Benefit Cap
Well, there we heard it a moment ago: a Labour Back Bencher calling for yet more money to be spent on benefits. What we should be doing is talking about all the households who are avoiding the cap, when 100,000 households get over—
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Benefit Cap
Some 100,000 households get over £50,000 in benefits, and 16,000 households get over £60,000 in benefits. That gives them the same income as the top 10% of earners in this country. British people are sick and tired of footing the bill for “Benefits Street” and seeing welfare claimants living lives of luxury at their expense. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has called for more collaborative politics, so will the Minister adopt our plan to toughen up the benefits cap and save £1 billion off the benefits bill?
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Topical Questions
I associate myself and those on the Opposition Benches with the Secretary of State’s comments about the outgoing permanent secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions. I am sorry that this may be my last exchange with the Secretary of State, as we await the coronation of the king in the north and the appointment of his new team. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not sacked for telling the truth about his fellow Labour MPs, who just want to put up taxes to pay for more benefits. Does he think that our next Prime Minister will have the courage to take on those Labour MPs and bring down the benefits bill, or will the new PM bottle it like his predecessor did?
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Topical Questions
I heard no commitment from the Secretary of State that the benefits bill was going to come down any time soon. Labour can change its leader, but it is still the same old welfare party. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) told us this morning that he is going to bring “Manchesterism” to the whole country. In Manchester, he is spending nearly three quarters of a million pounds on helping asylum seekers to claim benefits. British people are tired of seeing their hard-earned money being spent on handouts to foreigners. We cannot be a cash machine for the world. Does the Secretary of State think that this is a good use of taxpayers’ money?
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Asylum Accommodation
The site identified as MOD Bicester sits just over the Buckinghamshire border in Oxfordshire and is incredibly close to villages in my constituency, including Boarstall, Oakley, Long Crendon, Marsh Gibbon, Ludgershall, Twyford, Charndon and others. I can assure the Minister from comments I have heard from constituents over the weekend that nobody thinks this is a good site for such a centre. I would like to pick up on the answer the Minister gave an hon. Member earlier about medical provision on these sites. He said that medical provision is provided on site. I know from bitter experience in the last Parliament that provision was delivered on site at an asylum hotel, but it was delivered by a local GP practice, which then could not serve everybody else in the area in the normal, timely manner. Can the Minister be really clear, given that he cannot magic up doctors and primary care, that if the Bicester site goes ahead—I hope that it does not —there will not be pressure on local GP services in my constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire or, indeed, on the Oxfordshire side?
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Prisoner Early Release
Last week, the Government announced the first areas to be investigated as part of the rape gang inquiry, yet under their new Sentencing Act, rapists and child groomers will be released early from prison. The Minister must see that putting these criminals on the streets not only makes an absolute mockery of Labour’s rape gang inquiry but goes to prove that Labour was never serious about having one or locking up those perpetrators.
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Topical Questions
There are now over 1 million young people not in education, employment or training, which is the highest number in more than a decade. When the history books are written on this period of Government, does the Secretary of State agree that the story will be of a lost generation?
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Prisoner Early Release
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on the early release of rapists and child groomers.
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Prisoner Early Release
Imagine being the victim of a serious crime—as serious as rape or child grooming—and receiving a letter saying that the perpetrator who harmed you is going to be let out of prison early. Appallingly, that is the experience right now for thousands of victims of crime, including the victims of some of the most serious crimes imaginable, thanks to the changes that have been made to our sentencing laws by this Labour Government, helped by the Liberal Democrats. Before Labour MPs and the Minister tell us again, as he has already done, that this is being done as a result of prison overcrowding, I want every Member of the House to be crystal clear about the actual choice that this Government are making. The previous Labour Government released 80,000 prisoners early; the previous Conservative Government also operated early release programmes, as this Government have—that is not new. However, those schemes excluded serious sexual offenders. Do Labour MPs really want to tell their constituents that they support the early release of rapists and child groomers when there are existing schemes that could be used to avoid that? I pay tribute to grooming gangs campaigner Fiona Goddard, who, like many others, refused to be silent when she received her letter. Fiona’s abusers were sentenced to between 16 and 20 years in prison in 2019; now, she says that the justice she got in that courtroom is being snatched away from her, and she is right. What did the Labour Government say to the journalist who raised her case? They said that the most serious offences would be excluded. Labour told a victim of rape, sexual assault and grooming that her offenders were not serious enough to be excluded from early release—disgraceful. We are just a matter of weeks away from these serious offenders coming out, and we still do not know how many are being released and what crimes they have committed, so thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. The Government cannot cover up what they are doing to victims any longer; they must tell us today how many criminals—how many rapists and child groomers—are going to be released early, when they are going to be released and exactly what crimes they have committed. I am confident that when the public understand what is being done in their name, there will be an outcry. Our incoming Prime Minister will have a choice: to act in the interests of rapists and paedophiles or to stand up for victims. What will it be?
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Prisoner Early Release
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I genuinely seek your guidance and support. I have submitted multiple written questions and freedom of information requests. We have a named day question on this matter that was due to be answered on Friday, which the Government have refused to answer as they should. The Minister said that the information we are after is in the impact assessment, but that is not true. There is not the information on the number of offenders in terms of rapists and child groomers being released. How do we and the public get answers to these very basic, incredibly important questions?
