5,750 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

   Engagements

   The Prime Minister has now twice directly contradicted the words of his Security Minister. They cannot both be right. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee could not get any answers from the Security Minister. The CPS said that it was satisfied that the decision to charge the case in April 2024—not August—was correct on the basis of where the law stood at that time. This is a matter of fact, not a matter of what the previous Government had thought, or of the case not meeting a legal test—it did. Something must have changed when the charges were brought and when the case collapsed. The charges were brought under the Conservatives and collapsed under Labour. Will the Prime Minister tell us what changed, and what collapsed the case?

   Hansard source
2. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

   Engagements

   The CPS has said in the clearest terms that this prosecution was dropped because this Government did not provide the statements it expected. Why should we believe a man who at the last Prime Minister’s questions said that he had full confidence in the best friend of a convicted paedophile? Forgive us if we do not trust a word he says. This all stinks of a cover up. Given his statement earlier, will the Prime Minister publish today not just the Government witness statements, but also the meeting minutes, and all the correspondence that he had with the CPS?

   Hansard source
3. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

   Engagements

   Mr Speaker, you deserve better, and this House deserves better, than the evasive answers that we have had from the Prime Minister. Even the former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler has accused the Government of being “economical with the truth” on this issue. The Prime Minister cannot tell us why Jonathan Powell had a secret meeting, when the Security Minister said he had no involvement the case. He cannot tell us why his Government did not provide evidence that China was a threat, and I suspect that the statements will not prove that either. He is blaming his civil servants, the media and the last Government. He cannot explain why he could not see this case through. He should have seen this case through. Let me be clear about what has happened: a serious case involving national security has collapsed because this Government are too weak to stand up to China. If the Prime Minister cannot protect the Members of this House, what does that say about his ability to protect this country?

   Hansard source
4. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mr Peter Bedford

   Engagements

   Q3. Business confidence has fallen for five consecutive quarters, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has said that there are significant concerns in the housing market. The Prime Minister could inject some confidence back into the economy, he could help working families to get on to the housing ladder, and he could even simplify the tax affairs of his Cabinet if he adopted the policy advocated by the Leader of the Opposition of scrapping stamp duty on residential properties. Will he at least give a commitment not to raise property taxes in his nightmare-before-Christmas Budget?

   Hansard source
5. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mike Wood

   UK Internal Market

   On 26 November last year, the Health Secretary assured this House that the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will apply in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State will know that the age-based sales ban affects the placement of tobacco products on the market and so is potentially in breach of the EU’s tobacco products directive, so can the Secretary of State repeat the Health Secretary’s assurance and also tell us whether the Government have confirmed with the European Union that the ban will stand in Northern Ireland?

   Hansard source
6. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Mike Wood

   Jhoots Pharmacy

   The failure of Jhoots is putting unsustainable pressure on other pharmacies across my constituency, but talks have not even begun on pharmacy funding beyond March of next year. Given the urgent situation with Jhoots, will the Minister review the timescale for those talks so that our pharmacies that are having to pick up this extra work can have some certainty about future funding?

   Hansard source
7. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Matt Vickers

