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1. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman almost entirely. The Executive have a responsibility to protect and maintain this country’s national security, and we have to move when we see that hostile actors are employing new methods to put our people and interests at risk. We have seen an increase in hostile activity from those who are not directly related to foreign powers, but have a relationship with them. That is why we are bringing forward the designated body condition in the Bill. It rather sounds as if he questions the basis for us having counter-terror legislation, or this legislation, at all. I disagree with him on that. I think we have a suitable legal framework, under both the Terrorism Act 2000 and this new Bill, to deal with all the threats that this country faces, including those that are emerging as new ways for people to put our citizens at risk. Let me turn to the threat posed by Iran. We are debating this Bill in the shadow of a recent surge in hostile activity by the Iranian state. In just a single year, MI5 has tracked and disrupted over 20 potentially lethal Iranian plots. These have targeted dissidents, media organisations and critics of the Iranian regime, and they pose a real and enduring threat to our Jewish community here at home.

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2. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   The right hon. Gentleman is right. It is incumbent on all parliamentarians to reflect on the platforms we appear on, and what those platforms are seeking to do. There will always be a balance to be struck with freedom of speech and other matters, but where activities lead people to fall foul of the law, they will be pursued with the full force of the law—whether that is this Bill, the National Security Act 2023, or any other part of our criminal legislation framework. On the attacks on the Prime Minister’s home, let me just say, factually, what happened in the criminal justice system. It was not part of the prosecution’s case that there was any additional direction of that activity. That was not part of the evidence. I would not want to let that stand without making that clear about the prosecution.

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3. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The Bill seeks to create the legal framework by which designations will be made in future. The Bill will hopefully be approved quickly by Parliament, and I will seek to move forward with designations as quickly as possible, to deal with the threats that I am discussing in the House today. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the fact that I have spent some time considering the different nature of the threat posed by these three states in particular shows that we are very alive to the ways in which they use their unique positions to pose a threat to us in the United Kingdom. He is right about the way in which Iran operates; it is different from how Russia and China operate. The Government have to be alive to the different type of risks posed by these three countries in particular. At the moment, those countries account for a large proportion of the hostile activities that are monitored by our security services, but those activities are not exclusive to those three countries. On matters of oversight, I will repeat my starting position. I do think that our current framework is robust and has stood the test of time. Of course, things change, and we would review the framework all the time anyway. I repeat my general offer—I suspect that I am making it to the whole of the ISC, given how well represented it is in this debate—of a conversation to pick up any concerns that its members have. The Minister for Security and I will make sure that we consider any additional proposals fully, but I am mindful that we do not want a position in which the Government cannot act quickly, or to over-regulate what is necessarily an Executive function, as speed is often of the essence. With that understood, a sensible conversation is always welcome. In relation to Iran, Members will be aware that two men await trial under the National Security Act for the surveillance of Jewish sites. While investigations remain ongoing, the police are exploring potential links between Iran and the spate of arson attacks directed at our Jewish community in London. Faced with this intolerable hostility, our nation has bolstered its defences. The National Security Act, brought forward by the previous Government and supported by Labour, rightly commanded support from both sides of the House. It has given our authorities new tools and provided the legal underpinning for a series of complex and sensitive investigations, and it has secured important convictions, including of two men for gathering information and conducting surveillance to assist the Chinese state. In addition, the foreign influence registration scheme has been in force for close to a year. Russia and Iran are placed on its enhanced tier. Anyone now conducting activity on behalf of those states faces a clear choice: identify themselves and register their activity, or face the prospect of prison. Sanctions remain a vital tool in our action against hostile states. The UK now has more than 550 sanctions against Iranian-linked individuals and organisations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety. Through measures like these, we have made this country a harder target. However, as we improve our defences, our adversaries respond and change their behaviour to pose new threats to our country. That has been particularly evident in the rising use of proxy groups—criminal gangs, professional enablers and front companies that do the bidding of a foreign power, against the interests of this country, in exchange for money. There has long been a desire to ban state-linked organisations from operating in this country, and to target those who facilitate them. That is why the Government made a manifesto commitment to deal with state-backed domestic security threats in the same way that we tackle terrorism. The question was how to create the right legal power to do so. My predecessor, now the Foreign Secretary, tasked Jonathan Hall KC, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism and state threats legislation, with answering that question.

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4. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   The combination of what we already have on the statute book in the National Security Act and this Bill means that all aspects of that activity will be covered. It obviously depends on how the activity presents. The Bill closes the loophole where a designated body is responsible. Where proxy groups are responsible, they will be caught by the measures in the Bill, and that activity will be liable to both prosecution and conviction. Jonathan Hall KC examined whether tools available in our current terrorism legislation might be emulated or adapted to address state threats. He determined that we could not use the existing terror legislation to proscribe a state entity. He memorably described that as “shopping in the wrong department.” He said: “For the Secretary of State to have or purport to have power to prohibit the existence of foreign State entities would be well beyond what Parliament could have intended” when it passed the Terrorism Act. He went on to conclude that applying the power to a state entity would “appear to overstep the boundaries of the principle of non-intervention at international law.” Instead, he proposed a new regime: a power equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, but specifically designed to tackle state and state-linked organisations. Through this legislation, we seek to bring that new power into law. I will now take the House through the Bill in some detail. Clause 1 introduces a power for the Home Secretary to designate a body. It will insert new section 33A into the National Security Act 2023. Such a designation will be possible if the Home Secretary believes that a body is, or has been, involved in foreign power threat activity and that designation is necessary to protect the safety or interests of the United Kingdom. The definition of a body is purposefully wide; it cannot be targeted at individuals, but it can be targeted at a wide range of organisations, including foreign intelligence services, mercenary groups, front companies and criminal networks. The power to designate is of critical importance.

