Firearms Licensing
Will the Minister give way?
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,731 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Firearms Licensing
I am interested to understand why this consultation is before the public. It goes against the grain of the Law Commission’s 2015 report and the coroner’s report, which contained no such recommendation. Would the Minister also mind answering my question on fireworks? Fireworks are licensed, too, so why are the Government not willing to explore tougher fireworks regulation, given that in 2023 there were 35 deaths associated with firework usage?
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Antisemitism
I recently had the privilege of spending some time with the Jewish community of Stamford Hill. Those conversations reinforced that we must, as the Minister rightly said, do more to combat antisemitism. She cited the recent figures showing that antisemitism is at near record levels. When in government, we put in place the first multi-year funding for the Community Security Trust, and I thank the Government for recently extending and increasing that funding. Will the Minister join me in thanking CST volunteers and agree that anti-religious hatred has no place in our society?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
Schools right across my constituency already have inclusion bases, but often there is already tension between the schools and the parents, who want better support through EHCPs, which they are having to wait for. What is the Secretary of State’s thinking on ensuring that the relationship between schools and parents remains strong, and that we do not inadvertently pit parents against teachers, given the new role that schools will play?
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I will speak in part to amendments 1 and 2, although we will not vote on them this evening. Essentially, I am speaking because we do not believe that scrapping the two-child limit and lifting it in this way is the way to tackle child poverty. When the Conservatives introduced the two-child limit in 2017, we did so for one simple reason: fairness. We believed then, as we do now, that people on benefits should face the same financial choices about having children as those supporting themselves solely through work. Nine years later, we stand by that principle. The welfare state should be a safety net for people in genuine need, yet too many people feel that the welfare system has drifted from its original purpose. They see a system that rewards dependency while working families and individuals shoulder the tax burden. The two-child limit is a way of saying that work should pay, that taking responsibility should matter and that the system should stand with those who pull their weight.
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
We know that poverty decreased under the last Government; I will make some progress. True compassion for families in poverty means offering sustainable solutions, not just sticking plasters. We need to tackle the root causes of poverty, rather than masking the symptoms. That means dealing with structural issues that damage children’s life chances, rather than simply handing out more cash to families. It is worth noting that the two-child limit has had no significant negative effects on school readiness for third and subsequent children in England. School readiness is the cornerstone metric of the Government’s opportunity mission. Labour and other opponents may criticise the cap for all sorts of reasons, but scrapping it will not be a cost-effective way of improving children’s educational development. In terms of holistic solutions, we know that work is the single most transformative route out of poverty. Work provides stability, self-respect and the crucial stepping stones to a better future. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that families on universal credit can access meaningful employment. As I have said before, children in long-term workless households are four times more likely to be materially deprived, and they are 10% more likely to end up workless themselves. When we were in government, Conservatives oversaw a consistent reduction in the number of children in workless households, yet under Labour that number has reached a nine-year high: there are now 1.2 million children living in homes where no parent has worked for over a year. Without a working parent at home, children miss out on seeing the rhythms and rewards of working life—the morning alarm, the daily routine, the pride of earning a wage and the discipline of saving up for things that matter. This Government seem bent on disincentivising work and destroying jobs.
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which provides me with a great opportunity to say something that I realised again while preparing for this debate. We know that lots of working people claim universal credit, but what we do not know is how many hours those people work, which would enable us to ascertain how many of them are full-time workers and how many are part-time workers. Of course, if they are full-time workers, there is one argument to be made, but if—as I would assume—the vast majority are part-time workers, we need to be encouraging them to work more hours. Later in my speech, I am going to get to a point where this is a problem, given all the other passported benefits that they get once they are entitled to universal credit. How can it be fair to expect working parents to subsidise other families’ decisions that lie beyond their own financial reach? We also must not forget the single people whose household overheads are higher than in dual-income households. In 2024, there were 8.4 million people living alone in the UK—nearly 30% of households. They, too, should not be saddled with the extra tax burden that scrapping the two-child limit will inevitably create. This Labour Government prefer handouts to hard choices. Giving away cash will always be more popular than exercising fiscal responsibility—the Back Benchers like it, and the left-wing think-tanks like it. The families who will get thousands more pounds every year like it, and who can blame them? Spending other people’s money is an easy way for the Government to feel good about themselves, but that money must come from somewhere. This Government are only pretending that they can afford to scrap the cap; originally, they said that doing so was unaffordable. That is true—the cost of this policy will be about £3.5 billion—but instead of sticking to his guns, our Prime Minister has capitulated to his Back Benchers. It requires backbone to bring the welfare budget under control, and backbone is exactly what Labour lacks. In contrast, previous Conservative Governments did indeed control spending; until the pandemic, spending on working-age welfare fell in real terms. That is why we have committed to save £23 billion. We will crack down on the abuse of Motability, we will stop handing out benefits to foreign nationals—because citizenship should mean something—and we will stop giving benefits to people with low-level mental health problems, to ensure that we can target support to the people who need it most. Under Labour, the overall benefits bill continues to balloon. By the end of this decade, health and disability benefits alone are set to reach £100 billion—I did read that right. Scrapping the cap is fiscally irresponsible and Labour knows it. This Bill will only increase the tax burden on hard-working men and women whose household budgets are already being stretched to the limit.