   Knife Crime

   Thank you for chairing this debate, Ms McVey, and I offer my condolences and pay tribute to those whose lives have been tragically lost as a result of knife crime. We recently saw the tragic dangers posed by knife crime during the appalling terrorist attack at Heaton Park, and I offer my condolences to the victims of that cowardly attack. As has been said, today marks four years since the death of the great Sir David Amess, whose family I am sure will be in all our thoughts. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate, for his ongoing work to highlight the impact of knife crime, and for his straight-talking common-sense efforts in this place. Crimes involving knives are devastating. The lives lost, and the crimes committed using those weapons, scar our society. Given the Government’s ambition to reduce knife crime by half, I look forward to hearing what the new Minister has to say about the methods they intend to use to reach that ambitious target, which we would all like to see achieved. Under the last Government the headline rate of crime, excluding fraud and computing misuse, dropped by more than 50%, showing that such reductions in crime are possible. As shadow Minister in the Crime and Policing Bill Committee, I listened carefully to the proposals put forward by the Government. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will welcome the Government bringing forward further proposals that could deliver reductions in such crime even more swiftly. Although the number of hospital admissions related to knife crime has declined from its peak, it remains far too high. That problem is further exacerbated by the concentration of offences in hotspots: the crime survey for England and Wales from March this year shows that the Metropolitan police service area accounted for 31% of all offences, West Midlands police recorded 8%, and Greater Manchester 6%. The Met police recorded a staggering 9% increase, and data up to December 2024 shows that London accounts for 45.9% of all knifepoint robberies in England, despite having only 15.5% of the population. The Government must take further targeted action to address the situation. Over the past decade, steps have been taken, from banning knives to legislating for the serious violence duty and the role of violence reduction units, and violence against the person has decreased significantly since 2010, but knife crime remains far too high. I welcome measures in the Crime and Policing Bill that replicate the proposals in the Criminal Justice Bill for more stringent rules on knife possession and expanded police powers. Increasing the penalty for those selling to under-18s is clearly a welcome means of protecting young people, but as police have highlighted, its practical impact on investigation timeframes will be critical in their efforts to prevent the illegal sale of these weapons. It is also important that, when police search a property, they have the authority to seize and destroy weapons where there are reasonable grounds to believe they may be used in unlawful violence. Legislation alone is not enough. Getting more knives off our streets requires us to have more police on the streets, with the power to act and a focus on the crimes that really matter. The previous Government put a record number of police on our streets, and when the Conservatives left office there were more police on our streets than ever before, but since Labour came to power, we have seen a real hit to police funding affecting both the headcount and the resources available to police. This Government hit our police forces with a £230 million national insurance bill—literally taxing the police off our streets—and their failure to build the pay award into the funding settlement, as the previous Government had, is a further £200 million hit to funding. The result is that police numbers are falling when they need to be increasing. The number of police officers, police community support officers and staff has already fallen by 1,316, and looks set to get much worse. The biggest hit is to the Met, which deals with a disproportionate amount of knife crime, as we have said. I hope that the Minister will be an active champion for our brave police officers, PCSOs and staff, and take the challenge to the Treasury so that police get the resource they need to tackle knife crime and save lives. As I have said many times before, not only do we need to put more police on the streets, but we need them to be able to focus on the crimes that matter. Non-crime hate incidents have morphed beyond all recognition, and well beyond their intended purpose. Originally intended to apply when there was an imminent risk of crime, they now tie up 60,000 police hours every year—policing our tweets rather than policing our streets. The argument is well trod, whether in the press or in this place. Will the Minister comment briefly on what is being done to ensure that our police can focus on the crimes that matter most, such as knife crime? The most direct way for the police to remove the threat posed by knives is to remove the knives from those who might do harm with them. Yes, we need to tackle gang culture and improve education so that young people are aware of the risks and harm created by their actions, and yes, we need to restrict sales to prevent young people from getting hold of weapons, but we also need to give our police officers the power, authority and backing they need to remove knives from the hands of those who might do us harm. Stop and search removes knives and saves lives. We can see that in London without a doubt. There is a correlation between the Mayor’s decision to allow stop and search to decrease by 60% between 2021 and 2024 and the fact that the volume of knife crime offences increased by 86%. We need to remove the barriers that prevent our police officers from using stop and search. We debated this issue at length during the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill, and we encourage the Government to make appropriate amendments to legislation, including the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code A, to make it easier for officers to use. Just before the election last year, the Government gave the Home Office £4 million to fight knife crime and boost the use of technology, including new technologies that can detect carried knives from a distance. What progress has been made with that, and what steps are the Government taking to harness new technologies in the fight against knife crime? Given the impact of knife crime on families and communities, reducing it is an essential task for the Government. I hope that the Government will consider what more they can do to increase the ability of police to clamp down on these awful crimes. Alongside measures relating to education and support, we must ensure that our police are properly funded, deployed and resourced to tackle knife crime.

   Hansard source
8. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement

   5. What steps he is taking to replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

   Hansard source
9. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement

   Yesterday the Secretary of State announced this Labour Government’s new Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. Despite all the justifications for the Bill, it still means one thing: veterans, many of whom are elderly, being dragged back through the courts. Does the Secretary of State think that is an acceptable way to treat those people who bravely served and defended our country?

   Hansard source
10. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·John Cooper

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

    For many years, I commuted by aircraft from Scotland to Dublin—so many years, in fact, that I can still recall there are eight emergency exits on a Boeing 737-800. There are two at the front, two at the rear and four over-wing exits. What a great pity that this Bill does not have an amendment that is an escape slide. While sustainable aviation fuel sounds wonderful, it is burdened with many inconvenient facts. The first is that there is no SAF production industry at the scale required. While new clause 1 is a bold attempt to jump-start production by repurposing old facilities, it is a jumbo jet of a task. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2030, global demand for SAF is expected to reach 70 million tonnes per annum—around 4% to 5% of total jet fuel consumption. Meeting likely demand in just five years requires an additional 5.8 million tonnes of capacity. What is the investment required to reach even that relatively modest goal? The WEF pitches it at somewhere between $19 billion and $45 billion globally. If that does not give our legislative autopilot the warning, “Terrain! Terrain! Pull up!”, then it should do. New clause 1 is unaffordable, whether backed by public or private finance, and I am afraid it is doomed to fail. It is certain that the vast input costs will result in massively higher costs for passengers and air freight. I support the vital new clause 6, which would force an assessment of the economic impact of this Bill, which I fear will be nothing short of devastating. Some might piously accept fewer flights to the Costas or a little less airfreighted Kenyan mangetout on the dinner table, but making air travel ruinously expensive will have implications for thousands of jobs—millions globally—in not only aviation, but tourism. Many flights are not indulgences, but lifelines. We are an island nation, and many communities within the UK are entirely reliant on air links. Will Britain—so long the pioneers of aviation, with a history stretching back to the first scheduled international passenger flight and the first jet airliner—be foremost in SAF? Probably not, for mandating SAF is easier than producing it, especially in a country with power prices as exorbitant as ours. Energy bills in Dumfries in my constituency are four times what they are in Dumfries in Virginia in the United States, and they are cheaper still in China. We need a lot of power to make SAF. Many question its green credentials when so much carbon is generated in its production. Amendment 10 is a bid to explore the serious issues around SAF derived from either organic or synthetic sources. Much is made of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases using SAF sourced from waste fat and oil feedstocks, but, as we have heard, those basic building blocks are in limited supply. That issue is also addressed in, though not solved by, new clause 2. Using crops as feedstock may not reduce greenhouse gases at all, and there are huge implications of turning prime agricultural land and billions of gallons of water over to producing crops for fuel, rather than food. Again, Britain is at a disadvantage. America’s vast corn belt might get involved, but the British bioethanol industry is a warning to us, for it was not able to survive on current targets for the content in road fuel. Other amendments, including amendment 11, concern themselves with how a revenue certainty mechanism will operate. My concern is that we risk creating a self-licking ice cream—a self-perpetuating system with no purpose other than to sustain itself. This Bill could guarantee moneys that simply offset the costs of manufacturing SAF, which is itself made expensive by green levies. Would it not be better to put what money we have available into aviation excellence, driving up the efficiency of jet engines and airframes? Aviation is already playing its part in reducing its carbon footprint—according to some experts, engine efficiency is already up by as much as 83% from the early days of the de Havilland Comet jet liner. That progress can continue, although super-efficient jets need superalloys to handle the extremes of temperature in their engines, and those require the sorts of rare earths that China is hoovering up. Canada, by the way, has many of the same critical minerals; might we be better off investing in those than subsidising SAF? If we want really big carbon savings, we ought to look to the sea. Much of what we trade—in and out—goes by sea, and cargo ships are heavily reliant on bunker oil, a tar-like substance with heavy emissions. If we want novel fuels, this island nation should look once more to Tennyson’s “boundless deep”, where the salt-caked smoke stacks belch still. Meanwhile, the wild blue yonder of the skies must not be made inaccessible simply by expensive green dogma.