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5. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   I do not think that the activities that the hon. Lady mentioned are caught by the Bill. We have been clear in the explanatory notes to the Bill—I refer her to paragraphs 37 and 43—that diplomatic activity, and indeed humanitarian activity, will not be caught by any of the Bill’s measures. We do not want to create a regime with lots of exemptions as that would enable hostile states to try to play games with our legal framework by dressing up front organisations. I reassure her that the measures in the Bill will not apply to any humanitarian organisation going about its business as a humanitarian organisation. If there is any doubt, I refer hon. Members to subsection (6)(d) of proposed new section 17B, which makes it clear that anything that has essentially been approved by the UK, or is part of an agreement to which the UK is a party, will not be caught. If humanitarian organisations are concerned, I urge them to talk to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—as the hon. Lady well knows, that happens regularly in the humanitarian sector. The combination of all those provisions will ensure that the activity that she wants to see continue, as I do, will not be caught by the Bill’s measures. I understand that there is some consternation from the Opposition about what I might be intending to say in the rest of my speech. If that is so, let me say first that we might not have needed an unnecessary vote on the programme motion, but I will make quick progress as I explain the thinking behind the measures. Clause 1 also introduces a new designated body condition. Under the National Security Act, it can be difficult to secure a prosecution, as a link must be proved that runs all the way from the individual to a foreign power, but through the designated body condition more organisations will be brought to justice. On the so-called support offence, clause 2 sets out new offences related to those new designated bodies. Again, it amends the National Security Act, adding new sections 17A to 17C. The first offence is supporting a designated body, which covers inviting or expressing support and arranging, managing or addressing a meeting in support of a designated body. The offence will be triggered when the reason for the supportive act is to prejudice the safety and interests of the United Kingdom in what is known as a prohibited purpose test, echoing the National Security Act. Let me say again that it should be noted that there will be occasions when individuals and organisations have to engage with some designated state actors. The new designation regime will ensure that diplomats can work on behalf of this country and that humanitarian organisations can continue their lifesaving work. The second offence is to assist a designated body. It will become an offence to materially assist a designated organisation. That includes both directly assisting such an organisation and assisting a proxy organisation acting on its behalf.

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6. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   That conduct would not be caught. Again, I point the hon. Member to proposed new section 17B, where the combination of subsection (6)(b) and subsection (4) ensures that the work of NGOs is not caught by the tests set out. We have had specific advice on that point from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, I have discussed it at length with the Attorney General’s Office, and Law Officers have had a look at it. We believe that the way in which the Bill is constructed does not catch humanitarian activities. It is not intended to do so, and we have made it clear in the explanatory notes that it will not do so. Our reading of how the Bill is constructed means that it will not do so. Let me move on to the third offence in clause 2, which is of obtaining a material benefit from a designated body. An individual is outlawed from receiving a payment or a gift from a designated body either on their own behalf or on behalf of someone else. The very act of making the agreement would also constitute a crime even if no money were exchanged and no service were provided. That would cover a hacker hired to carry out a cyber-attack, a criminal gang commissioned to conduct arson attacks on British soil and a gang recruiting thugs to do their state-directed dirty work. Those two offences—assisting and benefiting from a designated body—would carry prison terms of up to 14 years alongside the sentences they may receive for any other illegal activity conducted, with sabotage and espionage offences carrying life sentences. To trigger the offences of assisting a designated body and of obtaining benefit from a designated body, an individual must know that they are aiding a body that has been designated or, crucially, ought reasonably to know that they are doing so. Ignorance is therefore not a defence. If a reasonable person should have been able to surmise who would benefit from such an attack, the individual will be prosecuted despite their professed ignorance. The new powers are significant—

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7. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Shabana Mahmood