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
I am grateful to be able to respond to this estimates day debate considering the expenditure of the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office as it relates to criminal justice. I thank all Members who contributed. I especially thank the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for opening the debate, and for his sponsorship of the application for debate, alongside the Chairs of the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee. I want to thank all the prison, probation and police officers, the staff that work in the relevant agencies, and the many workers and volunteers in the associated charities who work hard in our justice system. Whatever we debate, and whatever the Government decide around expenditure, they are the ones who have to go out and deliver the priorities of the Government of the day. I am afraid that, whatever the topic and whatever part of their activities and spending plans we are debating now, we are debating a shadow Government—a Government in name only. We are debating the spending plans of a Government who lost their Prime Minister a week ago. We are scrutinising the priorities of a Ministry of Justice whose Lord Chancellor serves at the pleasure of a Labour party that is, as we speak, sounding the fanfares and preparing a coronation for its newest MP to become Prime Minister—a Prime Minister whose team has briefed The Spectator that they are going to sack the Lord Chancellor. We have no idea who will be the Lord Chancellor in a few weeks’ time, nor even who will make up the ministerial ranks serving him. We have a Government in limbo, and however much they protest and tell us that it is business as usual, there will not be any sensible civil servant in any Government Department wanting to move forward policy and delivery work when they have no idea whether it will or will not survive contact with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) and his new Ministers. This provides Labour with a welcome opportunity to change course. We have heard about the challenges facing these Departments, including prison education, the court estate, data, record levels of mistaken releases—at record levels—as well as legal aid and the IT hacking experienced earlier in the year. The Government are wrestling with many issues, but I will primarily focus on two. First, I will turn to Labour’s appalling plans to let rapists, paedophiles and seriously violent criminals out of prison early, which we were able to consider today through the urgent question. Many of our constituents have been receiving letters telling them that the person who was convicted of harming them is being considered for early release. Victims have already spoken publicly about the impact that has had on them, and this is before they are certain about what is going to happen; that is because, to make it even worse, the letters do not tell them if the prisoner will definitely be released, or when exactly, just that they might be. The Conservatives’ understanding, though, is that everyone who has been written to has a perpetrator who is serving a standard determinate sentence and therefore will automatically be released early. Labour has failed victims either way: either they are all being released, so why have the Government not told people whether they are and when; or some of them will not be, in which case, why are the Government causing unnecessary upset and distress to victims?
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
My hon. Friend is right, and I will discuss his point in more detail. My hon. Friend said, “words to the effect”, but that was the exact wording that Ministers used in this Chamber, on the Government website and in press releases: the Government said that the most serious offenders would be excluded. When we challenged that, behind the scenes—and even on live television, on Sky News—Ministers said that what we were saying was not true; as we now know for sure, it was. Labour tells us that this move is necessary. I imagine that Labour Members who genuinely care about these issues have been told by Ministers that here is nothing else they can do—that they have no choice and it is all because of the prison overcrowding crisis. I want to tackle that in detail, because that is not true. There are always different choices to be made. The estimates before us, explaining the spending that is planned on prisons and prison spaces, highlight that most of the Department’s capital budget is allocated to the prison programme, which was awarded £7 billion up to 2030 in the recent spending review. Ministers know that their planned prison space numbers are essentially the same as ours were. The Minister also knows that the prisons that the Government have opened were paid for and started by the last Government. I share the frustration that Ministers at the time felt with the challenges in prison building; this Government already know how that feels at first hand, considering they have failed for more than a year to do anything significant about a major prison building contractor going bust. Nevertheless, more spaces are due to come online. So what we are managing is a short-term challenge. I have spoken before about my preference for the justice system to be a greater public and political priority, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), also spoke about. Others, including the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell), talked about the long-term lack of prioritisation of this issue. As a result, early prison release is absolutely not new. The previous Labour Government released 80,000 prisoners early, and the previous Conservative Government also operated the same early release programmes; Labour has used the exact same programme that the previous Government used and then implemented one of its own. These programmes allow for a Government to manage prison capacity in order to tackle the sorts of challenges mentioned by Ministers and Members on the Government Benches. Previous projections are also unreliable and have forecast much higher prison populations than is currently the case. In fact, the prison population was projected to reach 90,000 by June 2019, but it did not hit that figure —it never has. So is the plan to release rapists and child groomers an essential short-term measure? No, it is not. It is a permanent long-term change to our sentencing laws that will have a profound impact on victims and the ability to secure justice. It is also being done in a fundamentally different way from other early release programmes. Early release schemes have historically excluded serious violent and sexual offenders, but this Government are deliberately and specifically choosing not to do that. We warned the Government repeatedly that their exclusions based on sentence type were flawed, but they simply said again and again that the most serious offenders would be excluded. That was always untrue, because the criterion for this—the use of an extended determinate sentence—was never a criterion related to the seriousness or type of offence. During the passage of the Sentencing Act, I told the Government that every year, more than 60% of rapists and 90% of child groomers receive standard determinate sentences, and would therefore not be excluded and could be released early, but they did not listen. Instead, they sent Ministers on to the airwaves to say that it was not true. Now, finally, after victims themselves have been written to, the Government can no longer escape from what they have done. Those victims include Fiona Goddard, who went public in sharing her letter last week. Live on “Good Morning Britain”, after explaining what her perpetrators had done to her—about the rapes and sexual assaults that she suffered—she was told the Government line: that they had excluded the most dangerous offenders. Susanna Reid, who was interviewing her, saw immediately how insulting to Fiona that response was, saying that it did not address anything that she had been saying. Fiona said that it was “actually quite offensive, because they are basically trying to say that sexual crimes against children aren’t some of the most serious.” She is right, isn’t she? How can anyone justify an early release programme that includes rapists and child sexual predators by saying it excludes the most dangerous offenders? The use of the word “dangerous” is in itself a deceitful change in terminology. Up until last week, the Government said that the programme would exclude the most serious offenders, despite, as I have said, me telling them repeatedly that this definition was not aligned to the sentences they were excluding. Finally, just weeks before serious criminals will be let out, they have realised that they were wrong—not that “dangerous” is any better than “most serious” if, either way, rapists are included and are being released early. We know that more than 7,000 victims have been written to; we know that many more are not registered for updates and will not be told. But how many perpetrators are getting out, and what offences have they committed? We do not know. We have an idea. We know that every year, as I mentioned, more than 5,000 rapists, paedophiles, child groomers and seriously violent offenders are sent to prison on a standard determinate sentence. That is every year—we can therefore assume that thousands of such offenders are in prison at any one time. The Government are today happy to present to us their estimates on their spending on the prison population and prison building, but they will not and cannot tell us how many of those offenders they will be letting out.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