    Hansard source
11. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·James Wild

    Jhoots Pharmacy

    Staff and patients at Jhoots Pharmacy in South Wootton in North West Norfolk have been let down, going months without pay or stock, and with no communication from management. The pharmacist left after non-payment. When I raised those issues with the company, it simply refused to respond. The Minister has referred to future regulatory changes, but given that the pattern is repeated across the country, what urgent steps is he taking to work with ICBs collectively to ensure that staff get the money they are owed and that commissioned services are delivered? Will he not rule out taking action against individual directors?

    Hansard source
12. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement

    10. What steps he is taking to replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

    Hansard source
13. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: Replacement

    On 25 September, the Prime Minister assured the BBC that veterans would receive protections not afforded to paramilitaries, so can the Secretary of State confirm which of the statutory protections will apply solely to veterans? Or is it the case that they will also extend to paramilitaries?

    Hansard source
14. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Pride in Place

    The Minister described those receiving the money as “true patriots”, but in my constituency we have not received a single penny of this funding. Are my constituents not true patriots? There are plenty of places in the north of Farnham and potentially in Bordon that could really do with using this money. I invite the Minister to come to my constituency so that I can show her the places that need the money, and the amazing job that others are doing already.

    Hansard source
15. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

    To begin, I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests with regard to the synthetic road fuel provided to me for a constituency surgery tour last year. That is not strictly relevant to sustainable aviation fuel, but I want to be entirely transparent about it, as I have been throughout this Bill’s passage. May I also welcome the new Minister to his place? He has a big pair of shoes to fill, and I equally want to commend the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane)—we did not always see entirely eye to eye—for the effort and attention he put in to getting this Bill through the House and to his other duties in the House. I begin with new clause 6, which requires the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report on the economic impact of the Act once it is in force. This amendment goes to the nub of what is important. Does the Bill enable growth or stifle it? Does it support our world-class aviation industry or go against it? More importantly, does it enable our constituents to do what they have always done and fly, be that on holiday, on business or to visit family and friends overseas, or does it hinder them in doing that; and does it hinder our businesses in bringing goods in and out of the country by air? New clause 6 forces the Secretary of State to confront the realities of the Bill on multiple fronts. It covers the impact on the UK’s aviation fuel industry and the UK’s sustainable aviation fuel supply, and the impact on small, medium and large producers and potential importers of sustainable aviation fuel.

    Hansard source
16. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will come on to some of the technological points he made earlier, which it may surprise him to hear that I was incredibly sympathetic towards. On the timescale he asks for, I think it reasonable that, when a new Act comes into force, the Government should review it on a yearly basis at least, if not more frequently, to check that it is working. The point he makes is valid, and I thank him for it. Last on the list of impacts covered by new clause 6 is the impact on international and domestic tourism in the UK and passenger air fares. We in this House can pass all manner of laws and schemes, and we can mandate new things, but their impact, including on the wider economy, matters. Reviews like the one proposed by new clause 6 would ensure that Governments of all political persuasions monitored real-life outcomes and, if necessary, tweaked provisions—or completely changed course. I cannot for the life of me understand why any Government would run scared of such a clause; it would help them govern better in the long run.

    Hansard source
17. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

    I think it is necessary for any Government to review the legislation they are passing to check that it actually works, does what it says on the tin, and does not negatively impact real people and businesses going about their day-to-day lives. If he has paid attention to the debates in previous stages of this Bill, he will know that I support a move to sustainable aviation fuel; I will come on to that shortly, when I speak about other amendments. I think, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) does, that some technologies are superior to others when it comes to power-to-liquid, but the move to those fuels is very important. We have to get it right. If we do not, and we do not make it affordable, it will not happen.