   National Security (State Threats) Bill

   Let me be very clear: it is the former of the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s points. On the construction of knowing or “ought reasonably to know”, obviously the “ought reasonably to know” is both a subjective test of what was known and then an objective test as to what it is reasonable to surmise based on that knowledge. We think that captures exactly the kind of activity that I hope all of us in the House can agree should meet the test for criminal sanction. Let me make progress quicker than perhaps others might have wanted. As I have noted already, the genesis for the Bill comes from the excellent work of Jonathan Hall KC, whom I thank for the work he has completed. In May 2025, he made further recommendations regarding gaps in our state-threats legislation. The Government have accepted all his recommendations in full, and we will legislate for them all in due course, but, in the interests of the pace at which we are required to bring this vital legislation forward, that will not happen in this Bill. As was set out in the King’s Speech, there will be further national security legislation in this Session. Every day, our intelligence agencies and their law enforcement colleagues make this country safer for their presence. They do so, however, facing a rising challenge. The threat from terrorism is growing and, at the same time, we face foreign powers acting with greater hostility than we have seen at any time since the cold war. In the face of the growing threat, it is essential that we equip those we expect to protect us with the tools they need to do the job at the moment that they need them the most. The need for the Bill is therefore great. It gives us a new and powerful tool to tackle hostile states and those who act on their behalf. I end with a request to the House. We do not just require this Bill; we require it as quickly as possible. For that reason, the Government have promised to fast-track the legislation through both Houses. While we must debate it fully and rigorously, and I know that we will, I hope we can work together in the pursuit of a shared ideal, and one that is greater than our political differences: our solemn duty to protect our country. I hope that, today, the whole House can unite around the first and most sacred responsibility of us all. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.

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8. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sean Woodcock

   Defence Spending

   12. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of increases in defence spending on Wales.

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9. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sean Woodcock

   Defence Spending

   This Government have a NATO-first approach, meaning that our strength is reinforced by global allies, so that, in an increasingly dangerous world, the UK will not stand alone. It is vital that colleagues from across the House and Governments across the UK remain united in that approach. Will the Secretary of State provide an update on any discussions she has had with the new Welsh Government regarding their contribution to the UK’s national security?

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10. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Owen

    Engagements

    Q3. The Makerfield candidate for Reform has disgracefully said that the majority of abortions are for “vanity purposes”. He described mums “with their fat bellies…pushing a pram in their PJs”,and failed to apologise to national treasure Carol Vorderman for endorsing sexually explicit comments about her. This exposes the rank hypocrisy of Reform politicians: talking tough on violence against women and girls but in reality having zero respect for women. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that Reform has a problem with women, which is further highlighted by seemingly welcoming a woman-beater into its fold?

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11. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this excellent debate. The message I take away from it is, “You’ve done some stuff that we think is good, but we need to do a lot more.” This issue is undoubtedly one that we will all be judged on when we next stand before the electorate. As I have in Croydon, every Member in this place will have experience of a high street that they grew up going to that they know will never again be as they remember it. We also know that we need to tell a new story for our high streets. As shops have closed for all the reasons that Members have outlined, illicit activity has stepped in. It is important to start with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft): we have not only to tackle the criminality, but to establish what we want to do with our town centres. As has been mentioned, there is some innovation across the country where town centres are growing, which is great. The Government are very aware that we have to understand and appreciate the fact that the town centre of the future will be different, and we need to change laws and do what we can to encourage a new high street. A wider high street strategy is being pulled together at the moment; every Government Department that could possibly be relevant is coming together and asking, “What more can we do to ensure that our high streets can thrive for the businesses we want to see on them, rather than this illicit activity?” The activity itself has been very well described, and my hon. Friends the Members for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) showed leadership in painting us a very good picture of the problems we see nationally. We know there is this increase in shops—I see it on my high street, as everybody does—but people are not in them, so how are they making money? What is going on in that space? As other Members will have done, I recently joined the raid of a shop in London, which was a big joint operation between trading standards, local authorities and the police, and some of the things I learned were very uncomfortable to hear. For example, an increasing number of builders are being employed by these shop owners to build hidden cupboards so that people can hide their illegal activities. Also, there were lots of cameras in the back of the shop, but they were not there to protect the shop itself; they were to keep an eye on the people working there—these are nasty criminal gangs that want to ensure that the people they employ are not stealing from them. The young lad who was in the shop when we did the raid had nothing to do with the ownership; apparently, the owner was away. As has been mentioned, understanding who owns some of these properties is a complicated and difficult challenge. I am very well aware of the problem that we are trying to fix. I am very grateful to the many Members who pointed to the important work that the Government have introduced—I do not want to diminish it by saying that we of course need to go further. We have the new high street organised crime unit in the Home Office, as well as the £30 million that has been allocated, in part, to fund the National Crime Agency, and £6 million of which is going to trading standards. Many Members have talked about how the ability of trading standards to respond to today’s challenges has been completely wiped out, so that money will help them. Some £1.5 million has been allocated to immigration enforcement, just to add to all the other work that is happening in immigration—my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen asked about the connections, which of course exist; just today, there was an immigration raid in my constituency—and £1.5 million is going from that pot to HMRC so that it can do some work on this issue. Members talked about Companies House; there is more work to be done there, for sure. The closure powers—the closure notice extension to 72 hours and, looking ahead, the longer, 12-month closure—are important, and I am glad that Members have welcomed them. I was very interested in what Members had to say about the Netherlands. As Policing Minister, I do not really get to go on trips, but maybe there should be a Netherlands trip with the campaign group to see what is being done there. In the absence of such a trip, I will certainly read more about how that regime is working. That is a really important point: we should look to other countries and understand what they are doing. We are open to all of the many good suggestions that Members have made. There is a ministerial group chaired by the new Security Minister; she would have been here, but she could not be, as she is introducing legislation today. I am also on the committee, along with all the Departments that Members would expect to be there. There was a push for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to do work in this space; I know that it is looking at that, and I will certainly talk to it more about that. I will say that all the suggestions that have been made today were mentioned in that first ministerial meeting; we talked about all the same issues. I know we need to go further and faster and we need to push forward, but there was nothing surprising in the suggestions that hon. Members made; these are very sensible things that we are looking at and want to take forward. There will be big national pushes under Operation Machinize. For obvious reasons, I cannot say when they will be, but Operation Machinize has worked effectively; when all the agencies work together, there is a much more effective outcome. All Members made useful suggestions: more support for trading standards; looking at licensing and more powers for local authorities; data sharing—that is an important suggestion, which I certainly agree with—a place for direct reporting into trading standards, which is an interesting one; and more powers to tackle landlords as well as the organised crime. The Home Office’s policing reform programme will, I hope, help us tackle these kinds of issues much more effectively. Setting up a national police service could tackle this co-ordinated, serious organised crime in a much better way. At the moment, every time there is a new issue, we have to set up a structure to tackle it at national level. The national police service will be there to do that. It will bring together the National Crime Agency, counter-terrorism and all the other national organisations. We know that some of this money laundering is driving terrorism, for example, and at the moment two different bodies are tackling that. Bringing it all together and having co-ordination at the centre will help. At the bedrock of our policing policy, we have the commitment to 13,000 more neighbourhood officers on our streets. That will make a significant difference in how people feel about their high streets and in the criminal activity that we are able to tackle. When people mention, for example, kids hanging about outside the illegal shops and doing things that we think they should not be doing, the police will be there to tackle those problems. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen again for securing this debate, and I thank all Members—