If you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am talking about a major issue that relates directly to the estimates: the prison building programme, the need for that programme and what the Government are doing to manage the prison population. I believe it is directly related to the estimates in that regard. I repeat, sincerely, that multiple Governments of different parties have let prisoners out of prison early in order to manage prison crises, but they have never let rapists and child groomers out early. Government Members are therefore backing a totally unnecessary way of managing prison capacity. They really do not have to do it. They are being forced into doing so, and I feel very sorry for them as a result. It is difficult to understand how the Government can lay these estimates before the House and put forward a proposal for changes to sentencing if they do not even know how many people they are letting out of prison and for what reason. I cannot believe that the Minister thinks that that is acceptable, and it will be difficult for her to justify. But, to be fair, she may also struggle to answer a basic question about her own responsibilities—about her plans to erode our right to jury trial and to abolish our right to elect. The Conservatives will oppose any erosion of the right to jury trial. It is a constitutional protection that belongs to people, not to the convenience of a Government. The evidence does not support the case that jury trials are the cause of the backlog; empty courtrooms are. We are awaiting a date for Report stage of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. Given the political situation, and considering the Minister’s planned capital and revenue expenditure in this area, I think it is entirely legitimate to ask whether the proposal on jury trials is even still Government policy. When the legislation that is meant to address the central crisis in our criminal justice system is dependent on who wins an internal party election in the next few weeks—if there even is one—that is not a functioning legislative programme; it is chaos dressed up as reform. Are the Government laser-focused on what will actually work to bring the backlog down? No. Instead, they have been laser-focused on driving through unnecessary vandalism on one of our oldest constitutional rights. While the backlog is still much too high, the backlogs in Crown courts are stabilising and even coming down in some areas. The Government have announced uncapped Crown court sitting days for 2026-27, and we absolutely welcome that, even though it took much too long. It is exactly what we have called for consistently, and I give credit where it is due. We have seen the first quarterly decline in Crown court backlogs across England and Wales in three years in the most recent data. The Criminal Bar Association points out that in particular areas of the country, the reductions are more significant. In the south-east of England, the backlogs in courts are down 3.1% over three months and 4.2% over six months. In the north-west of England, they are down 2.3% over three months and 3.3% over six months. In the north-east of England, they are down 2.9% in three months. In Wales, they are down 2.4% over three months. Meanwhile, the figure for magistrates courts shows an all-time peak of more than 370,000 cases at the end of March this year, up 2% on the previous quarter—and the magistrates courts are where the Government want to send more cases. We heard again and again in the first stages of the Courts and Tribunals Bill that the workforce, whether it be in the courts, judges or legal representatives, can bring the backlogs down, but that the jury reforms were an unnecessary distraction. According to the X feed of the monitoring account Idle Courts, recently as many as 123 out of 516 Crown courtrooms—nearly a quarter—were standing empty on working days. We know that that was not because there were no cases to hear, no juries or no defendants. It was because of issues such as listing challenges, staffing shortages and the underutilisation of available court space. To date, the Government have not listened and have refused to drop those parts of the Bill that are, as the hon. Member for Chichester said, clearly unwelcome to so many in the workforce. I hope we learn today that what we are told about the views of the right hon. Member for Makerfield is correct and that this unacceptable plan to erode our jury rights will be dropped. Let me turn to the Home Office elements of this debate, because the two Departments are inextricably linked. Members will understand that it is not the day-to-day responsibility of the Minister or I, but we both know that what happens at the front end—policing, charging, and bail—flows directly into the courts, with probation and prisons at the back end. Police officer numbers fell by more than 1,000 in just one year under this Government, from September 2024 to September 2025, and the total number of people involved in policing fell by 3,000. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in response to this year’s funding settlement and the estimates that we are debating that many forces are planning service reductions, with consequences for officer numbers, staff capacity and overall resilience. The Government cannot simultaneously claim to want swifter justice and a safer society while allowing the frontline workforce who investigate crime, make arrests and build prosecutions to continue to shrink. The Conservatives’ plan would put 10,000 extra officers on the streets, triple the use of stop and search, and introduce facial recognition technology in the worst crime hotspots. On asylum, the Home Office estimates that there are more than 400,000 illegal migrants in the UK—people in this country illegally—but nearly half cannot be removed because of outstanding asylum and human rights claims. Total spending on asylum support remains at over £4.5 billion, and the decision of the Government to put even more asylum seekers in more expensive locations such as Crowborough in Wealden in the constituency of your fellow Deputy Speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker, is going to cost more money than if they were to be kept in their original places. Let me close with this. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said that the focus of the debate can be distilled to concerns about the risks to public safety and trust, and he is right. We are spending more than ever before on our criminal justice system—billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money flow through the estimates we are debating—but reoffending is rising, rape gang survivors are being told that their abusers may be freed early and police officer numbers are falling. The Government may be about to change their Prime Minister, and with that the MOJ will more than likely welcome a new Lord Chancellor, so policies announced with great fanfare may quietly disappear over the summer, but the people waiting for Crown court hearings and the victims seeing criminals walk free will still be there. We will not oppose the estimate, but we will not let the Government off the hook, either. They have had nearly two years and the numbers are not getting any better. The public deserve better. The Opposition will hold them to account for every one of these figures, whoever happens to be sitting in Downing Street when we do it.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
Will you answer the question?