    Hansard source
18. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Father of the House; I could not have put it better myself. It is essential that whatever measures, on any matter, are brought forward by any Government—be it the current Government or any future Government—real people’s lives and the cost base be reviewed regularly, so that we are not making people poorer, or stopping people from being able to do what they want, be it go on holiday, travel for business or move goods around. With that, I come to amendment 8 and the cost impact on passengers. The amendment would require the designated counterparty to report on the impact of the revenue certainty mechanism on passenger air fares. One of the most contentious areas surrounding the Bill, and indeed the Government’s whole approach to net zero, is: what does it actually cost real people? The amendment seeks to clarify that, and it gives the Government the opportunity—in theory, they should cheerfully embrace this—to lock in a claim that they profess to believe, namely that the Bill will have an impact of plus or minus £1.50 on air fares. The previous Minister repeated that statistic time and again on Second Reading and in Committee. The new Minister has the challenge today of either sticking with his predecessor’s assertion, backing the amendment and locking in protections for consumers, or admitting that this may well be more costly to air travellers. It is worth noting that during the evidence stage of Bill Committee, none of the witnesses was willing to affirm the Government’s figure. In fact, some noted that the estimated price appeared low. For example, Jonathon Counsell from International Airlines Group stated: “We think there are potentially some elements that have not been included in that calculation, but £1.50 per passenger feels quite low when you think the costs of the SAF itself will be nearer to £10.”––[Official Report, Sustainable Aviation Fuel Public Bill Committee, 15 July 2025; c. 17, Q12.] Consumers need peace of mind that the Bill will not cost them dear, and will not act as a financial barrier to the family holiday or any other trip, so failure to back the amendment can only mean uncertainty. I turn to amendment 11, which is focused on transparency. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to set a standardised levy rate, payable by all suppliers of aviation fuel, that must be publicised by suppliers of aviation fuel on invoices to their customers. Valero, for example—one of the world’s largest renewable fuels producers—has contacted the Opposition arguing for the amendment, saying that it would offer a workable solution; it would support the development of new SAF production without significantly impacting the industry as a whole. The amendment would apply the levy equally to all jet fuel suppliers, providing a fair and transparent mechanism for supporting the broader SAF industry. Just this week, I have been contacted by Virgin Atlantic, which is arguing that transparency safeguards must be in place to keep costs low for consumers. As organisations including the International Air Transport Association have highlighted, since the mandate came into effect in January 2025, fuel suppliers have been adding compliance risk premiums to the cost of mandated SAF, contributing to the price of SAF and doubling it for some carriers. That is to cover the eventuality that they do not meet the 2% mandate target and must pay the buy-out price for any missed volume. Virgin Atlantic has argued that to prevent SAF prices increasing further, the revenue certainty mechanism must have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure transparency over cost pass-through. There must also be a transparent process for refunds in the event of over-collections, and all revenues generated under the RCM should be ringfenced, rather than going into the general taxation pot. Amendment 9 looks at British technology and intellectual property. It would require the designated counterparty to prioritise UK-based technology when entering contracts. As I said from the Dispatch Box on Second Reading, there is a historical reality that we need to confront, and the amendment would stop history repeating itself. The historical error that I refer to is this: a great many projects supported by grants from the advanced fuels fund use foreign-owned technology. It cannot be right that the British state, while arguing for domestic fuel security, funds overseas technology when we have incredible innovators and manufacturers right here. Domestic fuel security must mean domestic fuel IP, manufacture and supply. It is important both to develop a UK market for SAF, eSAF and local production, as is provided for by the Bill and the mandate, and to support and encourage the use of home-grown technology for the manufacture of those products. That not only retains revenue in the United Kingdom but leverages a huge amount of revenue for future exports through technology licensing. The amendment tackles that head-on, and a failure to back it would be a failure to back United Kingdom innovators. Lastly, amendment 10 is on technological choices. It states: “The terms under subsection (4)(c) must include a requirement for the producer to consider the longevity of supply and relative environmental impact when prioritising between organic and synthetic derived sustainable aviation fuel solutions.” I feel incredibly strongly about this amendment. It is on a matter that I have championed in this House for many years—in the last Parliament, during my time on the Transport Committee and, since July, from this Dispatch Box. The amendment is in the name of the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), and it is relevant to new clause 7 and amendment 12 in the name of the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley, both of which I have a great deal of sympathy for. Governments of all political persuasions have professed to be technologically neutral. They seldom are. There is a natural tendency to pick winners and losers. We need to look through that lens, and ask ourselves what the Bill is promoting and using the levers of primary legislation to enable. The disappointing answer to that is the potential to bring alive SAF plants using technologies that have already been superseded—plants that would therefore be temporary at best. Stepping up something with no longevity, and with an estimated build cost of between £600 million and £2 billion, would be no small mistake. Power-to-liquid solutions, otherwise known as eSAF or synthetic fuel—liquid hydrocarbons literally made out of air and water—are surely the better and sustainable future for aviation fuel. We had debates on Second Reading and in Committee about other solutions. I cannot imagine that anyone is ready to defend growing food to burn it, but equally, waste-derived fuels simply are not sustainable in the long term. Solid waste is not readily available; the primary source is local authorities, the majority of which are on contracts with energy-from-waste facilities and incinerators that have decades to run. Likewise, I am not sure there is enough chip oil in the country to meet our aviation fuel needs. That leaves power-to-liquid solutions and eSAF. Many say that it is not ready; some say it is too expensive; but those of us on the Public Bill Committee heard loud and clear from Zero Petroleum that it is ready to scale right now. It just needs the green light from the regulators, and with scale will come affordability. Amendment 10 is in many ways a light-touch amendment to bring this debate to the fore. It does not close down other technological routes, but forces the Government to acknowledge the risk, both to the environment and in terms of cost, when choosing contracts under the RCM. As other speakers have said, the Bill can still be improved. I urge the Minister to accept the amendments, which would improve the Bill, and to ensure a strong and affordable future for sustainable aviation fuel in our great United Kingdom.