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12. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    Oh, yes—I forgot to talk about Northern Ireland.

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13. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    Yes, of course. Forgive me; I should have responded to that earlier. The hon. Member also made the point about illicit trade across all our nations, and we need to work together to tackle that as well. I will end just as I began, by saying that we will be judged on this when we next stand before—

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14. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    I will take one more.

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15. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    Yes, of course. There are several areas for MHCLG to look at, and I know that it is already looking at what more powers we can have to close down the shops and stop them opening in the first place, as well as over the clustering of shops. We need to look at all those issues. I thank everybody again. I very much get the message that we have started a good piece of work, but there is a lot more to do.

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16. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    Abuse of Customer-facing Workers

    Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Members might be pleased to know that I probably will not take all the time available to me—perhaps I will give them a few minutes of their life back to do something else. I want to start by saying what an important debate this is. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) is absolutely right to bring the issue of the abuse of shop workers to this place. It is enormously important, and many Members of Parliament have campaigned for many years for the legislation that we have just passed, alongside the incredible work of the Co-op, USDAW and others. When I was shadow Policing Minister, I remember introducing a similar amendment to Government legislation and debating it with the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who was the Policing Minister at the time. He argued that there was no need for these measures, because abuse of a shop worker is an aggravating factor, and that the evidence did not support their introduction. That argument was wrong, and I am really pleased that we have passed this law. It was the right thing to do for a number of reasons. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said throughout his speech, we need to make sure we are implementing the legislation and seeing results, and that we use it now that we have it. It sends a powerful message that we in this place see and understand this behaviour, and that we will not tolerate it any more. It is important that we say that loud and clear. The speeches made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) were really important and spoke to the nub of the problem. The hon. Member for Strangford said that people feel that the system has abandoned them, and that is right. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), also spoke about the way in which people who live by the rules feel that everybody else seems to be getting away with not living by the rules. That has wider consequences for our society than just the problem of retail crime and the abuse of shop workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter spoke of a very serious case in which somebody was doused with liquid and then threatened with being set on fire. That is horrific. The abuse that shop workers receive, which was mentioned by the spokesperson for the Lib Dems, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), ranges from those very extreme cases to the abuse that people get every day. I remember talking to shop workers at my local Co-op about the abuse they faced. Someone said, “Well, it’s just part of the job.” No, it is not. It needs to stop and we need to make sure we are doing all the right things.

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17. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    Abuse of Customer-facing Workers

