no small administrative feat, and we support the progress that the Minister and the Government have made on that front. However, it is exactly because we share the Government’s desire to see the scheme succeed that we must urgently raise the profound frustration being voiced by those who are still waiting. Progress for living infected victims on existing schemes has accelerated, but the reality for the thousands of affected victims and the estates of infected victims who have tragically passed away is still one of agonising delay. Since the registration of intent opened, more than 18,500 registrations have been made, yet we know from IBCA’s own figures that the number of payments made to affected individuals—the widows, the widowers, the parents and the children of those who died—remains painfully low. The same is true for the number of payments to those claiming on behalf of deceased infected individuals. There have been thousands of registrations, but only a tiny fraction of claims from estates and affected people have been fully processed and paid. We hear from families across the country who feel that they are stuck in an unbearable limbo. They have watched the inquiry conclude; they have heard the apologies from the Dispatch Box; and they have seen the compensation scheme launched, yet they still wake up every day wondering when their claim will even be assessed. For the families who have lost loved ones, time is a cruel companion. Of course, many of those waiting are now very elderly. Tragically, victims and affected family members are dying before they receive the compensation that they are owed. We must ask ourselves: what comfort is a compensation scheme if it arrives too late? IBCA has stated that it expects to bring in all currently registered claims from living infected people and estates by March 2027. We must push to see if that timeline can be safely accelerated, because for some, even next year is simply too far away. Of course, as more time passes, the real value of the offers reduces. Will the Minister look again at uprating payments in line with the consumer prices index, so that victims and their families are not financially disadvantaged because their claims take longer to process? That brings me to a specific, acute concern that has been raised repeatedly by victims and their families, as well as by hon. Members today. It is one that I urge the Minister to address. It is the issue of the burden of proof, and the requirement to provide evidence that is, in many cases, practically impossible to access. Let me give the House a harrowing example. There are parents who suffered the unimaginable trauma of watching their children die as a result of infected blood products decades ago. Under the current requirements, some of those mothers and fathers are being told that for the claim to be processed, they must provide documentary evidence that they lived with their child at the time. Think about what is being asked here. We are asking grieving parents to source official paperwork from 40 or 50 years ago to prove that their own child lived under their roof. How many of us in this House could easily produce a four-decade-old document proving our living arrangements with our own families? It is not just an administrative burden; it is deeply distressing and re-traumatising. It makes victims feel as though they are not believed. We see similar issues for estates; they are trying to track down decades-old medical records, or navigating complex probate rules relating to relatives who died in the 1980s or 1990s. We understand that the authority has a duty to protect public funds and to ensure that claims are valid. However, we cannot allow the pursuit of administrative perfection to become the enemy of compassion. When the state has been responsible for the systemic cover-up and destruction of medical records, as the inquiry so damningly revealed, it cannot turn around and demand that victims produce those same missing records. The burden of proof must be relaxed. We must always be mindful that we are talking about huge sums of taxpayers’ money, but we need a system that operates on the balance of probabilities, applying flexibility, common sense, and, above all, humanity. We must allow caseworkers at IBCA to display the compassion that Members have spoken about this afternoon. I urge the Government to work with IBCA to review the evidence requirements immediately. We must empower caseworkers to make compassionate judgments, rather than forcing them to stick to rigid bureaucratic checklists that punish the victims of state failures. I know that the Minister shares my desire to see this issue resolved, and the tone of our debate reflects the shared resolve of this House, but good intentions must translate into urgent operational improvements. We need to rapidly scale up the processing of claims for the affected and the estates. We need to ensure that the legal and administrative support that is provided to claimants is truly adequate to help them navigate the hurdles without adding to their distress. The Opposition stand ready to support the Government on any measures needed to expedite the process. We will vote for the necessary resources, support the necessary regulations, and work collaboratively to remove any legislative hurdles. For more than 50 years, the victims of the infected blood scandal were ignored, gaslit and denied justice. This Parliament promised to do everything that we could to right that wrong. Significant progress has been made; we praise those who have worked hard to deliver it and, above all, the incredible work of the many victims and their families over many years, but our promise is not kept until the final payments are made, until the grieving mother is recognised, and until the families who lost everything finally see the tangible justice that they have fought their entire lives to achieve. Let us work together, across the political divide, to tear down the remaining bureaucratic barriers. Let us push IBCA to move faster, to act with maximum compassion, and to finally close this darkest of chapters with the dignity and urgency that the victims so deeply deserve.

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