Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,731 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   Separation Centres Review

   I entirely agree with what the Justice Secretary says about the dangers of deception. It is also concerning to note that people are now trying to use a mental health argument to get out of separation centres, given that anyone who holds a fanatical Islamist, Nazi or revolutionary view from some other doctrine has, by definition, a mental health question mark over their personality. I appreciate that he may have to write to me afterwards, but can he indicate what proportion of people imprisoned for terrorist offences related to Islamism are in separation centres, and what proportion are in the rest of the prison estate? What is known about the number of other people who have been radicalised by Islamist extremist prisoners in those parts of the prison estate that are not separated out like the units with which he is primarily concerned today?

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2. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Whittingdale

   Iran

   Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee were told by the Iranian ambassador that 80% of the deaths were the responsibility of ISIS-style terrorists. Will the Minister continue to give every support to journalists, human rights activists, and all those who are seeking to uncover the evidence to demonstrate who in the Iranian regime is truly responsible for this and potentially to refer them to the International Criminal Court for prosecution?

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3. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Transport in the South-East

   That intervention tested my legendary patience to its very limits, so just bear that in mind in the future.

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4. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Transport in the South-East

   I hope this will be a pithy intervention.

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5. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Transport in the South-East

   Dr Chambers is showing how interventions should be done.

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6. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Transport in the South-East

   Order. I remind Members that they need to bob, although I can see that they know that already.

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7. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Transport in the South-East

   If Members speak for about six minutes each, everyone will get in. I am going to call the Front-Bench spokespeople at 3.30 pm, so Members should work on that basis.

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8. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Educational Outcomes: Disadvantaged Boys and Young Men

   We will now hear brief contributions from a couple of Back Benchers who have gone through the proper process and notified both the mover of the motion and the Minister.

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9. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Animals in Science Regulation Unit: Annual Report 2024

   Order. I remind hon. Members that they should bob, but I can see that four Members already know that.

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10. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Animals in Science Regulation Unit: Annual Report 2024

    I am renowned for my generosity in the Chair and I am extremely open minded about how debates are conducted, but it is not really appropriate to come in two thirds of the way through and intervene when everyone else took the trouble to get here at the beginning. We are all busy, after all.

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11. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Animals in Science Regulation Unit: Annual Report 2024

    The hon. Gentleman, the Minister and others might like to know that there is some evidence to suggest that bees can count. I speak as a beekeeper. Question put and agreed to. Resolved,  That this House has considered the Animals in Science Regulation Unit annual report 2024.

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12. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Changes to Jury Trials

    3. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his proposed changes to jury trials on the criminal justice system.

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13. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Changes to Jury Trials

    As you know, Mr Speaker, the age-old jury system connects the public to the exercise of law, and is therefore at the heart of popular consent for criminal justice. In abandoning this link, are the Government careless of the accountability that it brings, or are they driven wholly by thoughtless expediency? Are Ministers careless or thoughtless?

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14. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Edward Leigh

    Separation Centres Review

    I agree with everything the Justice Secretary says about making these places safer, but I have been reading the report from the prisons inspectorate, which said that although separation centres were generally safe, there was not enough skilled focus on deradicalisation. This is a highly complex area. Although I do not want to sound like a weak and washy liberal, we believe that prisons are about not just punishment but redemption. The Secretary of State may not be able to reply now, but could he write to me about what skilled psychological pressures we are using on these people to try to change their behaviour. There are many good Muslims who totally abhor violence whom we could perhaps involve in the process. Maybe I am being naive, but I think it is a question that needs to be asked.

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15. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    rose—

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16. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    rose—

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17. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    It appears that those 300,000 were in poverty a year ago, but the Secretary of State has allowed that to persist till now. What has changed? It is not the fiscal situation, and it is not any room in the benefits budget. This is the Labour equivalent of Project Save Big Dog, is it not?

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18. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    I have a question too.