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
The Minister is completely wrong. The releases are automatic. There will be no prevention of a release of someone on a standard determinate sentence, regardless of what the risk assessment shows. The Minister must at least be accurate in describing the policy.
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NHS Breast Screening
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate Gemma Reeves on bringing forward the petition and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) on introducing this important debate. It has been very moving to hear so many stories from hon. Members on both sides of the House reminding us of the human cost of this disease. Breast cancer is very common, as other Members have said, affecting one in seven women during their lifetime. The Minister and I have had a number of debates in this Chamber about various diseases and forms of cancer. One of the core principles we often discuss is that early diagnosis saves lives. Cancer Research UK says that 85% of women who live more than 10 years after a diagnosis of breast cancer were diagnosed at stage 1 or 2 —the earlier stages to be diagnosed at. It was for that reason, and on that principle, that the UK introduced the world’s first national screening programme for breast cancer in 1988. Since then, much has changed. In particular, survival rates have improved dramatically. Now, 76.6% live more than 10 years; the figure was very much lower in the 1980s. There are still some issues with screening, however, as hon. Members have said. One is that women with denser breasts find it more difficult to locate lumps, and when doing mammograms, it can be more difficult to locate cancerous tumours. Will the Minister update the House on what work has been done on using ultrasounds and MRIs to identify tumours in women with denser breasts? I understand that the National Screening Council is looking at this subject in detail. When is it due to report its findings to the Minister, and when does she intends to bring them to the House? The effectiveness of treatment has improved, but the risk of overtreatment is higher in younger women. The incidence of the disease is increasing in younger and older women: the Cancer Research UK website says that the rate has increased by 12% in women aged between 25 and 49, and by 72% in women aged between 65 and 69. Should younger women therefore now receive screening, and should older women receive more frequent screening? The cancer plan, which the Government published earlier this year, said that they will engage with manufacturers to look at mammograms that are more accessible to those with a physical disability, who at the moment struggle to receive their screening. Will the Minister update the House on the engagement she has had with manufacturers and on the progress that has been made? The age trial in Oxford is looking at women aged between 47 and 49, and between 71 and 73—the ages just outside the current range of screening. I understand that early results are due in December 2026. Has the Minister had any indication of the results yet, and is she preparing for any results that come forward? Has she engaged with the people running that important trial? Community diagnostic centres, which were initiated by the previous Government and rolled out across the country, provide screening close to people’s homes, which makes it much easier for them to attend. Will the Minister update us on how she is improving the number of CDCs available across the country? The Government have talked about the shifts that they want to produce in healthcare, one of which is about prevention. According to the Cancer Research UK website, 23% of breast cancer cases are preventable. Will the Minister update us on what she is doing to reduce the number of preventable cases of breast cancer? Many hon. Members have talked about attendance at screening tests. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) spoke about some of the reasons why women do not attend screening. It is important that we understand why about a third of women do not attend. It is only by understanding what puts women off and makes them not attend that we can improve the services so that more women do attend. It was sobering to hear how many lives could be saved if more women attended screening. How are we making screening more accessible for women? Are we ensuring that women know that it is happening and that they need it? Do they understand the benefits of it? I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts. Another shift relates to the digital NHS. AI provides us with a number of ways to improve breast cancer screening and treatment. It could help us to understand who should be invited to screening and how often, and it can help when looking at mammogram scans. A few years ago, the Health and Social Care Committee visited Stanford in California and looked at the AI there. We saw a study comparing two radiology consultants looking at a scan, two AI computers using two different programmes, and a person and an AI computer. It discovered that the person and the AI computer were the most accurate. That can help to reduce the number of people we need in the workforce and, importantly, can improve the accuracy of screening results. That brings me on to the workforce. We know that the Government have a workforce plan, although its publication has been much delayed. We have been told repeatedly over the past few weeks that it has moved to “imminent” status—imminent being quicker than soon—but we do not know when imminent is. Does that mean it will be published before the summer, or do we need to wait for the new Prime Minister to make a decision? It would be helpful to know that from the Minister. As we heard about radiology and radiotherapy, the workforce is incredibly important. We need a thorough plan, otherwise we will have recommendations from the NSC for screening and no people to provide that care. I also wanted to raise with the Minister the Lobular Moon Shot Project. We have discussed before the importance of research into lobular breast cancer, which is more difficult to diagnose and treat. The last time we spoke about this, the Minister was looking at research projects that the Government could fund to identify new treatments and ways of screening for this disease, hopefully saving lives. Will she update us on how she is getting along with that? Much of my time at the moment is spent with another Health Minister—the Minister for Secondary Care, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth)—in Committee Room 9, debating the Health Bill. That is where I will be tomorrow. The Bill relates to one of the important organisational factors in screening. At the moment, screening programmes are generally organised by NHS England, which is being abolished. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care wrote a letter in March saying that commissioning responsibility will be directly delegated to ICBs, in the same way that they are currently delegated to NHSE, by the Secretary of State. Does the Minister expect that to cause any disruption to the breast screening programme? Integrated care boards have had their budgets cut by 50% just as they are asked to take on this work. We know that they are merging and reorganising in cells. The Government’s plans are that they should follow the mayoral authority boundaries, but the mergers that have taken place so far do not follow those boundaries. There is therefore a risk that we will need reorganisation all over again. Does the Minister think that that will have an effect on the screening programme? If so, what is she doing to mitigate that effect to ensure that as many people as possible get the very best screening and we can reduce the number of people suffering from the disease? The screening programme offers a real opportunity to diagnose, treat early and save lives, but it needs to be delivered well. We need to ensure that the right people get the right type of screening at the right age, and at the right frequency. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response.