    Hansard source
19. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    Before I call the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) to open the debate, I wish to make a short statement about the sub judice resolution. I am sure Members will have relevant constituency cases that they want to raise during today’s debate, but under the terms of the House’s sub judice resolution, Members should not refer to any cases where there are ongoing legal proceedings. They should also exercise caution if raising matters that are not the subject of active legal proceedings but where discussions could prejudice ongoing police or other law enforcement investigations.

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20. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    Is it a point of order? I remind Members that it is down to the Member speaking whether to accept interventions. I will listen to the hon. Gentleman’s point of order, and we will decide whether it is one.

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21. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    It was a point of debate. There are at least 10 people who would like to speak today. You had your chance to speak, but I am afraid your temper and your attitude do not belong in Westminster Hall. I call Lee Anderson.

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22. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    Order. I remind Members that they need to be here for the start of the debate and to bob if they wish to be called to speak. A lot of Members wish to speak. If everyone keeps to a maximum of five minutes, we should get everybody in.

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23. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    I remind Members that we want to get to the Front Benchers as close as we can to 10.30 am, so be mindful of the time.

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24. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Knife Crime

    We now come to the Front Benchers. I call the Lib Dem spokesperson.

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25. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of issuing guidance on tree maintenance to local authorities. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Trees—beautiful, majestic and an enhancement to an area—are one of the most visible aspects of our scenery in the UK, yet their sheer size makes their maintenance essential for public safety. Sadly, on public land, the reality is that this work is seldom done and, as we are about to hear today, can lead to devastating consequences. Last year, I met with my constituents Fiona and Sam Hall, whose lives were changed forever in August 2020, when Fiona’s husband and Sam’s father Chris Hall was killed by a decayed tree that was known to be dangerous. Chris had left the house for a routine lunchtime dog walk on what was a warm and calm summer’s day. He took that walk in The Carrs in Wilmslow, a local park popular with residents. While on his walk, the limb of a decayed 130-year-old tree of 22 tonnes fell and hit Chris, killing him instantly. Chris was, by all accounts, a life force for good—someone who “loved life and life loved him.” His wife Fiona described their passion for simple things—spending their time cooking together and walking their dog. Chris’s son Sam shared how much he missed everything about his father—his laughter, his wisdom and the adventures they shared together. The loss of a loved one is a tragedy by any measure, but Chris’s death was senseless and preventable. Cheshire East council, responsible for the tree, knew it was unsafe. A year earlier, another limb had fallen off the same tree. Ansa Environmental Services, the council’s contractor responsible for tree maintenance, found the tree had significant structural defects and recommended it be crowned, but nothing was done. The tree was not crowned, and no action was taken to mitigate its risk or warn the public of the dangers that that tree presented. When the case went to court, it was clear that the responsibility for the incident lay with Cheshire East, and after an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, the council pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was fined £500,000 in November 2024. The investigation found that since its creation in 2009, Cheshire East council had no formal tree maintenance strategy. The council agreed, following the court case, to develop a tree strategy and partnership with an arborist chosen by the Hall family. The council implemented its tree management strategy in 2021. However, despite this tragedy, and others we have heard about through the news and in the newspapers of late, there still appears to be a legislative gap, and tree maintenance across the country continues to be ad hoc. Although councillors are required to ensure public safety, there is no statutory duty on them to carry out regular inspections of trees on public land. Regulatory maintenance work is voluntary, and the extent to which councils inspect trees is left to their own discretion. When budgets are tight, maintenance is often the first thing to fall by the wayside. However, maintenance by councils must be a priority—and, in this case, tree maintenance. To address this, Fiona is now campaigning for Chris’s law, which would require councils to maintain a register of high-risk trees identified by location, species and age, legislating for those trees to be inspected on a regular basis. This is not all trees, but a targeted approach that is manageable for councils and presents a cost-effective solution. As beautiful as trees are, like us, they have a lifespan and a life expectancy. As they get old, they become sick and weak, can decay and get disease. It is a predictable life cycle. Some examples of common trees in the UK include birches, which tend to live for 50 to 70 years; beeches, 150 to 200 years; and oaks and sycamores, which can last for 200 to 300 years. But they all have a life expectancy. Therefore, it is safe to say that after a certain age, trees need to be inspected.

    Hansard source
26. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    I think ownership of trees and people taking responsibility for their trees is essential. In this instance, it was the local council—they were on public land—but the hon. Member is quite right that they could also be on private land. We know, too, that there have been large drives to plant trees, particularly after the two world wars, so we can age them. The Carrs in Wilmslow was bought by the council and established as a park in 1935 and, logically, there will be a record of when those trees were planted in the park. Those are quantifiable numbers that allow a methodological approach to inspections. Without providing such structure to a maintenance strategy, cases of concern can slip through the net.