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19. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    We now hear shouts of “cruelty” and “the rape clause”, but I see only one of the seven who were suspended sitting on the Labour Benches. The rest of them kept their heads down and voted to perpetuate what they now call cruelty and the rape clause. How do they sleep at night?

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20. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Prisoner Rehabilitation: Education and Training

    Next year, the Government will spend more money on education in prisons, yet they will actually commission 25% less education by way of quantity of service. Why are they doing such a poor job of commissioning education on behalf of the taxpayer?

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21. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    Twelve months ago, not only did the Government support the two-child cap, but they were busy suspending Labour Back Benchers who voted against it. Can the Secretary of State tell the House what it was about the Prime Minister’s weak position that caused him to change his mind?

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22. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    The benefits system is a safety net designed to support people in hardship, but a fair system must balance that with the needs of those who pay for it. Benefits are paid by the taxpayers of today or, if the money is borrowed, as is so often the case with this Government, by the taxpayers of tomorrow. Every time the cost of benefits rises, so does the burden on the taxpayer, and that cost is growing unsustainably. Spending on health and disability benefits alone is set to hit £100 billion a year by the end of the decade. It is a mark of Labour’s irresponsibility that it presents a Bill today to increase welfare spending further. I believe in personal responsibility. Not only should our country live within its means, but every individual and family should do so too. Many thousands of couples every year think about whether to have children. They make that choice based on a number of factors, but one of the most important is whether they can afford to bring up that child as they would like to. Those in receipt of benefits should face the same choices as those in work. That is why the Conservatives introduced the two-child benefit cap, and it is why I believe it should be retained. Under the pre-2017 system, there was a fundamental element of unfairness. A family in receipt of benefits saw them increase automatically every time they had another child. That was not true of a family not in receipt of benefits. Why should a taxpayer who has decided that they cannot afford more children subsidise the third, fourth or fifth child of someone not in work? I understand why Labour Members are in favour of more welfare spending. They stopped representing working people a long time ago, and they now want to create a society where more than half the population is dependent on the state to ensure their re-election. Why has the leader of Reform UK, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), supported scrapping the two-child cap until so very recently? Voters in my constituency, some even sympathetic to his cause, have been horrified. I think the answer is that he is chasing votes in the north of England, hoping to win support from former Labour voters. That instinct for higher spending shows that Reform UK is wholly unserious about governing our country. Britain needs a Government determined to deliver the changes we need: controlling public expenditure and reducing borrowing, leading to lower taxes and a stronger economy.

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23. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I was saying, he would know that I was describing the tactics of the hon. Member for Clacton. That, I believe, is what motivates his policy on this matter. The Government seem to be completely powerless to do anything to reverse the spiralling costs of the welfare state. The Prime Minister did, of course, try to produce a package of modest reforms last year. He set out to save £4.5 billion, but was forced into a humiliating U-turn and ended up spending more taxpayers’ money to buy off Labour rebels. He now says that his welfare reforms strike the “right balance”. Does anyone believe him? There is not a thought for the taxpayer, and not a thought about the extra debt that the Government are incurring and the interest that will have to be paid on it. Let me remind Labour Members that before the election, they said repeatedly that they would “not increase taxes on working people”. That was accompanied by a manifesto pledge that they would increase spending by £9.5 billion, but in the 18 months since they were elected, the Government have actually increased spending by £100 billion—10 times more than they promised. They have increased taxes by £66 billion, and borrowing by an extra £40 billion. This is what the Labour Government do best: spending other people’s money. It is in their DNA. They do not care about getting better value for the taxpayer; their only thought is about how to spend and borrow more, as if that were a sign of caring. I am proud to have a leader with the backbone to tell the truth to the British people. We need to reduce the size of the state so that it does less but does it better. We will reward people who do the right thing—who work hard, who save, who invest, who create jobs, and who build a more prosperous country for all of us.

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24. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

    Topical Questions

    I welcome the sale of Government land around HMP Wealstun. Were neighbouring residents given advance notice of the auction details so that they could express an interest?