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Prisoner Early Release
During the passage of the Sentencing Act, we were told that the perpetrators of the “most serious, heinous crimes” would not be included in these measures, so can the Minister explain why the Government do not think that the rape of children is one of the most serious and heinous crimes, and how many individuals who committed it will be coming out early?
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Youth Hubs
I cannot help thinking that, with youth hubs, the Government are trying to fix a problem of their own creation. The amount of young unemployed people in my constituency has gone up 23% since the Government took office in July 2024. Can I just let that figure sink in? Twenty-three per cent. The Secretary of State should be ashamed of what he has done to young people in the Gosport constituency. How has he done that? He has done it by ensuring that all the businesses that give young people the first foot on the employment ladder—hospitality, childcare or hair and beauty—have been poleaxed by the actions of this Government. Only this morning we heard—[Interruption.] Thank you, Mr Speaker. We heard the Prime Minister-in-waiting talking about the importance of creating growth. When will they realise that only businesses create growth, so get out of their way and let them do it?
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Asylum Accommodation
The Minister spoke about necessary arrangements and approvals being followed, but the Haslar immigration removal centre proposals are meaningfully different from those originally planned. The Home Office is bypassing the local planning authority, Gosport borough council, and the public consultation has been utterly derisory. This is a residential urban area, yet local people do not have any opportunity to have a say, because it will be decided by the Secretary of State in Whitehall. Leaving aside all the rhetoric, can the Minister just answer some straight questions? Will he set out exactly how many people will now be housed at Haslar, who they will be and how long they will stay there? What opportunity will neighbouring residents have to influence the development and how it looks? When will the Home Office have proper public meetings, so that Gosport people can put their questions and have them answered? Will he meet me to answer all the other questions I am getting from my residents, who are furious about what the Government are doing?
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Northern Ireland Office
The debate will be opened by the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.
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Northern Ireland Office
We come to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Northern Ireland Office
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
The debate will be opened by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
Order. The right hon. Member for Makerfield.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
I call the shadow Minister.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
Order. I will remind the shadow Minister that this is a debate on the estimates—perhaps we could return to them.
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Home Office and Ministry of Justice
I call Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown to wind up the debate briefly.
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Job Opportunities: Rural Areas
2. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of job opportunities in rural areas.
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Job Opportunities: Rural Areas
The picture that the Minister paints is not one that I recognise, and it is not one recognised by businesses in my constituency. Rural job opportunities have gone down, rural unemployment is up, and businesses routinely tell me that the increased cost of employment under this Government has directly contributed to their inability to continue recruiting. Does the Minister recognise that? Will she impart on the next Prime Minister the importance of a change of course?
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Asylum Accommodation
With 76,000 illegal crossings in the last two years, this is clearly a problem that continues to affect our country, and one that has profound social and economic consequences—largely negative ones—on communities across the country. The Government are talking about a new approach to move this problem away from communities, so I was surprised to read the other day about the specific refugee scheme reported in various media outlets. Surely it will increase the attractiveness of illegal migration via illegal routes. Anyone who travels to the UK via an illegal route should be deported. This scheme is a contribution to the pull factor.
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Prisoner Early Release
The Minister talks a good game about prison numbers, but he will know very well from the many exchanges we have had on the issue that there are a lot of prison places that this Government have yet to deliver. Prison contractor ISG went bust in September 2024, and because the Government sat idle for 18 months without appointing new contractors, 3,500 prison places were not delivered—places that would have meant that the Government did not need to release prisoners early now. I have a male sex offenders prison in my constituency. I appreciate that he will not have the numbers to hand, but can he write to let me know how many rapists and child sexual abusers will be released from that prison?
