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The Minister raises the cost factor, and Bromley’s cost factor has been set at 1.038, which is above the average. What work has been done to ensure that authorities such as mine are not impacted by setting the cost factor above the average, in terms of their ability to collect business rates?
I remind hon. Members that in Committee they should not address the Chair as Madam Deputy Speaker—please use our names. Madam Chair or Madam Chairman are also acceptable. Clause 1 Expenditure relating to commemorating the victims of the fire at Grenfell Tower Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
With this it will be convenient to consider clause 2 stand part.
With the leave of the House, I will put motions 5 and 6 together. Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6), Public Procurement That the draft Procurement (Amendment) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 26 January, be approved. Electricity That the draft Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 2 February, be approved.—(Nesil Caliskan.) Question agreed to.
Mr Shannon, were you here at the beginning of the debate? You were 90 seconds late—faster next time.
It would not be an Adjournment debate without Mr Jim Shannon, would it?
There are growing rumours that the Government plan to bring back their ill-fated Northern Ireland Troubles Bill to the Commons next week. If that is true, it will give us the perfect opportunity to debate the Prime Minister’s links with Phil Shiner, the disgraced lawyer who was convicted of fraud and struck off for making multiple false allegations against British soldiers. The Northern Ireland Secretary has told the House repeatedly that there is no such thing as a vexatious prosecution. Do MOD Ministers now agree that that is not just naive but simply untrue, especially after the case of Phil Shiner —a man universally hated across the British Army?
I was asking about the current Prime Minister, not the next one. After previously denying that the Prime Minister was instructed to act in a case against veterans by Phil Shiner, on 24 February the Veterans Minister had to come to the House and correct the record because the Prime Minister did, in fact, act for Phil Shiner in the al-Jedda case before the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. That case effectively opened the floodgates for prosecutions against British Army veterans, which the troubles Bill now threatens to do all over again. To save the Veterans Minister having to come back here again and correct the record twice, can she or this Minister simply tell us why Labour is led by a man who partly made a living out of helping to put British Army soldiers and even their commanders in the dock?
On that Chorley and Lancashire theme, it will not be possible to increase the defence skills in this country if the defence jobs of the future are not secure in that pipeline. I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State talk earlier about British jobs, British industry and British innovation—he can probably gather where this is going, judging from the whispering on the Government Front Bench—so I was confused when there was bragging about ordering from British companies for defence as to why American F-35s were ordered, not British Typhoons. Given that we will need around 100 aircraft to maintain the workforce at Warton for Tempest in the future, I assume, whenever the defence investment plan is finally published, we will see an order of 25 Typhoons for the RAF within it.
T9. Earlier I asked the Secretary of State if he would confirm an order of 25 Typhoons for the RAF after claiming the Government were backing British jobs, but the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry deployed the power of waffle to avoid answering the question. Just to be absolutely clear, I did welcome Turkey’s order of Typhoons, but, as I know and as he knows, it will not come anywhere near close to closing the skills gap between now and Tempest. Would the Secretary of State like to clarify this: will there be an order of 25 Typhoons for the RAF in the defence investment plan?
I have constituents at RAF Akrotiri who have been deployed out of RAF Cosford in my constituency, and I have already had correspondence from concerned constituents and their families. The Iranian regime has a very potent chemical and biological weapons programme. I have asked the Defence Secretary this question before: will he confirm that there is CBRN—chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear—protective kit at Akrotiri and other UK armed forces military bases in the region? The Iranian regime also has a very potent submarine fleet—it may not be nuclear or Trident-led, as ours is, but it is nevertheless a significant threat in the region—so could he say what he is doing to address both those threats?
It is. May I thank you for your comments, Mr Speaker? The next Defence questions will be on 10 May. We are all aware of the recess, but our armed forces personnel will be in harm’s way during that period—many of them are my constituents, and they are all represented across the House. May I look to you, Mr Speaker, to allow for urgent questions and particularly statements where necessary, as you always do, to be given by the Defence team in that period? There is a very long period of time until 10 May, given that we have armed forces personnel on duty right now.