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Of course how we care for the most vulnerable is the mark of our society, but as Conservatives we do not believe that it is simply about trying to lift them up by giving them extra cash. All we are doing is changing the relative poverty measure; we are not suddenly lifting all these people out of poverty because we are giving them more money. We do not know what they are going to spend that money on. What we need to do is spend the money not on sticking plasters, but on putting things in place that actually have a systemic impact. We need to bring people from long-term poverty into a long-term position in which they can afford what they need. Inflation has soared to nearly twice as high a level as when this Government entered office. Food prices are rising. Utility bills are rising. Even the cost of relaxing at the pub with a beer is rising. We cannot lift children out of poverty by making the whole country poorer, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has argued so persuasively. When inflation rises, spending power falls. The money people earn buys less, because each pound is worth less than before; indeed, the money people receive on benefits is also worth less because of inflation. Families feel it at the checkout, at the petrol station and with every bill that drops through the door. Inflation not only squeezes families’ budgets, but narrows their choices. With the cost of everyday essentials continuing to climb, many working families are being forced to delay or even abandon plans for another child. Scrapping the two-child cap gives families on benefits a choice that many working households can no longer dream of: the ability to grow their family without facing financial choices. This unfairness erodes trust in our social contract. The social contract is an implicit agreement between citizens and the state that gives the state its legitimacy. People work and pay their taxes; in return, they trust the state to step in if they fall on hard times. They trust the state to spend their taxes responsibly on their behalf, but the welfare system has become totally lopsided. Over half the households in this country now receive more from the state than they pay into it. Taxpayers are supporting a system larger than themselves. Scrapping the two-child limit will further exacerbate the imbalance. The problem does not stop there. There is an entire shadow system working alongside universal credit. As I have mentioned, passported benefits are costing the taxpayer £10 billion every single year. They include healthy food cards, discounted broadband and free prescriptions. Together, they distort work incentives, leading to a cliff-edge denial of entitlements when a claimant comes off universal credit. Many parents want to work, but are better off remaining on benefits once they factor in their loss of eligibility for those extra entitlements. Yet again, they have been let down by a system that should be supporting them into work, not trapping them on benefits.
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I am not particularly well today, so the right hon. Lady will forgive me if my memory is foggier than normal. That is why I am wearing my glasses, and it is why I am struggling not to cough throughout this debate. I am happy to have a conversation with her afterwards, but testing me on those sorts of things at this particular time is perhaps not the kindest thing to do. The two-child limit is about basic fairness to working parents—the very people whose taxes fund our welfare system. They are already making tough decisions about the size of their own families, and we cannot exempt people on benefits from those hard choices. Scrapping the cap is a direct insult to the working families on whom this country relies. The Government should remember the case that they once made for keeping the cap. When the Prime Minister suspended seven of his own MPs in 2024 for voting to scrap it, he did so on the basis that the policy was simply too expensive. He has now bowed to pressure from his Back Benchers, but nothing has changed—it is still unaffordable. Why are this Government preparing to spend billions by removing the two-child limit, when they cannot even get a grip on rising unemployment? We should be expanding real routes into work, not deepening incentives to remain on benefits.