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27. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    I will indeed. The Minister too, might like to look at where best practice is happening across the country, because that is what we are looking to achieve. Since working with Fiona, I have heard at first hand from individuals who have tried to report trees in imminent danger of falling, only to have their urgent complaints lost among other correspondence. Inevitably, such trees end up falling, and people have been injured in those circumstances. The excuse that there was too much correspondence and that the council could not deal with the reports does not really wash. This is not unique to Cheshire East council. The court heard that five or six people die every year from falling branches or trees. This year alone, we have seen similar deaths caused by falling trees in Southend-on-Sea in June, West Didsbury in August and Blackpool only last month. Last Saturday my husband went to pick up a friend from Wilmslow train station. He drove through Ashley on the way there. On the way back he could not come along the same road because during that journey a tree had collapsed right across the road and he had to take a detour. Trees collapsing is not an infrequent occurrence. Each case that I have mentioned might have been avoided if the tree had been maintained adequately. In 2025 there is no excuse. We have a wealth of technology at our disposal: drones, microprobes or other advanced tools that make maintenance inspections more effective and efficient. We hear often about budgetary constraints preventing councils carrying out their maintenance duty, but preventive work is cost-effective. Legal fines, like Cheshire East’s £500,000, are far more costly than routine inspections. Cheshire and Warrington have voted to set up a new mayoral structure costing millions of pounds to establish and millions of pounds to run annually. It seems the Government and councils can find money for pet projects and devolved Mayors across the country and yet routine work, the most basic of maintenance, is forgone at the first sign of financial strain when it should always be a council’s priority.

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28. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    As I started the debate today I said how magnificent and majestic trees can add to an area. I agree with the hon. Member. We have to look after something that so enhances the beauty of our country. I spend an increasing amount of my time battling with my local council about the most basic of maintenance work that needs to be done now. Drains being unblocked, roads being repaired and rivers dredged all feed into, when maintenance is not done properly, a bigger and more costly problem. I am sure many Members will share that experience. Maintenance must be a council’s priority, especially when it comes to the danger of trees. Too often local councillors treat maintenance work as a box-ticking exercise—a quick fix to get someone off their case while the future consequences of a bodged repair job or no repair job are not considered. Maintenance work is essential. It is not a “nice to have” or a nice little addition. It is essential. As we have seen, if it is not done, it has tragic consequences. In the four weeks since Fiona launched the campaign for Chris’s law, 35,000 signatures have been gathered and the campaign has caught the attention of the media, too, from BBC Breakfast to BBC Radio 5 Live, and regional channels such as BBC North West and ITV Granada Reports. There is a mindshare among the public and the media that incidents of collapsing trees should not be occurring. Trees are a vital part of our daily lives, bringing many benefits to the environment and our wellbeing. Governments have spent millions of pounds planting trees, with the current Government pledging £800 million for this. But such an increase must be underpinned by a commitment to maintain the trees properly.

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29. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    I will be asking the Minister for a meeting. This is specifically about older, ancient, decaying and dangerous trees, but I am quite sure the Minister will be considering all kinds of tree preservation, including during the early years. When people walk through The Carrs now, they can find a memorial for Chris: a hand-carved wooden sculpture erected by his family in his memory. Visitors can scan a QR code to learn about Chris and the need for improved tree maintenance. It is a reminder of the tragedy that occurred and a testament to Fiona’s and Sam’s determination to use their profound grief to fight for change. We owe it to them to work collaboratively for this cause and push for clear standards for local authorities that cannot be skirted or sidelined. The issue extends far beyond Chris. We know that trees have a lifespan, and when and where they have been planted. Without maintenance work on these trees, there will be other tragic cases like Chris’s. In closing, I thank the Minister for her time and ask whether she will meet Fiona and me to discuss Chris’s law, the best way forward and steps to resolve this issue, and work with us on a meaningful legislative change to prevent such tragedies from occurring again.

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30. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Esther McVey

    Tree Maintenance: Guidance to Local Authorities

    I know that the Minister cares passionately and knows a lot about this issue. Would she meet me and my constituent so that we can discuss Chris’s law?

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31. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Healthcare: Bolton

    I too congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She covered a huge amount within her allotted time. The only sadness is that we have only an hour, and I have only a couple of minutes to try to address many of her points. The biggest message that we take home today is that Bolton must not be left behind. The hon. Member has been exemplary in stepping forward and making that case. I would slightly and gently push back and say that I do not think that Bolton was left behind by the previous Government. The trajectory she is working towards is already there, if we look at examples of the investment that was made by the previous Government, most notably the £20 million, which made up part of the £40 million in levelling-up funding, for the medical college at the Royal Bolton Hospital, and listen to Professor Holmes, who said: “It is incredibly rewarding for us at the University to witness our flagship facility reach this important milestone of practical completion. It is a privilege to be home to one of the nation’s leading clinical skills facilities here in Greater Manchester and this is a key step in our aim to become a national centre of excellence for health.” On top of that, there was a £20 million investment in the elective care centre, which has opened with four theatres dealing with about 5,000 patients. The hon. Member for Bolton North East was right to pick up on the maternity and women’s health unit, which is really important. In 2023, we saw a £38 million investment to help the unit, and it will hopefully be done by 2027. I have no doubt that she will be there to wag the stick to make sure that it is. I hope that she and the Government will be successful in that. I want to tease out a couple of questions for the Government. The hon. Member stressed maternity, which is really important. At the general election, the Labour party made firm commitments on maternity services, so I ask the Minister: when will the national maternity safety ambitions be published, and will targets be set around the maternity mortality gap? What will be done to address it? The hon. Members for Bolton North East and for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) both rightly raised the integration of system and service, which is also a concern on the Opposition side. We have seen top-down reorganisation, especially around integrated care boards, and I am sure the Greater Manchester integrated care partnership will have been asked to make reductions in its headcount. The problem is that the Government have not set out how they will pay for those redundancies, or what that shape will look like, so they are trying to make transformative change and looking internally. There is real concern about that among the Opposition, so I hope the Minister will be able to set out how much that will cost and whether the redundancy package will be coming forward, because we hear it could be up to £1 billion. As the chief executive of NHS England has said, if we do not hear something in the next few weeks, the NHS will have to turn to plan B—if there is a plan B. I would be grateful if the Minister could set that out. Finally, on GPs, we also know that the Government have stated in the 10-year plan that GP leaders will be pivotal in shaping and delivering these new services and will be supported to do so with two new contracts from 2026. Of course, we have learned in the past couple of weeks that GPs have entered a formal dispute with the Government because of the contractual changes, so I would be grateful to understand what the Minister is doing—although it is not in her brief—and what her team are doing to try to pull it back from the brink and hopefully resolve some of the contractual issues, particularly when it comes to access. To close on a personal note, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton North East on her work as a manbassador. As someone who, since stepping into this House, has campaigned on mental and physical health for men and boys, I know it often gets left behind. I made that point on the Floor of the House only a couple of weeks ago, so it is fantastic that she is championing men and boys. We need advocates for both sexes, both ways round, when it comes to men’s and women’s health. It is not a competition; it is not one or the other—it is “and”, and she typifies that. No man or boy should be left behind, but nor should Bolton.