The strait of Hormuz is a narrow body of water, but so is the Red sea. The Houthis have previously set ballistic missiles and drones on commercial ships and caused a lot of damage and disruption, which again has an impact on the global economy. Thus far in the current conflict, the Houthis have been on the sidelines, but that could easily and readily change. What are the Government doing in anticipation of the Houthis getting involved, and what naval assets are in the region or could be deployed to the region quickly in order that there is not a repeat of what we saw with HMS Dragon? If the strait of Hormuz is closed, and then the Red sea is closed, we are going to see a double crisis.
I thank the Minister for his statement. One characteristic of volatile energy markets is that when wholesale prices rise, consumer prices tend to rise like a rocket, and when the wholesale price stabilises the consumer price tends to fall like a feather. Can the Minister assure me and my constituents that in the conversations that he is having with the Competition and Markets Authority he is also looking at whether, when the market returns to normality, prices will fall as quickly as they have risen in this volatile moment?
Ministers were all over the airwaves this weekend saying two things: first, that they would like to see a de-escalation of the conflict in the middle east; and, secondly, that they would like to see the strait of Hormuz secured for shipping. Why on earth does the Secretary of State think that those two aims are mutually exclusive? If they are mutually exclusive, how can he achieve both?
The Minister has come here to give us a pretty vague response of, “We’re in discussions with allies about making a plan,” and does not want to give us any more detail than that; I can potentially see why. When he has those discussions with allies, will he please remember that the British taxpayer kindly gifted two Sandown class minehunters to the Ukrainian navy and that we have trained up their crews, who are now at a NATO standard? The Defence Committee visited them in Portsmouth, and they were proud of those credentials. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) that Ukraine seems to be leaning into supporting allies in the Gulf. Therefore, when the Minister is having discussions with allies about making a plan, will he bear that in mind? Of course, those craft cannot deploy back to the Black sea because of the Montreux convention, and I believe the crews are there and ready to operate.
The hon. Lady is making the case well on behalf of the Petitions Committee. Over the years, there have been a number of examples of some of my former Conservative colleagues ending up alongside Lib Dems in the House of Commons. In those circumstances, is the hon. Lady of the view that there should have been a by-election for those MPs to get their mandates restated?
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I do not want to downplay his greatness as a local constituency MP, but I am sure that, like me, he recalls the 2019 election in which he was first elected, and how many conversations we had with voters on the doorstep about the relative merits of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. That undoubtedly was the biggest issue driving many people to vote, alongside the desire to get Brexit done. Does that reinforce the point that many people vote on the basis of the national picture and to select a Prime Minister rather than a local MP?
Having reflected on the point made by the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), I would add that the key difference is surely that MPs are elected by their constituents, but the Prime Minister is appointed by the monarch, on the basis that that person can command the confidence of the House of Commons. That is the basis of the monarch’s decision. We do not have a presidential system, whereas we do elect constituency MPs. The appointment of the Prime Minister is based on the monarch’s judgment on who has the confidence of the House of Commons.
It is. Does the hon. Lady not recognise that we have had that debate in the UK? Part of Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s coalition agreement was a referendum on the alternative vote, and the British people rejected it in very large numbers.
I am grateful for the Minister’s analysis. I wonder whether she applies the same logic to her colleagues who have lost the Labour Whip because they have not complied with instructions to vote for Government policy that their constituents do not agree with.
I apologise for disrupting the Minister’s flow, but I would like to ask her to clarify what she just said. She seems to be arguing that she is opposed to a by-election happening at the point of defection, but I think she hinted at a personal view that was contrary to the view that she had previously been articulating.
The Secretary of State is a former distinguished Treasury Minister. Government is about taking decisions when things change. It is welcome that the Chancellor has addressed the heating oil crisis, but what will the Secretary of State do to make the Chancellor come to terms with the changes over the last few weeks, and to provide some additional support so that the defence investment plan will do justice to his ambitions?
Of course, nobody would expect the Government to contravene the indications of the Metropolitan police by publishing documents, but most people would expect that the first step for somebody applying for such an important job—the most senior diplomatic post—is to submit a declaration of interests. It is unclear whether that declaration of interests was submitted, or whether it actually exists, because we have not seen it yet. It is difficult to understand how such a basic first-principles requirement would not be disclosed in the first tranche of documents. Why is that?