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I have been wanting to mention this point throughout the debate, but I have not had the right opportunity. Obviously a large number of these new clauses look at reporting back. I appreciate that the child poverty strategy involves a lot of reporting back, but is the Minister aware that the Department for Education does not yet have the records of which local councils have taken up auto-enrolment for free school meals? While the child poverty strategy has introduced universal breakfast clubs, there is no matrix to be able to decipher whether auto-enrolment for free school meals is working. In some cases, such as in the county that I represent, that has meant a significant amount of money for those local authorities deliberately to try to tackle poverty. Will he look into tackling that?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The key concern I hear from parents and carers in Reigate, Redhill, Banstead and our villages is that they fought for years, or are still fighting, to get support. Can the Education Secretary reassure my constituents that they will not lose the hard-fought-for support that they are entitled to?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
Before we come to the statement from the Secretary of State for Education, I must once again note Mr Speaker’s disappointment about briefing to the media before important announcements are brought to this House, given the Government’s own rules in their ministerial code. As the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recently stated, “making the most important statements in the first instance to Parliament means doing so before they are made to the media and not at the first available opportunity thereafter.” The Government need to either adhere to their own rules or change them.
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I call the Mother of the House.
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I call the Chair of the Education Committee.
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
Order. Can we have much shorter questions, please?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
We are under huge time pressure—there is another statement to come, and then two items of protected business—so not everybody will get in. Please keep questions short—and keep answers just as short, Secretary of State.
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New Social and Affordable Housing
As the House will know, local plans are the method by which we can identify affordable homes and make sure that they are built in the right place at the right time. Since I was elected back in December 2019, I have consistently asked the Liberal Democrat Three Rivers district council to get on with the local plan. However, as the Housing Minister will know, the latest version of that plan did not have sufficient evidence. He has therefore rightly called it in. Does he agree that the Lib Dems need to get on with delivering the local plan and that they should not continue to fail my residents in South West Hertfordshire?
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Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address
I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for the statement, which we received at 3.38 pm. I gently suggest to him that the 45 minutes referred to in the ministerial code is a minimum, rather than a target. On 4 February, this House voted, cross party, for a Humble Address to be presented. That is not a polite suggestion; it is a formal command from Parliament to the Executive, but three weeks later, the Government have moved with the urgency of a tired sloth on a bank holiday Monday. Before the recess, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) sent a comprehensive list of questions to the Cabinet Office. He received nothing back—not a letter, not a postcard, not even an out-of-office reply, so let us try for some verbal clarity today. The Prime Minister previously staked the integrity of this process on the personal oversight of the Cabinet Secretary—and then he sacked him. Has the change in Cabinet Secretary caused a scoping delay, or are the Government simply using the handover as convenient long grass to kick this into? Reports suggest that a secret investigation into Lord Mandelson’s conduct took place last September. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar asked about this on the Floor of the House, and again in writing, but there has been silence. Can the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister tell us if that report exists? If so, who wrote it, and will the Government stop playing hide-and-seek and publish it? The Government call this an urgent review, yet the terms of reference remain as elusive as a coherent Treasury forecast. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward) promised my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar in the debate on 4 February that he would write with answers, yet there is still nothing. Can the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister tell us whether the scope includes the £241 million Ministry of Defence contract awarded to Palantir following Lord Mandelson’s off-diary meetings? Does it cover Global Counsel? Or are we looking only at bits of the noble Lord’s Rolodex that are not politically explosive? The Intelligence and Security Committee is being asked to help, yet its secretariat consists of Cabinet Office civil servants. As the ISC itself warned last May, an oversight body should not be beholden to the very organisation it is supposed to be overseeing. If this is a genuine audit, what steps are being taken to ensure that the committee can operate without conflicts of interest, when Cabinet Office staff are considering material that relates directly to decisions taken by the Cabinet Office itself? Mr Speaker, you could not have been clearer: “the police cannot dictate to this House.”—[Official Report, 4 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 375.] Yet the Government remain coy about the legal basis for withholding documents. We need an unequivocal commitment today that once the police are finished, every withheld page will be published—no excuses, and no redactions by stealth—and that in the meantime, any documents that are withheld from publication at the request of the police are handed to the ISC immediately, as you indicated after the debate, Mr Speaker. Finally, will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister commit to a Keeling-style register of all withheld documents? If the Government have nothing to hide, they should have no problem listing exactly what they are keeping from us, and why. The Opposition have acted in good faith. We have been patient, but careful work must not become a euphemism for managed delay. This House gave a constitutional instruction on 4 February. It is time the Government stopped treating Parliament like an inconvenient interruption to their schedule, stopped giving every impression that their priority is working out whose back to cover, and started providing some actual answers, so that we can start to get to the bottom of this murky matter.