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32. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Healthcare: Bolton

    Hearing Leah’s story was very concerning and upsetting. When it comes to further online access, one of GPs’ biggest concerns is about what to do with the emergencies that may come in through a computer at 6.20 pm as a result of that access, having to make that assessment when the system is supposed to be closing, and the ability to move GPs to take them away from face-to-face consultations to deal with online access. How will the Government square the circle of access versus patient safety? That is at the crux of the dispute.

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33. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Jhoots Pharmacy

    Only this weekend, the National Pharmacy Association chief executive, Henry Gregg, said that he is concerned that “reports of Jhoots Pharmacy branches across England failing patients risks damaging community pharmacy’s reputation and could imperil its ability to secure a good 2026-27 funding settlement.” Communities across the country have been left without functioning pharmacies. Doors have been locked without notice, patients have arrived to find no pharmacist, no prescriptions and no stock, and staff have gone unpaid and been threatened with the sack. Jhoots Pharmacy faces allegations of not paying wages, having premises repossessed and serious regulatory breaches. The General Pharmaceutical Council has already intervened several times, yet for many patients it is too late—they simply cannot get their medicines. This is not an isolated business failure; it exposes a deeper fragility in the community pharmacy network on which local people depend for basics and often lifesaving care. I have four questions for the Minister. First, when was NHS England first made aware of these closures, and has the Minister met the Jhoots leadership? If not, why not? If he did, what was the outcome? Secondly, has the Department assessed how many people have been left without local pharmacy access as a result of Jhoots’s actions, and what is the Minister doing to remedy this, considering it is happening across the country? He mentioned ICBs, but there are several involved. Thirdly, what mechanisms exist to ensure continuity of care when a contractor collapses or walks away? Again, he mentioned ICBs, but is there a national contingency plan? Finally, will the Government now review whether the current model, under which chains are expanding rapidly through acquisition and debt, is fit to safeguard community pharmacies in the long term? Linked to that, can the Minister definitively confirm that the funding settlement has not been compromised? The 10-year NHS plan states that it wants to move more care into the community, yet it is completely missing a delivery chapter on how to achieve that. At the same time, we have issues such as Jhoots. I hope the Minister will be taking steps to investigate this issue in its entirety and to safeguard against this type of incident happening again, and will spell out the delivery aspect of the 10-year plan.

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34. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dr Andrew Murrison

    Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023

    The Secretary of State said yesterday that his new legacy commission will not relitigate previous investigations involving veterans unless there are “compelling reasons” to do so. That is reinforced in clause 30 of the Bill that has now been published. To remove scope from opportunistic lawyers, would he consider defining far more closely than he has done up to this point precisely what he means by “compelling reasons”?

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35. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dr Andrew Murrison

    Pride in Place

    The future high streets fund worked well, because to get any funding, areas had to demonstrate that they had a plan, and that the money would be used effectively, in accordance with local priorities. Pride in place is structured in a very different way. I accept that the Minister’s intent is to ensure that redundant premises are repurposed and reused; that is really good, and as chairman of the Trowbridge Place Partnership, I certainly welcome that. However, how will she ensure that the whole thing is not just bunged up with endless legal challenges, as her unelected boards make diktats that will be subject to endless review?

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36. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·David Simmonds

    Pride in Place

    This statement speaks of pride. Conservative Members have pride in our local pubs, 200 of which have closed in the past six months, hammered by the Labour party’s business rates rises. We have pride in our restaurants, which are closing in record numbers under the business rates burden imposed by this Government. We are proud of our local shops, which—according to the British Retail Consortium—are buckling under an additional £7 billion of annual costs imposed by this Government. We are proud of our family businesses, the bedrock of our high streets, which are buckling under new taxes introduced by this Government. We are proud of our family farms, which are also buckling under the new taxes imposed by this Government. We are proud of our local councils, which face maxing out their council tax rates. We hear of £20 million at a local level, but councils across the country are maxing out their council tax, not to invest in new local services, but to pay an additional £1.5 billion of annual costs imposed on them by this Government’s job tax—every year, when it comes to delivering services, a net £1.5 billion worse off. We are proud of the workers of this country, of whom there were 4 million more when the Conservative party left office last year. In the retail sector alone, 97,000 have lost their jobs since this Government took office. As such, this programme is a fig leaf—elements relabelled from past programmes such as the long-term plan for towns, slightly redirected to Labour areas—that covers up a collapse in the ability of our elected local representatives to invest in their communities. As with so many things, that collapse gets worse every day under the Labour party. Let me pose some specific questions to the Minister. First, why is there so much complex governance around this? Why not listen to the cries of our local leaders in Croydon, Somerset and Hertfordshire—people across the political spectrum who are saying, “Why not just give the councils the money to get on with this? Why tie this up in bureaucracy and red tape?” How much of this money has simply been rebadged from other, previously announced Government programmes? Why the change in methodology? In the interests of transparency, can the Minister set out for the House why the funding now seems to be landing in areas that are more likely to support the Labour party? How much of this funding sits outside of the 2025 spending review, and is therefore deeply in question from the start? How much of this money—like so many of this Government’s announcements, such as on housing—has been put in the public domain, but promised as spending towards the tail-end of the next Parliament, perhaps the very definition of jam tomorrow? Finally, can the Minister tell us how today’s announcement will help small businesses on all our high streets across our country to recover from her colleague the Chancellor’s £2.7 billion tax hike in this year alone?