    The hon. Member is right that Victim Support and other organisations give really important support to people in such situations. Across different Departments, we all have a role to play in trying to stop this abuse and the retail crime that goes alongside so much of it. I will go into that in more detail. First, I will set out the statistics on shop theft, which drives a lot of the abuse that we see and is often perpetrated by prolific offenders. In the year before we came to power, there was a 30% rise in shop theft, and in the past year there has been a 1% fall. A 1% fall does not sound great, but when we compare it with a 30% rise, it shows that we are completely turning the tide. I know that members of the public will say, “Well, that’s just statistics; that’s not my experience,” and it will take us a while to make people feel safer and tackle the huge problem that we still have. I want to reassure Members that—my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly asked about this—because of the policing interventions that we have done and because of what a lot of shops have done, we are beginning to turn the tide on shop theft. That is important. A lot of the larger retailers admittedly have more funds to do this, but the Co-operative Group, for example, has done incredible things to design out crime in its shops, and it has seen the biggest fall compared with other retailers. Lots of others are doing interesting things, whether that is having live facial recognition; designing out the ability for people to get behind the shop counter and steal some of the alcohol that might be there; having cameras on shop workers; or having security people. All those things are undoubtedly making a difference, and so is the ability of our police to respond. We have been clear with our wonderful police that we want them in our neighbourhoods tackling this type of crime. We have already seen over 3,000 more police in our neighbourhoods, and we have committed to having 13,000. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson talked about police numbers. The previous Government cut 20,000 police and then recruited 20,000 police, but they put 12,000 of them behind desks. Our measure is not about exact numbers—we want 13,000 more police in our communities, and we want outcomes. That is what we are driving towards. There are other things that we can do and that we are doing in this space that will also make a difference, and we will keep striving to do more. The hon. Member for Weald of Kent talked about technology, databases and wanting to cut bureaucracy for our police. I 100% agree with that. Last week, we launched PoliceAI with £75 million of funding to use AI to take away some of the nonsense bureaucracy that our police have to do. I have given it two first tasks in relation to outward-facing technology: one is to tackle tool theft and the other is to tackle retail crime. There are lots of quite good systems that different parts of the country are using to more easily record shop theft and upload imagery and CCTV. We want to design AI that can read across all of those so that the police can easily see and bring together who the prolific offenders are. There was talk of prolific offenders in this debate, and it is true that a small cohort of people are responsible for a large amount of retail crime and abuse against shop workers. They are often people with very complex needs—they will have an addiction; they will be drug addicts or alcoholics—and we in the Home Office are designing a programme to target those prolific offenders. Some areas do that already, and people have been doing it increasingly, but there are things that we can put in place to help us really target that prolific cohort, whether that is providing the support they need to get into treatment or more interventions to make sure they cannot do what they want to. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) said that we should be doing more to use things like orders to stop people coming into a community, or tagging. I think we need to be using all of those more, and we are designing a programme of work to do exactly that. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly asked if I would meet USDAW, and I am always very happy to do that. I have done so many times, but it is probably timely that I meet it again now that the Crime and Policing Act has been passed. He also asked how we would measure progress. We will measure what happens with the absolute numbers and the reporting of these issues, and whether people are reporting—whether that is through USDAW or our links in the retail sector. We will measure it through the crime statistics and what is happening as a result. My hon. Friend also asked, importantly, why the provision is defined as being just about shop workers and why we did not make it wider to include transport workers or people who work in banks, for example. We deliberately kept it narrow to avoid any ambiguity in the courts. I know people disagree with that, but we just have to agree to disagree; that is what we have done in the legislation. However, if the legislation makes a marked difference, which we hope it will, of course we will need to look at whether the provision should apply elsewhere. I have met representatives from banks, and I have had conversations about the particular challenges they have. They face the problem of abuse—I do not want to deny that—but the frequent protests they are increasingly experiencing are a slightly different issue, and one that we are talking to them about to try to support them through. With the number of police in our communities going up; with the new rule that all thefts under £200 have to be investigated; with the new tech, IT and AI that can help us read across all these different systems; with the law in place; with the police giving a strong message that we want to see people punished for abusing shop workers; and with the work that we are beginning to do on prolific offenders, hopefully we will increasingly see results. The fundamental point that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly and everybody here has made is that we cannot accept this as normal behaviour—it is not. We will not tolerate it, and we will keep working until we tackle it.

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18. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Sarah Jones

    Abuse of Customer-facing Workers

    There is a wider question about social media and how it sometimes drives these kinds of behaviours. People are almost goading each other to do more extreme activities—I have heard about that in a number of areas. This week, I was told about a new trend that I find utterly extraordinary: people are breaking into houses, filming someone asleep, and then leaving and putting that on social media. That is horrific. They do not take anything or do anything, but they are basically competing with each other to do that. Clearly, we are having a national debate, and the Government have taken action, about the issue of under-16s, but there is a much bigger debate still to have about social media and how it is driving these kinds of behaviours. Having said that I would be brief, I seem not to have been as brief as I expected. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly on his powerful speech and on securing this really good debate. He should be assured that the Government are on the side of people who just want to do their job, and who should not be abused while they are doing that job. That is not acceptable, and we will keep doing what we can.

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19. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ruth Jones

    Job Creation

    I thank the Minister for her responses. I want to raise the issue of young people not in education, employment or training. We know that the Conservatives failed our Welsh young people for 14 years, so I am really pleased that this Labour Government are investing £2.5 billion in the youth guarantee. How many Welsh young people will benefit from this scheme?