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Firearms Licensing
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for so ably bringing forward this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, as well as the more than 121,000 people who signed the petition. It is clear from the turnout in the Chamber and the many valuable points made that the measures proposed are important and will have huge consequences for rural communities. A number of Members have been incredibly active in lobbying the Government on the issue, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns)—not known for being quiet, let’s be honest—who has been unable to contribute to the debate due to her shadow role. She is determined to ensure that the Minister knows about the impact on her constituents in the real world. Public safety must always be the first duty of any Government, but when we legislate, particularly in an area as serious as firearms, we must ensure that what we do is proportionate, evidence-led and genuinely effective. If we are to change the law, we must be able to demonstrate clearly that those changes will actually make the public safer. Many such changes have been set out today, but the Government’s proposal is not one of them. The tragic cases that we have heard about in this debate are heartbreaking, and our thoughts remain with all those affected. Where there have been failings in the licensing system, and where improvements are needed, the Government must act. That is why previous changes were made following instances involving shotguns. It is also why the previous Conservative Government committed £500,000 to support the roll-out of a national training package developed by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council in an effort to strengthen firearms licensing standards. Standards matter, as the Home Office has repeatedly made clear. The UK already operates one of the strictest and most effective firearms licensing systems in the world. Between April 2024 and March 2025, there were 522 homicides. Of those, 32 involved a firearm, but just four involved a licensed firearm—the same figure as in 2023-24. Every loss of life is a tragedy, but the data shows that licensed firearms account for a very small proportion of those crimes. The National Crime Agency’s 2025 report confirms that firearms crimes in the UK remain among the lowest in the world. That is not a reason for complacency—far from it. We have seen recent reporting highlighting the growing threat of more powerful weapons being smuggled into the country. That underlines the importance of robust enforcement against illegal firearms. It does not automatically follow that additional burdens on lawful, licensed owners will address that threat. In fact, as has been pointed out, it perhaps illustrates the better use of targeted resource. The question raised by the petition is whether merging section 1 and section 2 licensing will actually improve public safety or simply create more cost, delay and bureaucracy without delivering meaningful benefit. When the policy was first announced, the Government said that a consultation would be published by the end of 2025. Can the Minister confirm when that consultation will be finished and give assurances that the voices of rural communities and shooting organisations will be properly heard? There is significant concern about the proposal among those groups, including the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Countryside Alliance, which have raised these issues directly with the Minister. Section 2 licensing, while distinct from section 1, is not lax. It involves robust checks and safeguards that are integral to protecting the public. The petition does not call for weaker rules, it calls for properly maintaining the current prudent framework. Shotguns and rifles are different, and Parliament has long recognised that distinction in law. The regulatory framework reflects differences in use, function and risk. If the Government now wish to remove that distinction, then they must explain clearly how doing so will enhance public safety in a way that is propionate to the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding shotgun owners who will be affected. We should also recognise that, for many, shooting is a legitimate and long-standing sport. If aligning the regimes increases cost, complexity and delay then the reality is that entry-level access will become harder. That risks pricing out younger participants and those from ordinary working families, making the sport less accessible at the grassroots level. The likely outcome of such a change will be fewer shotguns in lawful use. That will not be without consequence. In rural communities, shotguns are not simply a sport or leisure item, they are tools of work. Farmers and pest controllers rely on them. Wildlife management and conservation efforts are closely tied to responsible shooting activity. Surveys show that habitat management and conservation linked to shooting cover millions of hectares. Ground-nesting species such as curlew and lapwing are often cited as