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25. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

    Iran

    China has no regard for human rights whatsoever, and it is known to be trading with Iran, which is enabling Iran to slaughter its own citizens. What assessment is the Foreign Office making of the details of that trade, and what action is it taking?

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26. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    My hon. Friend’s comments provoke the question, is it a concern that the lack of flexibility for the Secretary of State will mean that there is no space for private sector companies in this role in the future? Ultimately, given the measures set out in the Bill, and that the opportunity to give access to other private businesses is entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State, it is potentially foreseeable that there could be no private involvement in the future, which would be a problem.

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27. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham said on amendments 46 to 50. I too am surprised that the Government are not seeking to enshrine the right to a veterans railcard on the face of the Bill. While it is laudable that they want to ensure that those long-fought-for discount fare schemes remain for young, elderly or disabled people, I believe that not making the veterans railcard a statutory discount is a backward step and will send a particularly strong message to that community, who we know are quite agitated by a lot of what is being done by this Government, particularly around the prosecution of veterans for previous conduct. Not to use this Bill as an opportunity to put this provision on the statute book is a retrograde step. I want to pay tribute to the former Member for Plymouth Moor View, Johnny Mercer, who drove putting the veterans railcard in place in the first place through the work of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. He said at the time that it underlined the “debt of gratitude” that we owe to our veterans. They are ultimately men and women who have fought hard for our country, and the opportunity to receive that discount in perpetuity—whether they have served one day or 100—is something that we should be proud of as a country and should seek to enshrine in legislation. The same goes for the opportunity for serving personnel to travel with their families. I will be very surprised if the Government vote against the amendment: that would send a very clear message to our veterans community that they are valued more greatly by the Conservatives than by Labour. Although I am sure there is no ill intent behind the omission of the veterans railcard in the Bill, we have to think about the messaging and the political point that is being made. It would be relatively easy to put the veterans railcard in law so that it cannot be changed in the future, and I would support that. As has been said, the Bill does not prevent it from being added later, but I wonder why we are not seeking to enshrine it in law now.

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28. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    I appreciate what the Minister is saying but, if that is the case, surely we should just remove the whole clause. If the Government do not seek to remove any discount schemes, why do they need three discount schemes, and none of the others, on the face of the Bill? It seems to me that there is a bit of a contradiction there.

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29. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    I appreciate the Minister’s reassurance that there will still be opportunities for people taking part in remembrance events. However, there are additional matters such as the poppy train, which comes up through the south-west with Great Western Railway. While such things may be worked through in conjunction with the Secretary of State, they are put on by a privately owned franchise rail company. Is the Minister effectively saying that it will be down to the individual business units to decide what happens within their railway scope, or will it be in guidance through the licence or something else? There are many things that have been provided by privately owned franchises that the Bill does not confirm will take place once the railways are state owned.

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30. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    It is worth reminding the Committee that the idea has also been used on a domestic route. Not that long ago GWR had a scheme with Nectar, and the points I accrued while travelling up and down to London for various engagements used to service me with a bottle of gin once a year. I am not necessarily saying that I support the hon. Gentleman’s new clause, but it is worth putting on the record the fact that it is not so farfetched an idea. It certainly made me use GWR’s app, even if I did not use anything else.

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31. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)

    It was Plymouth gin!

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32. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Trussell Trust was founded in this country in 2000, under a Labour Government, and that the Department for Work and Pensions did not recommend that it be offered as a solution to families in need at the time? It is one thing to talk about food banks, but it is important to ensure that we acknowledge when they were first set up in this country.

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33. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    Well, without having the statistics in front of me right this second—[Interruption.] No, let me finish. We had the global pandemic, when there was a huge need for food banks. In fact, it was the Conservative Government who invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in food banks to ensure that nobody went without. The council for which I was a cabinet member at the time used the funding from the Conservative Government directly to ensure that poverty did not increase over the covid pandemic. If numbers went up, we have to ensure that that fact is reflected.