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Animal Abusers
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. This is an important debate, and I thank Bea for highlighting the issue through the petition. We have had many contributions. The hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) clearly set out the background to the petition and the challenges in identifying and enforcing convictions for animal abuse. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) highlighted the importance of and the care that we all feel for our pets and animals. The hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) discussed the need to think about prevention alongside punishment. We are all united in our shared belief that any case of animal cruelty is completely unacceptable. As an animal lover, I am deeply committed to doing what I can in this House to raise awareness, to legislate and to support efforts to prevent animal cruelty. I am therefore proud to be part of a Conservative party that has a strong record on animal welfare from our time in government. We passed legislation including the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024, which bans the export of live animals for slaughter, and the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, which increased the maximum prison sentence for animal cruelty from six months to five years. The last Government also introduced the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, the Animals (Penalty Notices) Act 2022 and the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022. I will mention one more piece of legislation, passed since the July 2024 election and introduced by a Conservative MP—me. The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Act 2025 shows our ongoing commitment to animal welfare. I was pleased to introduce that legislation to update the laws surrounding livestock worrying, by increasing the fine where dogs attack livestock and giving the police more powers to investigate instances of livestock worrying. I am grateful to hon. Members from across the House who supported the passage of that Act.
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Animal Abusers
I thank my right hon. Friend for speaking so eloquently, as he always does. I will come on to the case of his constituent and pay tribute to the work that she is doing in due course. Because of the widespread commitment to, and support for, reducing animal cruelty, the UK has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, and it is right for us to cement our status as a global leader by continuing to raise the bar. It does not surprise me that the petition we are debating today has received over 230,000 signatures, because I know this is an issue that many of our constituents rightly feel strongly about. In my constituency, 328 people have added their names to it. Existing provisions ensure that all prosecutions for animal cruelty offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 are stored on the police national computer. That information can be shared with appropriate organisations at the police’s discretion. However, there are some points that I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on. What assessment has he made of the arrangement under the 2006 Act? For example, is there consistency in decisions as to when data is shared? How regularly is data being shared? Where is it being shared? Importantly, is it helping to prevent incidents of abuse? I want to turn to the connection between animal abuse and domestic violence, because, sadly, there is a link, and perpetrators of animal abuse too often also abuse people. That has been highlighted by cases such as the tragic murder of Holly Bramley, as we have heard, which has not only boosted awareness, but increased demand for a public register. I commend her mother Annette for turning an unimaginably difficult situation into a campaign that honours her daughter’s legacy and focuses on ensuring that the link between animal and domestic violence is properly recorded. The RSPA highlighted that 2.3 million adults experienced domestic abuse in 2024, and 71% of victims reported a threat to their pets. Figures such as that should give us serious cause for concern. What steps is the Minister taking to work with ministerial colleagues in the Home Office to ensure a cohesive approach to tackling the link between animal and domestic abuse? I want to recognise the important work being done by the veterinary profession to highlight that link—I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as someone who is married to a veterinary surgeon and as an owner of a veterinary business. The work of the Links Group, which is chaired by Dr Paula Boyden, former veterinary director of the Dogs Trust, is helping to inform vets on the frontline who may be exposed to cases that need action. I hope the Minister will join me in acknowledging the importance of that work and outline whether the Government are engaging with the veterinary profession, including the Links Group, the British Veterinary Association and other stakeholders, to support that work. Pets are too often used as a means of coercion and control against those experiencing domestic abuse. That is why it is so important that anyone suffering at the hands of an abuser knows that support is available. Earlier this month, I attended the Cats Protection drop-in in Parliament where, among other things, it highlighted the work of charities that provide temporary foster care for pets when someone is fleeing domestic abuse. That support can make the difference between someone remaining in an abusive relationship for fear of leaving a beloved pet behind and having the confidence to escape to safety. Does the Minister agree that those are exactly the kinds of initiatives we should be championing to raise awareness of this issue? Will he outline what steps the Government are taking to improve public awareness of the links between animal abuse and domestic abuse, including the use of threats or harm to pets as a form of coercive and controlling behaviour? I am sure that all Members will encourage anyone who is experiencing domestic abuse or worried about animal abuse to come forward and seek help. Police forces, including Cheshire constabulary in my area, have safe ways for people to report abuse, and I want anyone listening to this debate to know that you do not have to face it alone; help is available and I urge you to reach out. If we raise awareness of the link between animal and domestic abuse, and improve the sharing and recording of information, I believe that we can identify abuse earlier, protect more victims and prevent further harm. Ultimately, that is what every one of us in this House wants to achieve. Although the Government have said in their written response to the petition that they will not introduce a public register, given the number of U-turns that have been made thus far, I am not certain whether that position can be relied on. However, what is certain is that anyone who is abusing animals or using the threat of animal abuse for manipulation must be prosecuted and face the consequences of their despicable actions.
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Draft Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Ms McVey. As the Minister has eloquently set out, the draft regulations seek to increase the fees associated with a number of assessment requirements for the licensing of offshore activity, such as conservation of habitats assessments and offshore safety directives, and they are eminently sensible.
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Draft Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026
There is a first time for everything. I do not seek to stand in the way of these regulations, but I will raise the inherent irony illustrated here of a Government who have made clear their intention not to issue new licences for exploration yet are seeking to increase the costs associated with environmental impact assessments and other regulatory requirements. I hope it indicates the beginning of a change of course for the Government, but I fear that will not be the case. We can but hope. This Government have decided time and again to move against our domestic energy industry, choosing to run down our North sea ecosystem rather than nurture the skills base and support the industry. Two weeks ago, the Aberdeen South by-election—a referendum on our oil and gas industry that I will not stop talking about—saw the north-east of Scotland return a decisive verdict. Will the Government listen?