examples of wildlife that benefit from such management. We must also consider the wider economic impact. Research cited by the Gun Trade Association estimates that aligning the regimes could reduce gross value added in the UK shooting sector by £875 million, with a broader impact of over £2 billion across the wider economy. Protecting the economy carries costs, but those costs must be justified by clear, demonstrable gains in safety. There is also a practical point: the firearms licensing system is already under strain. Data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council shows that many forces struggle to meet service level agreements, even after the recent fees increase. A January 2026 inspection by His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services found “significant backlogs” in some collaborative licensing units, including cases outstanding for more than two years. Adding further complexity risks compounding those delays and placing additional burdens on our already stretched police forces. Some have suggested a compromise: that any merger should not proceed until the licensing system is demonstrably efficient and effective. Given that the Government have also floated broader reforms—including possible centralisation of firearms licensing—is there not merit in ensuring the system works properly before imposing any further structural change? There is fear that moving shotguns from section 2 to section 1 will disproportionately impact rural communities and law-abiding citizens who use their shotguns responsibly. Our firearms legislation has helped keep Britain safe. It must remain robust and prevent those who pose a danger from accessing weapons. However, it must also be proportionate, workable and grounded in evidence. At present, I have yet to see clear and compelling evidence that this proposed alignment would deliver any level of additional public safety that justifies the costs, disruption and impact on rural Britain. Public safety must be strengthened by evidence, not weakened by unnecessary and disproportionate bureaucracy. If the Government cannot clearly demonstrate that this proposal will make the public safer, then they should not proceed with the delays, costs and bureaucracy that it will create.
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Firearms Licensing
I should alert Members that I am the chairman of the British Shooting Sports Council. On that point about mental health issues, does the hon. Gentleman agree that medical markers on doctors’ records would be a perfect solution to that problem, rather than necessarily doing what is proposed in the petition?
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Draft Caribbean Development Bank (Eleventh Replenishment of the Special Development Fund (Unified)) Order 2026
Can the Minister tell us who the largest donor will be?
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Topical Questions
Last year, 88,000 new homes were meant to be started in London, but instead, 5,891 were started. That shortfall has a direct impact on rents in my Spelthorne constituency. Will the Secretary of State say why he is allowing Sadiq Khan to run circles around him?
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Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review
Why don’t you mansplain it to her?
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Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review
As of today, what services—if any—is Labour Together providing either to the Labour party or to the Government?
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Local Government Reorganisation
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. He mentioned Surrey, and he will know that my constituency is going to be in a unitary authority called West Surrey. I have received a huge number of representations from constituents who would like the Secretary of State to consider calling that unitary authority West Surrey and South Middlesex, to take account of the fact that Spelthorne has been in Middlesex for 1,000 years and has never really thought of itself as being in Surrey. Will the Secretary of State meet me, so that I can make further representations on my constituents’ behalf?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
The SEND system needs urgent and serious reform. Families I speak to in Broxbourne have been battling against an unfair funding formula that sees pupils get thousands of pounds less than elsewhere in the country. Will the Secretary of State reassure me and my constituents that historical demand will no longer be a factor in allocating funding, so that the system is truly fair for every child?
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Local Government Reorganisation
Having decided that elections should go ahead after all, will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Conservative-run Broxbourne council on defending democracy from day one and never once considering delaying its elections? Will he confirm that this Labour Government will not use the same tactics to delay the next general election?