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20. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Preet Kaur Gill

    Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate, for her long-standing commitment to improving mental health services, and for her phenomenal work in her role as chair of the APPG on suicide and self-harm prevention. I am also grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate and shared experiences from their constituencies. I am sorry to hear of John’s death. Men’s suicide is a huge concern; many of us, myself included, can share personal stories. We need to do much more in that space. This debate speaks to the heart of what a modern health and care system should be. For too long, mental health has not been given the same attention, priority or esteem as physical health. That has had profound consequences for individuals, families and communities across the country. It also has significant economic impacts, as we heard from my hon. Friend, with an estimated 1.26 million 16 to 64-year-olds economically inactive due to mental health issues in 2024-25. The National Health Service Act 2006 states that health includes mental health. This Government are committed to giving mental health the same attention and focus as physical health, and ensuring that people can access timely, high-quality support, regardless of whether they are experiencing a mental or a physical health condition. As my hon. Friend said, parity of esteem means recognising that mental and physical health are inseparable. Far too often, services have treated them as distinct issues, when in reality they are connected. Of course, many people experience mental and physical health conditions at the same time, with a cause and effect relationship that goes both ways. We know that poor mental health can increase the risk of developing physical health problems, while living with a long-term physical condition can have a significant impact on a person’s mental wellbeing. People living with severe mental illness experience some of the poorest physical health outcomes in our society, and on average die 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population. That is why we are committed to improving the ways that services respond to people with co-occurring mental and physical health needs. Care must be co-ordinated around the individual rather than around organisational boundaries, ensuring that people receive holistic support that addresses all aspects of their health and wellbeing. NHS England has developed the mental health personalised care framework, which sets out how services should assess and manage people’s care in partnership with them and in collaboration with all relevant teams. That framework places particular emphasis on joined-up care, safety and risk management. It has been tested in local systems and will be published shortly. I know that will answer some of the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett, but not all of them, so I shall try to address those points in my speech.

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21. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Preet Kaur Gill

    Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the wraparound care in Winchester citizens advice bureau. We need the local health ecosystem to partner with initiatives in the voluntary or charity sector such as that one, and acknowledge their impact, fund and support them. Some may think that things such as debt are basic, but their impact on mental health cannot be overestimated. I am sure that officials will want to meet the hon. Gentleman and others to look at the landscape across the country, because there are some fantastic initiatives that we need to recognise, partner with and support. The Government are taking action to elevate the status of mental health. For 2026-27, NHS mental health spending is forecast to increase to a record £16.1 billion, representing a real-terms increase of around £140 million compared with the previous year. Alongside that, the mental health investment standard remains in place. Integrated care boards are required to protect mental health spending in real terms over the next three years, ensuring that mental health continues to receive the investment needed to improve services and outcomes. Investment alone is not enough. We must transform how care is delivered. That is why the 10-year health plan sets out our vision for a neighbourhood health service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett mentioned. That is about bringing care closer to people’s homes, communities creating genuinely patient-centred services, and moving away from a fragmented system that often leaves people navigating multiple services without the support they need. I hope the ICBs are engaging hon. Members in all parts of the House to feed into the design of the neighbourhood health centre model and asking about the unmet needs and service gaps in their constituencies and regions.

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22. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Preet Kaur Gill

    Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right; this is a great pilot, and there are some real, huge successes. The Government must learn from the impact that the hubs will have, and of course we want to roll them out. That is why we are piloting six community-based health centres across England in Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Whitehaven, York, Sheffield and Birmingham. Those centres provide round-the-clock open access treatment and support for adults with severe mental health needs and work closely with primary care and community services to provide joined-up care. All hon. Members across the House will recognise that it is not appropriate for someone who is facing crisis or poor mental health to be sat in A&E; that just exacerbates their condition and situation. The community-based health centre pilots show that a different model can work. In May, my noble Friend Baroness Merron visited the community-based mental health centre in east Birmingham, where she met staff and service users to hear directly about the service’s impact. The visit demonstrated the important role that community-based mental health support has in providing earlier intervention, improving experiences of care and helping people to access support before reaching crisis point. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett is particularly interested in how the reforms will benefit her constituents. Although her constituency is not home to one of the six core or the 16 associated community-based mental health pilot sites, a range of community-based support is already available locally. Gateshead Connects hubs provide accessible community drop-in spaces that offer mental health and wellbeing support alongside practical advice on issues such as housing and finances. Residents can access NHS talking therapies through services based at Blaydon primary care centre, and community mental health support networks operating across County Durham provide peer-led groups and safe spaces for people living in and around Consett. Those local services reflect the wider direction of travel in our 10-year health plan, which will bring support closer to people’s homes, strengthen community-based provision and ensure that people can access help earlier, before their needs escalate into crisis. Significant progress has also been made in building a stronger crisis care pathway. That pathway includes the NHS 111 mental health option; the expansion of crisis cafés, about which we hear from so many hon. Members, as well as sanctuaries and crisis houses; and the roll-out of crisis tech services across England. We have completed delivery of the mental health response vehicle programme, with 88 vehicles now operating across local systems. There is now full national coverage of 24/7 mental health liaison teams in acute hospitals, and we are investing up to £120 million to increase the number of sites with mental health emergency departments to 85. The Government have also delivered on our commitment to modernise the legal framework that underpins mental health care. The Mental Health Act 2025 brings mental health legislation into the 21st century and ensures that people receiving treatment have greater choice, autonomy and involvement in decisions about their care. My hon. Friend says that parity of esteem must extend to children and young people, and she and many other hon. Members spoke about cases of children facing crisis. The children and young people’s modern service framework is being developed and remains on track for publication in autumn 2026. The framework will support a more integrated approach to physical and mental health. Hon. Members rightly spoke about access to services and waiting times. It is unacceptable that some people are waiting far too long to receive the mental health care that they need, particularly children and young people and those experiencing a mental health crisis. ICBs must do more. No child should be left waiting. The Government have delivered three years ahead of schedule our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across the NHS, in the hope of easing pressures on services and improving access to care. We are also expanding NHS talking therapies and continuing the roll-out of mental health support teams in schools and colleges to achieve full national coverage by 2029. We know that we need to go further.