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Topical Questions
Local businesses in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton tell me that they are not recruiting due to the additional cost and uncertainty created by the Employment Rights Act 2025. Has the Secretary of State assessed the impact of Government policy? Employment rights count for little if people cannot get a job in the first place.
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Cabinet Office
This debate is very timely, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on securing it. In recent months, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy has been joined by an ever-growing and increasingly anxious chorus of voices despairing at the Government’s failings on national security. Lord Robertson, who this Government commissioned and asked to lead the strategic defence review, warned in April that Britain’s security was “in peril” due to the “corrosive complacency” that was being shown towards defence. He went so far as to accuse the Treasury of “vandalism”. Earlier this month, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey) resigned as Defence Secretary. He was clear that the reason was a defence investment plan—which, it appears, The Times newspaper has also had sight of—that did not give the armed forces “the resources they need”. He was followed out of the door by the Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who said that the Government’s plans were “neither transformative enough nor sufficiently funded.” Given that the hon. Member had served in our armed forces, one would have thought that his warning might have been heeded.
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Cabinet Office
I always found the former Defence Secretary to be very decent in how he engaged, how he worked across parties and how seriously he took the job. I do not think there is a vacancy for the NATO Secretary-General for at least another eight years, but the current Prime Minister, who has taken us from third place to 12th in NATO defence spending in the past couple of years, would not be the right man to lead NATO at this time or any other. The shadow hanging over this whole state of affairs is the defence investment plan. It was due for publication in autumn 2025, and we have not yet seen it. As a NATO member, we are committed to spending 5% of GDP on defence and national security by 2035, with 3.5% on core defence and 1.5% on national security and resilience. Let us review where the Government are. On rearmament and the progress towards 3.5% and 1.5%, we are second to last—31st out of 32 NATO members. We have only moved to that place in the past year. We best only Iceland, a country that has no armed forces at all. That is where the Government have left us on the road to rearmament. On defence spending as a percentage of GDP, we have gone from third in 2021 to 12th this year. Both those things are on the Labour Government. The failure of this Government to properly fund our core defence is not just a disaster, but an international humiliation, and the very same pattern is playing out across national security and resilience. Lord Harris, the chair of the National Preparedness Commission, has said that funds for these vital areas are currently being treated as a “creative accountancy exercise”. When we look at the figures before us today, we can see what he means. I recognise the headline increase in the Cabinet Office’s security-focused expenditure, but the vast bulk of that additional £130 million is simply the integrated security fund being moved from the Foreign Office to the Cabinet Office. It is not new money; it is the same money in a different pocket. Meanwhile, the figure that tells the real story is the budget for the national security secretariat, which has been cut to £18.9 million—down from £34.4 million last year. That has nearly halved—at a moment like this. While little detail has been given to us to scrutinise, it is clear that Cabinet Office spending on national security and resilience is not at the level required, and nor will it match the threats that we face. I will press the Minister on specific areas shortly, but let us check in on whether some past commitments. Have they been fulfilled—or, like the defence investment plan, are they languishing out of sight, underfunded and promised but never delivered? In February, the former Security Minister, the right hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), promised a one third increase to the integrated security fund for Indo-Pacific threats: primarily, the Chinese Communist party. There is no sign of that increase. We were promised a £17 million increase in counter-terrorism funding and a further £10 million to address organised crime by the end of 2026-27. Are the Government on track to deliver those things, or have they, too, been quietly forgotten? I will turn to the specific areas that demand the attention of the House. The first is cyber-security. As we have heard from various Members, 40% of British businesses have suffered a cyber-attack or breach over the past year, including iconic names such as Marks and Spencer, and Jaguar Land Rover. The Government brought forward the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, which was welcome, but it was not sufficient. Indeed, it failed to name the threat of the Chinese Communist party. Extraordinarily, it excluded central and local government computer systems from its scope. The very systems that hold our citizens’ data have been left outside the Bill. What investment is being made to bolster our cyber-defences, and is that funding rising? Secondly, the JCNSS reported last September on the risk of our undersea cables being targeted by hostile states. They carry 99% of our data. They are the arteries of our economy and our daily life. Closer co-operation with Joint Expeditionary Force nations, especially Norway, has been welcomed across this House, but specific plans and any funding remain elusive. These cables carry everything that we do, and there is no plan to protect them. When will funding come forward to do so? Thirdly, we have discussed the covid pandemic today, and the inquiry that followed, which laid bare the need for a greater focus on biosecurity. The Government promised that it would publish the Cabinet Office’s plan for biological emergencies this spring. That deadline has, like many others, been missed. When will those plans finally appear, and when will the £1 billion promise to establish a network of national biosecurity centres come into being? Fourthly, on our critical national infrastructure, Putin’s renewed illegal invasion of Ukraine and the brutality that Russia has industrialised should serve as a warning. The Russian military has deliberately targeted power infrastructure—substations, pylons and cables. Drone warfare has made our energy networks a target for terrorists and hostile states. As the Member for Rutland and Stamford, I am dismayed by the Government’s plans to put a string—mile upon mile—of pylons across eastern England. One single drone could plunge huge swathes of our country into darkness, and Google Maps literally provides an online map—a targeting plan for anyone who wishes us harm. We have the capability to lay those cables underground. Instead, the Government have chosen to sacrifice our security to save a few pounds, when we should be learning from Putin’s daily attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure. The fifth area—this matters more than any other line, and it has been discussed by every single Member—is whole-of-society resilience. The threats that we discuss cannot be tackled by Government alone, and it would be foolish to suggest so. They demand that each and every one of us is prepared and able to play our part, but the Government therefore have to kick off the national conversation that they promised. Here we must be honest that the failure is not Labour’s alone. I agree with the chair of the JCNSS, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, that since the Iraq war it has suited the political class to say to the public, “You don’t need to worry about national security or foreign policy—don’t you worry your little heads; we’ve got it under control.” We have taught a generation or two that danger is someone else’s problem, that resilience is a job for the state, and that citizens do not need to think about it at all. We have allowed the public to abdicate their personal responsibility, be that choosing whether or not to be on TikTok—get off it!