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Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement, and her officials and advisers for briefing me over the weekend. I pay tribute to those who have pulled together a 300-page document, which I will now attempt to scrutinise in the five minutes that I have available to me today. I turn first to SEND. The principles of more support in schools, evidence-led packages, early intervention, and more speech and language therapists are welcome, but despite the 300 pages there is still much that we do not know. We do not know exactly how children will qualify for an EHCP in the future, and no clear eligibility criteria for the so-called specialist provision are set out. There will be around seven packages of support when someone gets an EHCP, but we are not told what these packages of support are, how people qualify for them or how much money will be associated with each. That makes it quite difficult to judge how effective the new system will be, let alone legislate for it. Many questions also spring from the individual support plans, or ISPs, which will take place in schools. It is not clear from the document what will trigger an ISP, nor the funding that will be associated with it. At the moment, schools generally have to cover the first £6,000 of support before an EHCP is triggered. What will be the new threshold for schools to cover? On funding, I note the £1.6 billion pot for inclusive mainstream provision over three years, which equates to £24,000 per year per school if divided evenly across every school in England. That is nowhere near enough for the extra work that schools will have to cover to write individually tailored ISPs for every SEND child. This is a mammoth burden to place on schools—one that I do not necessarily think is misplaced, but £24,000 a year is not enough to help them manage it. It is not a recipe for inclusion, but a recipe for disaster. Can the Education Secretary tell schools what additional funding will be available to help them hire extra SENCO support to help them deal with these pressures? Unbelievably, the workforce plan for 6,500 teachers—incidentally, it will not deliver 6,500 more teachers—says nothing about special educational needs provision within the workforce, perhaps because it tries to ignore primary schools altogether. On wider funding, the Government have still not said how the £6 billion black hole in SEND funding, identified by the Office for Budget Responsibility, will be filled. The latest I read today in the Financial Times is that the money will come from councils. Would the right hon. Lady care to confirm that? Are the funding pots announced today new money, or will they be coming from the Department’s existing overall budget? Has the DFE’s budget expanded beyond what was set out at the spending review at the Budget, and if so, by how much? Will these reforms save money, and if so, over what time period? Lastly on SEND, Ministers repeatedly failed over the weekend to give clarity on reassessments, so I will give the right hon. Lady one more opportunity. Will she rule out any child who currently has an EHCP having it removed—yes or no? Turning to the wider schools issue, we have the absurdity of a White Paper saying that trusts will be the main driver of system-led improvement, but the Department proposing, in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to remove the academy order by which underperforming schools are taken over by trusts. Either trusts are a driver for improvement of schools or they are not. I think they very much are a driver, and it seems the Education Secretary now agrees, so will she, with the zeal of a convert, disavow her earlier sins and reinstate the academy order? On that theme, the White Paper says: “Our best school trusts…innovate and drive excellence in standards”. Well, they used to be able to do that, but the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill takes away their ability to innovate in the curriculum, on who they employ, on the terms and conditions of employment, and even on uniforms. Again, I am delighted by the turnaround from the Education Secretary, but I ask that that is reflected in the legislation she is putting through the House. I fundamentally disagree with the proposal in the White Paper to emphasise inclusion when it comes to suspensions and exclusions. That is the wrong approach. If a pupil is behaving in a way that makes fellow pupils or a teacher unsafe, it is utterly wrong to hesitate to exclude because of inclusion. When pressure is put on schools not to exclude, we have seen tragic cases of how wrong it can go, such as that of Harvey Willgoose, and we must not make the same mistake again. There is much more to cover—funding reform, admission codes and work I would actually praise such as on maternity pay—but I dare not risk your wrath, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I close by saying that we support the principle of reform, but there is precious little clarity for SEND parents today.
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Firearms Licensing
My hon. Friend is making some important points. We must have an eye, as the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) said, for the overall lethality of the population of firearms. Will my hon. Friend reflect on whether we are in a “careful what you wish for” situation? I am a shotgun certificate holder and an owner of a shotgun. If I am forced to go through the procedure to effectively get a firearms licence, I am much more likely to acquire a firearm, so although the number of shotguns out there might fall, the number of rifles, and therefore the overall lethality of the population of firearms, might actually rise.
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Firearms Licensing
My hon. Friend is making a strong point about the administrative burden, but does he agree that the most burdensome element would probably be the restrictions placed on ammunition? In particular, individual licence holders would have a limit on the amount of ammunition they could own at any one time. I think something like 250 million cartridges are sold every year in the UK, and that would all have to be recorded and auditable; there would have to be an audit trail and probably an inspection regime to ensure that people were not buying or acquiring more than their limit. The administration of that would involve enormous numbers of people and probably result in the end in the acquisition of a huge computer system at vast cost, just to track something that is not at the moment identified as a problem.
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Firearms Licensing
My hon. Friend is giving us a fascinating perspective on the statistics, but if the Government were interested in reducing the overall harm from firearms, does he not think that there would be greater benefit from taking all the police effort that we acknowledge would go into the enforcement of this wider regime, and focusing it on those firearms that are more likely to be used in crime? If smuggled handguns, converted antiques or replicas, and blank-firing guns that are brought in illegally were enforced against, would it not have a bigger impact on harm than this measure? My hon. Friend has spoken to the tiny number of incidents involved.