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23. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Preet Kaur Gill

    Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

    I absolutely agree. That is the responsibility of the ICBs, which have been informed that they must make sure that waiting lists come down. We know that we need to go further. We are developing a new cross-Government mental health strategy for England covering all ages, which will be published later this year. The Department is keen to hear the views of hon. Members from across the House and I am happy to share with any hon. Member details of how they can feed into that work. The strategy seeks to transform mental health support by setting out a plan to respond earlier, reducing waiting times and helping people to remain active. Importantly, it will look beyond the NHS and recognise the critical role of schools, employers, local government and the voluntary and community sector, because achieving parity of esteem is not solely the responsibility of the NHS. This debate has highlighted both the progress made and the challenges that remain. We are under no illusion about the scale of the task, but this Government are committed to building a health and care system where mental health is treated with the same seriousness, urgency and ambition as physical health. Parity of esteem is not an aspiration; it is a necessity. Through sustained investment, service reform and a renewed focus on prevention, particularly early prevention, we are determined to make it a reality. I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett; I have a huge amount of respect and regard for her, not only because she secured this debate but because of all the work she continues to do. I know that she will continue to hold us to account. I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. Question put and agreed to.

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24. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Phil Brickell

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for tackling this issue. I echo the remarks from her and my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) about the need to learn the lessons from our colleagues in Holland. We have all talked about the perverse issue of frankly playing whack-a-mole, whereby shops pop up and bad faith actors hide behind a smokescreen, whether from trading standards, HMRC, the National Crime Agency or local police forces that are responsible for addressing enforcement. Will she echo my calls for the Home Office to work closely with colleagues in HMRC, the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade to make sure that we are addressing the cumulative impact of the harm caused to local areas?

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25. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Phil Brickell

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    My hon. Friend is speaking passionately about enforcement in Birmingham Erdington. Does she agree that key organisations in the private sector have a lot of information? All these shops are banked by someone. The Government can drive down the barriers to information sharing between the private and public sectors to identify suspicious activity so that enforcement agencies—be they the police, trading standards or the National Crime Agency—can have the greatest possible impact when they conduct these sorts of raids.

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26. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Dowd

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    We have 10 or 12 people, including the Minister and Opposition spokespersons, wishing to speak. There are lots of people here, and I am sure there will be lots of interventions. I will therefore impose a four-minute limit on speeches, but that will have to be reduced if we have too many interventions. I have fired the starting gun.

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27. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Dowd

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    Order. Everyone who wishes to speak is bobbing. Because of the number of hon. Members who have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate, and with the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I am imposing a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of four minutes.

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28. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Peter Dowd

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    I remind hon. Members to be as brief as possible with their interventions. We should just get everyone in with the four-minute time limit.

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29. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Paulette Hamilton

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this vital debate. When I speak in this House about illicit activity in high street shops, I do so on behalf of the people of Birmingham Erdington, including those in Kingstanding, Castle Vale and south Oscott. These residents take great pride in their community and deserve to feel safe on their local high street. Areas such as Erdington High Street and Slade Road are not simply a row of shops but the centre of community life. They are where people go to work, shop, meet neighbours and access essential services. However, for too long, organised criminal activity has been allowed to take hold in my community, undermining legitimate businesses and damaging public confidence. We are not talking about isolated incidents or minor trading offences; we are talking about organised criminal networks using retail premises as fronts for wider illicit activity—selling illegal tobacco, counterfeit goods, untaxed alcohol and unregulated vapes, which normally end up in the hands of young people. In my constituency, Operation Fearless and Operation Skybridge have resulted in one of the largest seizures of illicit goods in Birmingham’s history. I pay tribute to the work of our local police officers, trading standards teams and everyone involved in Operation Fearless and Operation Skybridge. Residents have seen the difference that visible enforcement activity can make. Since the launch of Operation Fearless, there has been a concerted effort to tackle antisocial behaviour, antisocial crime, shoplifting and wider criminality that has affected confidence in the town centre for many years. Despite those efforts, enforcement agencies are often placed in an impossible position: shops are closed down, only for the same operators to open under a different name days or weeks later. There is also growing local concern about the wider criminal exploitation linked to some of these premises.

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30. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Paulette Hamilton

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    My hon. Friend makes a vital point. It needs to be joined up. The one thing I have learned from being an MP and seeing things work in my area is that when we work together, we get things done. Organised criminal networks are operating across multiple organisations and exploiting vulnerable individuals. That is why we need stronger and faster closure powers, better support for trading standards teams and greater accountability for landlords who repeatedly rent properties to those engaged in illicit activity. I welcome the Government’s work to date, but I ask the Minister what further support the Government will provide to build on the success of operations such as Fearless and Skybridge at a hyper-local level. What steps will be taken to ensure that local authorities and police forces have the long-term powers and resources they need to tackle organised criminal activity on our high streets once and for all? Finally, how will the Minister work with local authorities and other agencies to tighten our planning and licensing rules, to stop unscrupulous landlords doing what they have been doing and getting away with for so many years? Residents tell MPs that it is lawless up there, because there is nothing they can do.