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37. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·David Mundell

    Pride in Place

    Borderlands was a fully-funded initiative launched by the former Government, and it is now supported by the Department, the Scottish Government and the Scotland Office here in Westminster. It is designed to meet all the objectives that she has set out in the south of Scotland, Cumbria and Northumberland, but for some reason, only a very small proportion of the money has got out the door. Can the hon. Lady, in conjunction with the Scotland Office, do a full drains up to understand why the money is not getting to the community projects that it is designed to support?

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38. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·David Davis

    Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023

    The Secretary of State’s allegations about the legacy Act rest on a fiction that the Labour Government have not already handed out amnesties to all those terrorist killers. Two facts need to be put in front of the House. One is from the Good Friday agreement, which “put in place mechanisms to provide for an accelerated programme for the release of prisoners…convicted of scheduled offences”. That is one half of the amnesty. The other half is the comfort letters, and the right place to look there is the judge’s ruling in the Downey case, which shot down any future prosecutions. The judge said—I will read it carefully—that there is a “public interest in holding officials of the state to promises they have made in full understanding of what is involved in the bargain. Hence I have concluded that this is one of those rare cases in which, in the particular circumstances, it offends the court’s sense of justice and propriety to be asked to try the defendant.” In other words, it is an amnesty, whether the Government like it or not.

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39. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Damian Hinds

    Educational Assessment System Reform

    It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. Assessment in education is obviously one of the most important aspects of what we do in education. It gives children a chance to show what they have learned, what they can do, and we want that to be stretching, but also to be fair. Anything that measures our attainment is inherently somewhat stressful. We also want to prepare children for adult life, and part of that is learning to deal with stress and to make it work in a positive direction. We obviously do not want exams to be overly stressful, and I commend the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for his work on mental health. He poses this as a mental health question, and it is true that there is an upward trend in mental ill health in children in this country and, by the way, in most other countries in the developed world, although they do not all have the same exam system as us. France and the United States have very different exam systems, with one largely a terminal exam system and the other not, but we see a pattern that is essentially the same. A linear study and terminal exams give us some important things. They give us consistency, transparency, and comparability across the country. Because the exams come at the end we can synthesise knowledge, so it is not just a test of what someone happens to have learned for a test, but it is putting together different aspects of knowledge. It is not just one big exam. First, there are seven, eight, nine or 10 subjects, and typically two papers and multiple formats—multiple choice, short-form open questions, essay questions, orals and practicals in different subjects. Ironically, if we reduce the number of papers we would increase the high-stakes nature of tests that come at the end of study. It is possible that if we had continuous assessments, we might not get rid of stress but just stretch it out over a longer period because, as I said, any assessment inherently has some stress attached. Let me talk briefly about younger children, because that issue is different. SATs are not public exams, and no child should ever be put under pressure coming up to SATs. SATs are a measure of schools, not pupils—I promise that when someone applies for a job or university in adult life, nobody will ever ask them what they got in their SATs. That is not what they are for. The biggest effect that they could have is what set a child gets into in year 7. But ironically, as the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said, schools do that anyway. Even if we got rid of a high-stakes assessment at the end of year 6, there would still be one in year 7. I repeat that no child should be put under pressure about SATs. That is not their purpose. I wanted to say a lot, but that is not going to happen in three and a half minutes. I briefly ask the Minister to confirm that Progress 8 is coming back. We have not been able to do Progress 8 for a couple of years because of covid and not having a baseline, but it is by far the better measure—much better than contextual value added or a raw score. Please will the Minister confirm that the Government are not looking at getting rid of handwritten exams done in exam conditions? Those are the best way to guarantee security of assessment and to ensure that handwriting development continues apace. We should have an open mind on resits. The point about the policy is not to have more people sitting exams but to carry on studying English and maths. That in itself is a good objective, but we should be open about how it is achieved.

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40. 15 Oct 2025·Parliament·Dame Caroline Dinenage

    Pride in Place

    My constituents in Rowner were delighted to hear that they had been chosen for pride in place funding, but they are now a little bit worried, and I hope that the Minister can help us. My constituents fear that rather than the money being spent on projects that will change lives in Rowner in a meaningful way, our Liberal Democrat council will attempt to siphon some of it off to bankroll one of its vanity projects, namely the Criterion, a dilapidated former bingo hall. I am pleased that this funding comes with some flexibility, but what protections will the Minister introduce to prevent the money from being frittered away on white elephants by unscrupulous councils?

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