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Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address
We must see the documents that pertain to the appointment of Peter Mandelson. Given that any member of the public could have told the Government that Mandelson was dodgy, it seems amazing that the Prime Minister requested that this vetting happen in the first place. This is not a question of process; it is a matter of judgment. Does the Chief Secretary believe that these documents will reveal why the Prime Minister’s judgment is consistently so poor?
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Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
I will speak in support of amendments 1 and 2, tabled by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). One of the most basic principles of any successful society is that those who work hard are able to reap the rewards, yet under this Government, millions of families are being squeezed by high tax rates, rising prices and increasing energy bills. They are not working any less hard, but many of them are ending up with less money at the end of the month, every month. That is less money to spend on day-to-day essentials, and less money to save for a house, a holiday, a birthday present or a school trip for their children. Those are the real-life consequences of this Government’s decisions. Many of those families see their money taken by the Government and wasted, or spent on those who choose not to work. A recent study suggested that once the cap is lifted, a family with three children in which both parents work would need to earn £71,000 to match the income of a three-child family in which neither parent works. How can it be right that one couple can wake up early every day, go to work and perhaps even take extra hours at their job, and end up with the same amount of money as their neighbours who do not work at all? It is their money that will pay for those who do not work. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor know that, but they are choosing to lift the two-child cap anyway. That is a disgraceful way to treat millions of people across the country who are doing everything they are supposed to do and are being punished for it.
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Firearms Licensing
A farmer in my constituency who runs a shoot in Hedgerley has told me repeatedly that, if the legislation goes through, he will lose his family-run farm business. This proposal will put him, and many other farmers who run shoots that have kept them viable, out of business. Does the hon. Member agree that the legislation is not the way forward?
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Firearms Licensing
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee and the manner in which he did so, in a very measured speech. I acknowledge the deeply emotive and tragic cases that have been raised in wider debate on this issue and which are perhaps the motivation for the changes proposed by the Government. These incidents shock us all, and I know that the thoughts of everyone in the House are with those affected by gun crime. I thank the more than 400 people in the Scottish Borders, among 120,000 people across the United Kingdom, who signed the petition. I also thank the many constituents who contacted me to express their concerns about these proposals, including Paul Allison and Rob Pile, both from Hawick, Jeremy Bidie from Lilliesleaf and Mary McCallum from Lauder. The Government’s proposal to merge sections 1 and 2 firearms licensing has caused deep concern in our rural communities. Shooting is worth £3.3 billion to the UK economy and generates 67,000 full-time jobs, many in my constituency on the Scottish Borders. The proposal would represent one of the most significant shifts affecting countryside industries in decades and, most important, it would not make people feel safer. The UK already has one of the most effective and strictest systems of firearms licensing in the world. Between April 2024 and March 2025, only four homicide cases involved a licensed firearm—a similar number to the previous year. Sadly, in many of the cases that I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will raise today, the proposed change would not have prevented tragedy; however, it would have a significant impact on those such as farmers, land managers and pest controllers, who require a shotgun for their job. It could even affect clay pigeon shooting, which is an activity enjoyed by many who do not even consider themselves to be shooters or part of rural industry. It would also have a negative impact on gun shops—businesses whose expertise ensures that firearms are sold only to those legally permitted to possess them. Furthermore, plans to merge sections 1 and 2 firearms licensing would place an even greater burden on our already overstretched police forces.
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Firearms Licensing
The hon. Lady makes an important point, which nicely leads into my next point. Poorly resourced police forces could be overwhelmed, and might even refuse to accept new applications, which happened in Gloucestershire in 2024. That would have a significant impact on people who rely on firearms for their job and livelihood. I am afraid that this is an example of the Government not really understanding how rural communities work.
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Firearms Licensing
That is absolutely right. I do not know the club in question, but that is the same point that many of my constituents and others have made as part of the debate on this proposal. If the Government wish to improve public safety, I encourage them to accept the proposal for mandatory medical markers, which is backed by organisations such as BASC. They would ensure that medical concerns are identified as they arise, rather than waiting for licence renewal. That proposal has cross-party and industry support, yet the Government have rejected it. However well intentioned, the Government’s proposals would not improve public safety, but would simply harm our rural communities and the hundreds of thousands of people who use shotguns lawfully.