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34. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    Will the hon. Member give way?

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35. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    No one has ever told me that they would adore to hear me speak in this place! I completely appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but I too have been doing some research while this debate has been going on. It is worth noting that those food bank numbers have increased because they only count Trussell Trust food banks, so the more food banks join the Trussell Trust network, the more those numbers go up. In my city, where, as I may have mentioned, I held the cost of living portfolio during the pandemic—[Interruption.] There’s no need to yawn! My city did not need the additional food bank that was set up, and it ended up having to send food away. If that food bank had joined the Trussell Trust, it would have added to those numbers and distorted the figures. While I am not saying that there might not have been an increase, I believe it is worth recognising that particular point.

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36. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    I will start by repeating something that the Secretary of State said at the start of the debate. He made much of the need to set against anger and division, so I am going to appeal to everyone’s better nature. Ultimately, the removal of the two-child limit was not in the Labour party’s manifesto, so until recently it was not something to which the Government had committed—in fact, it was ruled out by the Chancellor. I have sat through the entire debate and I have to say that it is a bit rich of Government Members to lecture us today, when in 2024 the limit was clearly good enough for the Labour party, including the current Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It is also worth pointing out that we keep hearing the figures 4.5 million and half a million. It seems that the removal of the two-child limit will reduce the 4.5 million people who the Government say are in poverty by just half a million. It will be interesting to hear the Minister comment on that. The debate has been caricatured as being rich Conservatives versus everyone else, but nothing could be further from the truth. We believe in a safety net, but we also believe in personal responsibility. Many of us on the Opposition Benches grew up on benefits. I am one of those people, and I was in fact worse off when the Labour Government came into power in 1997; they scrapped the child benefit and replaced it with working tax credit, and my mum supported my dad’s business and did not go to work in her own right while she raised her four children.[Official Report, 4 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 4WC.] (Correction) When I am asked why I am a Conservative, that is what I say—and I have checked that this afternoon to ensure that I am factually accurate. We are speaking up for those who work hard and have high bills, as well as housing and food costs, but who are paying tax because they do not qualify for universal credit. I want to make one final point before I come to the body of my speech. Lots has been said about free school meals this afternoon, but when I recently questioned the Department for Education on whether it has any record of the number of councils making the most of the auto-enrolment for free school meals, I was told that the Government do not have the figure. They might wish to go away and look at that. I absolutely appreciate that auto-enrolment helps the most vulnerable, but if the Government are not taking account of the levers in their hands to improve that system, then they need to do some work. Having done my bit of ad-libbing, I will make some progress with my speech. Fundamentally, maintaining the two-child limit is about fairness—fairness to working parents who do the right thing, fairness to working parents who make difficult choices and fairness for families who live within their means.

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37. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    No, I am going to make some progress. We are talking about men and women who are working long hours in shops, schools, offices, construction sites and care homes right across the country. Why should families in receipt of universal credit have to avoid the difficult decisions about how many children they can afford, unlike those who are not in receipt of it? Compassion is often framed in terms of supporting the most vulnerable, and rightly so—indeed, I have highlighted my own personal conviction on this in previous debates—but as one a colleague in my previous council career told me, “The left has no monopoly on compassion, Rebecca.” Compassion cuts both ways. We must remember the millions of hard-working families across the UK who are not on large salaries yet fall outside any thresholds for universal credit—the families who earn the same for going to work as their neighbours do on universal credit. It is unfair to these parents to make them bear a double cost: raising their own children and subsidising other people’s.

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38. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    No, I will not give way; I am going to make some progress. These mums and dads are the backbone of our economy, and we cannot afford to let them down. Scrapping the cap reduces incentives for parents to look for a job or work longer hours. Why would they bother going to work, or working more, when they could get more in benefits? A strong economy must provide incentive structures that help people to do the right thing, and we tamper with these fundamental structures at our own peril.

