5,779 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

   Major Sporting Events

   The Government are on the ropes after a grand slam of unforced errors. Since we last met, we have seen the Secretary of State placed under investigation after appointing a Labour crony to head the football regulator, the Chancellor slash the DCMS budget and the DCMS Government Whip resign in protest. Own goal, knock on, double fault—whatever our choice of sporting analogy, it is clear that they have royally ballsed it up. With Labour’s latest U-turn creating a fiscal black hole set to be £20 billion, what assurances can the Secretary of State give today that her Government will not go ahead with their planned tax raid on bingo halls, racecourses and sports betting, which will immensely damage sponsorship of major sporting events, fuel the black market and cost thousands of jobs across the country?

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2. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Kit Malthouse

   Business of the House

   As I am sure you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House know, the number of children who have been killed in the war on Gaza now runs into the many thousands. Similar numbers of children have been mutilated and injured, and a large number of them require specialist medical treatment. As I hope she knows, countries across the west have responded by bringing those children who cannot get the treatment that they need in Gaza to their country for treatment. Shamefully, the UK has not done so, admitting only two children so far. The Home Secretary has inexplicably refused many applications to come here, despite the fact that Project Pure Hope has raised all the money required for the children’s transport, treatment and maintenance. May we please have a statement, so that MPs can understand why the numbers are so small, why applications have been refused, and what the Government will do to increase the number? If we cannot have a statement, may we at least have a meeting between the relevant Minister and a cross-party delegation of MPs to discuss what more can be done to help these children in dire need?

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3. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Katie Lam

   Phone Theft

   It should go without saying that law and order is the bedrock of a healthy society, but laws that we make in this House are only worth anything if they are enforced. In Britain today, this is all too often the story: a widening gulf between our laws and how they are actually applied. I can think of few better examples than mobile phone theft. There is a temptation to think of phone theft as an example of petty crime, but it sounds as though we in this House all agree that there is nothing petty about it. Mobile phones are a link to our friends and family, and for many people they are a necessary tool for work, study and day-to-day life. They often hold sensitive information, both personal and financial, to say nothing of the intimidation and violence experienced by victims, and the corrosive impact that rampant phone theft has on our public realm. So when we think about phone theft, we should not just be thinking about the inconvenience of a missing phone; we should be thinking about the distress to victims and the creeping sense that, increasingly, we are no longer safe in public. To capture the scale of the problem, it is useful to reflect on the data. According to last year’s crime survey for England and Wales, snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70% last year, reaching a 20-year high. Overall, theft stands at the highest rate for a decade, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the epicentre of this crime wave is London, where thefts have more than doubled over the past five years. Three quarters of phone thefts take place there, with 116,656 phones stolen last year alone. Those devices have a street value of more than £20 million. Phone theft often contributes to other forms of crime. According to Commander James Conway of the Metropolitan Police, about 70% of London’s knife crime is linked to theft, meaning that the increase in phone theft is likely to be contributing to the city’s rampant knife crime epidemic. Cyber-security experts have also warned that phones stolen in London are being shipped off to countries like China, where they are often used in international organised crime. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise given the approach taken by Sadiq Khan, London’s Labour Mayor. He is focused on cracking down on stop and search, which is clearly proven to cut crime, while his police and crime plan barely mentions phone theft, focusing on introducing new regulations for phone companies, instead of stopping actual crimes. Of course, technology companies should do their bit where they reasonably can, but our focus should be on catching and imprisoning criminals. In the vast majority of the 116,656 cases, the reported crime is not solved, the phone is not retrieved and the offender is not arrested, leaving them to walk free to commit more crime. That is simply not acceptable and we should not accept it. All the while, police forces across the country spend an estimated 60,000 hours per year on non-crime hate incidents, collecting and storing data on speech that might be perceived to be offensive. Is it any wonder that many people are beginning to describe the state of modern Britain as anarcho-tyranny? More rules, applied more strictly for the law-abiding majority, while actual criminals walk free. While many police officers work hard and genuinely wish to make our country a safer place, the systems and incentives that govern their activities are totally broken. It is simply wrong that resources are spent on policing speech, while prolific thieves run rampant through our streets. Phone theft is not the only crime like that. For too many people in Britain, particularly in our larger cities, low-level disorder is now the unpleasant mood music of their day-to-day lives. We all feel the decline in our public realm, and it makes our country a worse place to live. Speak to any member of the British public, and they will be able to tell us exactly what to do: spend less time on policing speech and more time on catching thieves; give police forces the tools they need to tackle these crimes; and when we catch a career criminal, ensure they serve a proper prison sentence. In short, enforce the law.