I am not sure that the Secretary of State heard the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), which was incredibly simple: will the defence investment plan be published before the House rises on 26 March?
There is a reason why that date matters: it is the date when purdah commences before the Scottish elections. Then we will have the Welsh and local elections. It is our understanding—and the Secretary of State is welcome to correct this—that the defence investment plan cannot be published during purdah. If that is the case, and if it is not published before the rise of the House on 26 March, we will not see it until well into May. That is why this question is so important. I ask the Secretary of State the question again, because he has failed to answer it so far. It is a very simple, straight question, and it needs a straight answer. Will the defence investment plan be published before the House rises for the recess—yes or no?
Further to the question from the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), offshore energy infrastructure needs to be protected. The strategic defence review did not specifically mention moveable assets such as platforms, floating production, storage and offloading units, or rigs. Can the Secretary of State confirm that they will be considered as part of our energy security, and what will the Ministry of Defence do to ensure their security now and in the future?
The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and other Conservative Members have asked last week and this week about the declaration of interests. Either it exists and the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister does not want to say so, or it does not exist and he does not want to say so. Out of respect for this House, the public and the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, will he confirm now whether or not it exists?
The Minister’s statement included what I am sure were some very sincere words. He said: “Whatever the challenges, we will always support working people; we will always fight their corner. That is why we are…doing everything we can to take back control of our energy”. I did not want to have to break this to the Government, but they are not fighting for working people or taking back control of our energy by actively closing down the North sea. Thousands of people are losing their jobs every month and our energy security is going down. The only way the Minister can remedy this is by removing the ban on new licences and scrapping the energy profits levy.
Two weeks ago, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister gave me two pithy answers, so I ask him to do the same this week. First, did Peter Mandelson receive top-secret so-called STRAP security clearance? Secondly—we will try this question once again—did Peter Mandelson submit a declaration of interests? I want a yes or no to both those questions.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I apologise for not being able to give you notice of it. The ministerial code clearly states that Ministers must provide accurate information to this House. Under the duty of truthfulness, it states that Ministers are required to “be as open as possible with Parliament” and maintain high standards of accountability. That is not just in what they say, but what they fail to say. I know that you do not enforce the ministerial code, Madam Deputy Speaker, but would you expect a Minister who has misled the House by omission to return to the House to correct the record?
I welcome the Government coming forward with a proposal, but many of my constituents are facing £600 or £700 increases on bills that are coming immediately at them. The Minister cannot tell us today who exactly will be eligible for help—perhaps he can answer that. He cannot tell us how much they will actually get when they are looking at an increase of £600 or £700 on one bill just to fill up. He did not even seem to know which particular council is going to administer this help. Can he please give some clarity? Otherwise, we are getting the appearance of action and no real relief for most of my constituents.