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31. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Paul Waugh

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    My hon. Friend is right that dodgy shops and mini-marts are often a front for organised crime, particularly drug dealing, but also for the sexual and criminal exploitation of children, which we sadly know all too much about in Rochdale. I am delighted that the Government have listened to experts such as Rochdale trading standards on extending closure orders from three months to a year, and that they are looking closely at doing that. But there is also a big issue in my local shops of drug paraphernalia being sold next to sweets, and of drugs in resealable bags designed to look exactly like sweet wrappers. Does he agree that the Government should look at the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 so that trading standards can intervene on this?

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32. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Paul Waugh

    Steel Tariffs

    This week I hosted a meeting between officials from the Department for Business and Trade and representatives of Hanson Springs, a brilliant family manufacturing business in my constituency that exports across the world and whose specialised products are made from steel. I thank the Minister for his personal interest in the case. My I urge him to ensure that nothing the Government do, particularly in those negotiations with the EU, will harm brilliant British businesses such as Hanson Springs?

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33. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Stella Creasy

    Steel Tariffs

    The Minister has mentioned the negotiations with the European Union. The elephant in the room is the fact that we would not be in this position if we had not left the European Union on the terms negotiated by the last Government, which has left us isolated and vulnerable to trade wars of this kind. The British Chambers of Commerce says that this is “self-inflicted damage to the economy”, given that “sectors rely heavily on imported steel”. What lessons is the Minister taking from that, and from his conversations with his colleagues as they negotiate our future relationship with the European Union? We need to sort out not just matters such as the carbon border adjournment mechanism, but a sector-by-sector deal to help our British businesses in the future.

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34. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Julie Minns

    High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

    My hon. Friend mentioned mini-marts. We had none in Carlisle 12 months ago, and now we have at least 12 or 15. They are all distinguished by having wrappered windows that cannot be seen through. There is a presumption in planning guidance that windows should be active, whereas these are obviously inactive. Does my hon. Friend think that more needs to be done to enforce existing planning laws to ensure that these shops do not open or, if they do, that they are closed down for contravening planning guidelines?

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35. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Ms Julie Minns

    Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support

    The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point about the wonderful charitable work that many of our rural pubs do. I would like to place on record my gratitude to the Black Lion in my constituency and also the Crossings Inn. The Black Lion does wonderful charity work, and the Crossings is the hub whenever there is a power cut in that particular area of Cumbria, which is sadly quite prone to them. On that point, I congratulate the Countryside Alliance on its “Rural Oscars”—both the Crossings and the Black Lion were northern finalists, and I am delighted to say that the Black Lion, as the winning pub for the north, is through to the finals. Will the hon. Gentleman share my congratulations to the Black Lion and all the other finalists on the excellent work that they do, and wish them the best of luck in the “Rural Oscars”?

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36. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Mr Paul Foster

    Private Sector Investment: Lancashire

    My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. Does she agree that Lancashire has missed out on millions of pounds of investment because the likes of Manchester and Liverpool have been prioritised and because we have not had a fully functioning combined authority?

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37. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Mr Paul Foster

    Private Sector Investment: Lancashire

    On transport and infrastructure, we are all aware in Lancashire that if we could have investment in a second bridge across the River Ribble linking the M55 and opening up Blackpool airport, and linking it with the M6 and the M65, we could have huge opportunity, but the Government, the Green Book and the Treasury do not seem to want to recognise or support that. Does my hon. Friend agree?

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38. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Mr Paul Foster

    Private Sector Investment: Lancashire

    Leyland Trucks is now the only heavy goods vehicle manufacturer in the United Kingdom, and it is based in my constituency. Is it Government policy that we should be buying British? Does the Minister agree that the Government should support any orders for trucks through Leyland DAF?

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39. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Mr David Lammy

    Engagements

    I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is attending the G7 summit in Evian. May I first pay tribute to two giants of the Labour party. Roy Hattersley was a formidable deputy leader who never stopped fighting for a more equal and fair society. We also remember our beloved colleague Jo Cox and honour her memory in working to bring our communities together, celebrating the decency and compassion that defines this country. I also want to remember the 72 lives lost at Grenfell tower. The legacy of that appalling tragedy must be a safe, secure home for everyone in this country. Finally, let me congratulate Scotland on their first win at the men’s world cup in 36 years—that, Mr Speaker, is what happens when your captain signs for Spurs. I wish England the best of luck for their first match this evening. This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

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40. 17 Jun 2026·Parliament·Labour·Mr David Lammy

    Engagements

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign to restore the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry. I agree that town centres are the heart of our communities, and we are determined to help them to thrive. Our high streets strategy, backed by more than £300 million of investment, will build on our work to rejuvenate high streets across the country. We are also putting power into the hands of local communities through our flagship Pride in Place programme, which includes £1.5 million for Gravesham. Her local council can make use of the integrated transport funding for local priorities, including ferry services, and I know that Ministers will be happy to help.

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