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39. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    I also speak for the 60% of the population who do not think we should be scrapping the cap. No doubt a large proportion of those people are also in my constituency. As Conservatives, we believe in personal responsibility and living within our means. Our welfare system should be a safety net for the most vulnerable, not a lifestyle choice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has argued so powerfully. As I have alluded to, it seems that we are not alone; that principle of fairness is echoed across the country, with a recent YouGov poll finding that 57% of respondents believe that the cap should be retained. The situation is particularly stark for self-employed mothers, who can only access statutory maternity allowance —a flat rate that falls far below what their peers can receive via their employer. I recently met one self-employed mother who told me that she is seriously weighing up whether to have a second child because she and her husband simply cannot afford it right now. This is a deeply personal dilemma, fraught with conflicting emotions. Equally, those not on benefits who have more children do not get paid more wages—they just have to absorb the extra costs within their budgets—so this idea that we need to give people more money because they have more children does not always make sense. However, this Government are determined to give families on universal credit a free pass; as a result, those families will not have to make those kinds of hard choices. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for 70% of the poorest households currently subject to the two-child limit, any money they stand to gain from the scrapping of the limit will get partially or fully wiped out by the household benefit cap. How do the Government square that circle when they have been quoting the headline figures for poverty? As has been raised numerous times today by Opposition Members, if Labour truly followed its own logic on child poverty, it would also need to scrap the household benefit cap, at even greater cost to the taxpayer. Conversely, 40% of those affected by the two-child limit will be exempt from the overall household benefit cap, because they have at least one claimant or child receiving health and disability benefits. This means that households with six children will get an additional £14,000 every single year. For larger families in particular, the financial gap between going to work and being out of work will shrink significantly. We are trapping good people in a bad system. Shockingly, one in four full-time workers would be better off on benefits than in work—that is 6 million workers across the UK whose neighbours on combined benefits are receiving more income than they are. It is no wonder that every day 5,000 people sign on to long-term sickness benefits. According to the Centre for Social Justice, a claimant who is receiving universal credit for ill health plus the average housing element and personal independence payment could receive the equivalent of a pre-tax salary of £30,100, and a family with three children receiving full benefits could get the equivalent of £71,000 pre-tax. How is this fairness? At best, scrapping the cap is a sticking plaster that does not tackle the root causes of poverty. We know that work is the best route out of poverty—in fact, if this Government hit their ambitious target of increasing employment rates by 80%, that could lift approximately the same number of children out of poverty as scrapping the two-child limit. Instead, this Bill will be yet another strain on our ballooning benefits budget. If it had been retained, the two-child limit would have saved the taxpayer £2.4 billion in 2026-27, rising to £3.2 billion in 2030-31. Instead, the bill is being passed on to all those families I have spoken about already.

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40. 3 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

    No, because I believe the hon. Gentleman’s Minister will want to have a fair share of time as well. When it comes to reforming welfare spending, the Prime Minister has shown extraordinary weakness of resolve. Scrapping the two-child cap is simply a political decision to placate his Back Benchers, costing taxpayers billions. It is unaffordable for a welfare system that is already on its knees, and damaging to the very work incentives his party promotes. Indeed, no one voted for it at the general election. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, “28 million people in Britain are now working to pay the wages and benefits of 28 million others. The rider is as big as the horse.” Let us look at this through the eyes of hard-working parents and individuals. Many of their businesses and workplaces are already being hit by Labour’s damaging tax rises. These are people with a work ethic—they willingly shoulder the burden of supporting their families without relying on the state—but their commitment to doing the right thing is being thrown back in their face. The Conservatives are the only party truly standing by hard-working families. We are the only party serious about bringing the welfare bill under control and protecting taxpayers from yet more unavoidable costs. Keeping the cap is about fairness, responsibility and respect for the sacrifices that parents make every single day. To scrap it flies in the face of that.

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