This will be one of those rare occasions when there is a broad consensus across the House. The Opposition support the Government in wishing to continue the work begun since that tragic night in 2017 to ensure that lessons are learnt, changes are made, and the 72 victims who lost their lives are properly remembered. My Conservative colleagues and I welcome the Bill, and will support it today on Second Reading and during its further stages. The tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire, which caused the horrific deaths of 54 adults and 18 children, was a national tragedy that still sits as a dark and distressing memory within our national conscience. The failures that led to that horrific blaze, and to so much bereavement and distress, have now been studied in great depth by the Grenfell inquiry. They had to be addressed in detail, which is why we welcome the Government’s work to implement the inquiry’s recommendations and support their efforts to meet all of them by the end of the current Parliament. It is firmly the responsibility of the Government of the day to implement those recommendations, but it is our collective parliamentary responsibility to allow the means for that to happen, to support the Government’s work, and to ensure that, nine years on, we continue the process of remembrance. It is very difficult for us here to judge how best to commemorate the 72 people who so tragically lost their lives. That is why I believe that it was the correct approach, in 2019, to allow the independent Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission to develop proposals for a fitting and permanent memorial. The victims of the Grenfell Tower fire belong at the heart of everything we do in this place and outside it to remember the tragedy. It is very important that in remembering the fire, we also remember all those affected by the events that night: those who lost their lives, of course, but also the bereaved families, the survivors, and the immediate community who have previously lived, or currently live, in close proximity to Grenfell Tower. As this process of remembrance reaches one of its most important moments—the realisation of the monument promised to the Grenfell community by the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission and by successive Governments —it is vital for any future monument to keep the four promises made to the community: the promise of a mission to create a place of dignity and peace; the promise to create a bold memorial to ensure that the tragedy of the fire is never forgotten; the promise to introduce key measures to ensure that the memorial is looked after and not allowed to fall into disrepair; and a final promise to ensure that the voices and wishes of the Grenfell community are always at the heart of decisions made about the memorial. As for the future and the preservation of the memorial, it is important for this space to be protected from decay and enabled to continue to serve as a focal point for peaceful and reflective remembrance of the horrors of the fire. That is why my colleagues and I welcome the provisions in the Bill to allow the maintenance and preservation of the monument. As was mentioned during a recent debate on the Grenfell Tower annual report, it is necessary for the Government to deliver on their promises of funding. I welcome what the Secretary of State said about that, and I hope that he will confirm the funding arrangements in due course. On a related note—although it is not directly connected with the purposes of the Bill—perhaps the best possible tribute to all those connected with the tragedy at Grenfell Tower would be for the Government to honour funding commitments regarding the completion of the refurbishment of the Lancaster West estate for those who are still living there. The refurbishment was intended to be funded 50-50 by the Government and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The funding required from the Government is a small additional fraction of the reported cost of the memorial. The council has done its part, and I understand that agreement regarding Government funding is close, but the longer this is delayed, the more costs will inevitably rise, so let me take this opportunity to urge the Government to conclude these proceedings with haste. The inquiry’s finding that decades of systemic failure, as well as sheer dishonesty and dangerous negligence, allowed this tragedy to occur represents a shameful and damning conclusion on the work, or lack thereof, of culpable industry figures, regulatory bodies and successive Governments. The least that we can do now is support the full implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations, and we on the Opposition side of the House will constructively scrutinise the support for victims and their families that the Government are proposing, to try to ensure that anything that is done is done properly. For today, however, I look forward to seeing the Bill through its remaining stages in this House, and to working constructively to move the memorial a step closer to realisation. That is why the Opposition do not plan to amend the Bill today. As I said at the start of my speech, we will support it, and support the aim for the memorial to become a real place of peace and remembrance for the Grenfell community.
I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their work today to shepherd this important Bill through Second Reading. I also want to thank all hon. Members, who contributed thoughtful comments and points, as we strive to work across the House to see this memorial realised. I thank the hon. Members for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Harlow (Chris Vince) and for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin). As outlined earlier on, it is of great importance that the largest loss of life in a residential fire since the second world war is remembered with a fitting and lasting memorial. Built in a peaceful and appropriate way, according to the wishes of the survivors and the wider Grenfell community, the memorial will go some way towards helping the nation to remember the 72 people who lost their lives. But it is first and foremost a space for the Grenfell community. The avoidable national tragedy that was the Grenfell Tower fire must also be an unavoidable memory in this place. It is important that policymakers keep in mind the duty that we have to protect British citizens from failure, negligence and unsafe practices. As has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members, we must not forget to remind ourselves of the raw emotion that comes with the creation of this memorial space. Since the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), understandably announced the decision to dismantle Grenfell Tower just over a year ago in February 2025, we have heard of the distress that this news brought to some members of the Grenfell community. It is vital that, as the Government move closer to fully dismantling the Grenfell site, they continue to engage with the bereaved and all those affected to ensure that their voices are not just present but listened to and that their concerns, memories and experiences are understood. I have also raised the importance of this funding being protected. It is imperative that as the process to build and maintain the Grenfell Tower fire memorial progresses, the funding that has been promised and the means by which it can be preserved is also safeguarded. While our greatest duty is to build on the lessons of the failures that led to the catastrophic fires, it is also our sincere duty to uphold the promises made to the whole Grenfell community since that night. For that reason, as I mentioned earlier, the Conservative party will not seek to divide the House. If a Division is required, although that seems unlikely, we will vote to pass the Bill into law to ensure that the memorial is built. This memorial is not part of the technical and regulatory changes that had to come as a result of the fire, such as the Building Safety Act 2022, the cladding safety scheme and all the effort undertaken by the Government with specific regard to the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s findings. It is not possible, of course, to put right the disastrous wrong that occurred on 14 June 2017, but the memorial can help to appropriately commemorate it. We will, therefore, support the Bill.