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4. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   Apprentices

   1. What steps the Commission is taking to increase the number of apprentices in the House of Commons.

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5. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   Apprentices

   I am grateful to the hon. Member for that answer. Everyone should have the potential to work in Parliament, not just those who live in and around London, so can he confirm how many apprentices have been recruited since the introduction of the UK Parliament’s apprenticeship scheme, and in particular how many were recruited from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

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6. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   Business of the House

   Can we have a debate to recognise volunteers and fundraisers who support the work of hospices and help people living with cancer? I recently met the team at the Lavender Touch in Galashiels who have been supporting people across the Scottish Borders for over 20 years, funding and providing therapeutic treatment to bring relief to those in need. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking them for everything that they do?

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7. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·John Lamont

   British Film and High-end Television

   I congratulate my hon. Friend on her report and her wonderful statement, as well as on all the work that has gone into the report behind the scenes. Public service broadcasters are struggling to compete with the massive budgets set by streamers, so what more can be done to ensure we see high-quality British drama and comedy on terrestrial television?

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8. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Joe Robertson

   Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I rise to talk briefly about floating bus stops and therefore new clause 47. Floating bus stops exist not least to help with the flow of cyclists, and I support that aim, but they present challenges for the safety of pedestrians, particularly those with disabilities. As ever when it comes to sharing the highway, pavements, and areas in and around bus stops, everything is a balance. It is about satisfactorily mitigating the risk. The challenge with floating bus stops relates particularly to people with disabilities. Of course, cyclists have a responsibility not to hit people, and the vast majority of cyclists are safe users of roads and cycle lanes. Some people, not everyone, have a slightly old-fashioned—I might say ignorant—assumption that somebody with a disability will be very visible, and that it should be obvious to cyclists that they need to take special care. That is simply not the case. That is an old-fashioned, outdated and, as I say, in some cases ignorant view. Disabilities, including physical disabilities, can be very hard to identify. I would support the prohibition of new floating bus stops, and I support all the elements of new clause 47, which is about safety and about recognising the challenges, particularly for those with disabilities. We need to get this right. I urge the Government to support the new clause.

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9. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Joe Robertson

   Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

   I will make a point that I have made before, following on from the shadow Minister’s description of clause 38 as revealing, and of the Bill as transparently not providing funding for anyone. The clause would also be helpful to demonstrate to small local authorities and local authorities that provide over large rural areas, such as my own on the Isle of Wight, the gulf between trying to realise the objectives behind franchising and having responsibility for delivering them, as a small local authority taking on all that financial risk. So, like him, I support the clause standing part of the Bill, if only to reveal to local authorities some of the issues behind it, and that it is not the all-singing, all-dancing solution that they might think.

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10. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jesse Norman

    Business of the House

    Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?

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11. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jesse Norman