—the purchases they make or the way they live their lives. That is a fatal arrow in the heart of our national resilience. When the crisis comes—and it will come—a people who have never been asked to prepare will not suddenly know how to be ready. The Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee in the Lords, the JCNSS and the National Preparedness Commission have all called for a single, simple step: the appointment of a chief resilience officer to co-ordinate across Government. It is a sensible suggestion and I am not sure why it has been ignored. That role would look at protecting everything, whether that is our research, our innovation, our education, our universities, our genomics, our charities or the information environment, and it would tackle such things as the use of organised crime, which led to that heinous attack on our Prime Minister. That has been exploited by foreign states, which have misconstrued what took place to harm the Government. That is a shameful state of affairs, and I agree that we should have discussed it more. I will now turn to China. Before the election, Labour promised to take China to the international courts over the genocide of the Uyghurs, which is an issue that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have spoken about consistently in this place. The Government promised a full audit of China policy to guide strategy across every Department, yet the China audit was never published, its contents have never been shared with this House, and we are now in a situation where the National Security Adviser travels regularly to Beijing to meet Chinese Communist party officials. We only find out about those meetings because the Chinese Communist party publishes press releases. It is more transparent than our own Government, and that is not least because the National Security Adviser will not appear before this Parliament, unlike all his predecessors, to face justice—apologies, to face scrutiny. Well, both actually, because does our country not deserve to know that things are being done right? How can we know that they are being done right, that our country is being protected, and that hostile states are being held to account, if there is no scrutiny? Our own Government keep quiet while preparing to pay billions to surrender sovereignty over the Chagos islands, and the protections that we put in place are not used. We passed the National Security Act 2023 precisely to counter the threat from hostile states, yet Labour refuses to put China in the enhanced tier, and the results speak for themselves. In July, it will be one year since the foreign interference registration scheme came into force. How many organisations or companies have registered as working for China on the foreign influence risk register? Not one. Three have registered as working for Republika Srpska, a tiny little entity within Bosnia, but no one says they are getting any money from the Chinese state. Have there been any investigations about this failure of anyone to register themselves? No. Have there been any prosecutions? No. Why? It is because the Government are too busy wooing the Chinese Communist party to deter it. When the Prime Minister went to Beijing, he even met Cai Qi, the very man who had been running a spy network targeting this Parliament. The Prime Minister did not apologise for doing so; he seemed to think it was the right thing to do. Since that case collapsed last year, there have been zero repercussions for the Chinese Communist party for spying on this Parliament. That is not deterrence; it is rewarding a state that attacked our Parliament. Why are this Government content to let our own laws be flouted by Beijing? Let us be honest about what has been described. A retailer that sells our groceries has been halted by hostile actors. A car maker that employs thousands of our constituents has been brought to its knees. Undersea cables carrying 99% of our data have been shadowed and mapped by Russian vessels. A spy network was run from Beijing against our own Parliament. Our Prime Minister was attacked. Luckily, he and his family were not hurt, but the Government answer all this with a transferring of budgets, missed deadlines and an audit they will not publish. These are not isolated incidents. We are not at peace, but we may not be in the same state of war as our grandparents would have recognised. There is no declaration, no frontline, no army massing on our borders—thankfully—but make no mistake: we are under sustained, deliberate and co-ordinated attack every single day. Call it what you will, but previous generations understood their duties when the nation was under threat, and they put our country on a war footing. They found the money, told the public the truth, and did not hide behind “creative accountancy”—not my words, but those of an expert. We are 31st out of 32. We have a National Security Secretariat that has been cut in half. There is no resilience officer, no investment plan, and no published audit. That is not the posture of a country that knows it is under attack. So my challenge to the Minister is simple: fund what must be funded, and protect what must be protected. Given that this is a debate about the money, let me end by asking about what the figures cannot show. Once we strip out the transfers of function and the accounting changes, what is the real-terms trajectory of spending on the security and resilience functions of the Cabinet Office? If it is rising, by how much and how fast is it rising? The first duty of the state is to protect its people, and on the evidence before us today, based purely on the figures, it is a duty in which the Government are failing. History will not forgive those who saw the danger, named it and looked away. We therefore hope that the Government will take away our request and act to fund our defence, fund our national security, and step up and fund our national resilience.
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Cabinet Office
Since as early as 2013, when I was working with the Cabinet Office—specifically with the Joint Intelligence Organisation and others—climate change has been included in the matrix that it is required to plan for, respond to and seek to mitigate from a national security perspective. It is very much reflected in the national —I have forgotten the exact words, but it is the one that does not have an acronym. That is what happens when you work on something for too long. Climate change is in there and has been in there for a very long time, even way back when I was a civil servant.