I draw the House’s attention to my former role as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for defence technology. When I was at Sandhurst, when we would talk about punctuality, the colour sergeant would often say to us, “Three minutes early is two minutes late.” When it comes to the defence investment plan, it feels more like “on the bus, off the bus.” Can the Secretary of State confirm whether it will be published before the House rises on 26 March?
The Iranian regime will be carefully studying our actions here in the UK. Only last month, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials attended an Iran national day celebration hosted in London by the Iranian embassy. That was at precisely the same time that thousands of Iranians were being slaughtered on their own streets. Why were officials permitted to go to such an event? Who authorised it? Will officials be allowed to go to such events in the future?
I welcome the first tranche of documents being released. One of those documents—the due diligence checklist, “11-12-2024 Advice to the Prime Minister”—has an entire section about Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, yet on 4 February at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that “If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near Government.”—[Official Report, 4 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 258.] What additional information did the Prime Minister get to come to that conclusion?
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the changes to the GP contract in 2026-27.
The Health Secretary and his team have perfected the sales pitch for NHS reform. The problem is that the detail never seems to arrive. We have seen a 10-year health plan with no delivery chapter, and a plan for the abolition of NHS England with no price tag; the Health Secretary has announced 10 new “straight to test” referral pathways, but could not name a single one; and now we are seeing a new GP contract with more questions than answers. Calling something modernisation does not make it reform. If the rules and the delivery are unclear, it is simply confusion with branding. “Advice and guidance”, for example, appears in practice to create a single point of access for referrals. GPs will no longer be able to refer patients directly to a consultant, even when they believe that it is clinically appropriate. Will the Government publish the clinical evidence supporting that approach? Who will carry the legal responsibility if, in a GP’s professional judgment, a patient needs to see a consultant but must first go through “advice and guidance”? If advice and guidance becomes mandatory as an extra layer before referral, are the Government not, in essence, managing the waiting list by keeping patients in primary care rather than treating them in secondary care? Waiting lists will look shorter on paper, but patients are simply waiting elsewhere in the system. Can the Minister clarify exactly where those patients will appear in the official waiting list figures? The contract also requires patients whose cases are deemed “clinically urgent” to be dealt with on the same day, but it does not define “urgent” or explain what “dealt with” means, and that really matters. Let me therefore ask the Minister three clear questions. First, when will the Government publish the clinical definition of “urgent”—a patient’s sick note is urgent for the patient, but not clinically urgent—and what counts as a patient’s being “dealt with” on the same day? Secondly, the Minister has talked about access, but how can practices guarantee same-day responses when demand is uncapped and definitions are not published? Finally, with advice and guidance being required as a mandate beforehand, how will we ensure that patients are protected, and where will they appear on the waiting lists?
The problem with these sorts of scandals is that as time moves on, more and more people are tarnished by them. Last week, when the papers revealed that Mandelson received £75,000, I asked the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister whether the Government were worried about what he might say at an employment tribunal. He said, “That was not the rationale. The documents will speak for themselves.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 367.] Of course, the documents do speak for themselves. They say that part of the business case for the payout—which the Minister was aware of, because it was sent to him—was that “Given the reputational impact for HMG, a modest settlement as proposed is the recommended course of action”. They also say that “the individual has a high profile which could give rise to reputational damage to the FCDO and HMG were a court or tribunal claim to be pursued”, which is exactly what I suggested based on what was in the papers, but which the Minister denied was part of the reasoning. Does he want to apologise for inadvertently misleading the House, and does he agree that those papers show that the Government broke Treasury rules on how such payments should be made?