    Business of the House

    I am sure the Leader of the House and all Members will want to join me in recognising this year as the 81st anniversary of the announcement by the Government of a national health service, by Sir Henry Willink in 1944. Most of us wishing to celebrate an anniversary would probably have a bit of a party—maybe get a few friends round, order in some pizza and put up decorations. Only the Labour party would seek to celebrate its first year in office with the kind of Charlie Foxtrot multidimensional legislative omnishambles that we have seen in the past few days. Given their three massive reverse ferrets of recent weeks, I must say I had thought that the Government had perfected the art of the U-turn. After all, they had had U-turns on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap—each, in its own way, a little masterpiece of slow-motion dithering and indecision. But then, the other day, the Government upped their game significantly by executing a comprehensive 180° U-turn on their decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, having repeatedly said that it was not necessary. Brilliantly, the Prime Minister managed to U-turn at the same time on his own speech about the UK being an island of strangers. I naively believed that that was the state of the art—the Government had maxed out on U-turns and nobody could be more bewilderingly incompetent than that. How wrong I was. On Tuesday, we saw something that was almost unheard of in the 750 years of our Parliament—a Minister pulling out his chainsaw and disembowelling his own Government’s flagship welfare Bill in mid-air on live television from the Dispatch Box. Really, Mr Speaker, that outstrips my poor powers of description. We need the pen of a Shakespeare or a Thackeray to do it justice; it is the quintessence of cock-up. But, actually, Mr Speaker, this past week has been much worse even than that. Just as Nick Clegg was defined by his U-turn on student fees, so the Prime Minister will be defined by this moment: a new and supposedly reforming Government with an enormous majority have been unable not to cut, but to reduce the rate of increase in public spending on benefits, let alone make any serious actual reforms to protect people. There has been a remarkable complacency about this Government and this past week has shown it up. They regard disagreement as something to be ignored or crushed: they do not answer questions at the Dispatch Box; they obfuscate on written questions; they try to ignore the Opposition; they dismiss the House of Lords; and they spurn their own Back Benchers. Loyal Labour MPs, concerned about disabled people, have been trying to get a hearing on this issue for months, only to be repeatedly rejected, and this has been the result. Three things follow from it. First, there are the immediate consequences. It will be next to impossible now for the Government to achieve meaningful reform of the welfare system. They have shown that they have no ability to make savings. Taxes will go up while the economy continues to stall. Little wonder the gilt market exploded during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. Secondly, the Prime Minister has opened the door to future rebellions. Indeed, he has gone further than that; he has written the playbook for them. Doubtless, he will have a reshuffle sometime soon. Loyal dissenters will be punished, the talented cast out, and Select Committee Chairs bought off, but that will make no difference. There will be others—the Select Committee Chairs have shown that they are a powerful new force in Labour politics. Finally, the Prime Minister has massively damaged his own reputation. He has endlessly harped on about the need for professional competence and moral seriousness, but this has been a year in government that started with a host of undisclosed personal gifts received and has ended with utter political humiliation. He has shown that he is in office, but not in power. What is the point of this Government? No one knows, not even the Prime Minister.

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12. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    I challenge the Minister’s rationale on clause 30. I understood him to be saying that making a duty mandatory might force the Government to issue guidance before consultation is undertaken, but there is nothing in the clause that suggests that. If he wishes to propose that as an argument against amendment 40, he needs to set out what it is in said amendment that would require the issuing of guidance prior to any consultation or standard operating procedures. I cannot see anything like that.

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13. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    I am grateful for the Minister’s considered response to all the amendments. I spoke in favour of a number of amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who is not a member of the Committee. The mathematics of the Committee are pretty obvious, so I will treat the majority of them as probing amendments. Some of them have done their work, and I hope that those that the Minister batted away will be quietly reconsidered when he is back in the comfort of his ministerial office. I consider amendment 40 to be one such probing amendment, so I will not press it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed: 43, in clause 30, page 32, line 42, at end insert— “(6A) The bodies listed in (6) may depart from such guidance only if— (a) it considers that there are exceptional local circumstances which justify the departure; and (b) it has obtained the written approval of the Secretary of State to the proposed departure. (6B) The bodies listed in (6) must pause the construction of any stopping place designed as a floating bus stop or shared bus stop boarder, and must not proceed with construction, until the Secretary of State has issued guidance under this section relating specifically to the design and use of floating island bus stops and shared bus stop boarders.”—(Jerome Mayhew.) This amendment would ensure that listed bodies would be obliged to follow the guidance except in exceptional circumstances, and would require those bodies to pause construction on new floating bus stops and shared bus-stop boarders until guidance has been published. Question put, That the amendment be made.

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14. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    I will not rehearse the rationale behind the need for the proposed new sections in clause 33; the Minister has set that out pretty clearly. However, there is one issue that I seek clarification on from him or his officials. The clause makes it an offence for an operator to permit a driver to drive a closed school service if the operator either knows or has reason to believe that the driver is barred from undertaking regulated activity relating to children. So far, so good. That is an offence and it comes under the criminal justice system. The clause also requires the operator to check the enhanced criminal record certificates at least every three years, and it sets out how that can be achieved, but it is silent as to whether the failure to do so is an offence. I have a question for the Minister: if an operator fails to comply with the duty to check every three years, what are the practical consequences? Is that failure an offence? I stand to be corrected on that; I may have misread the clause when I read it some time ago. If it is not an offence, how does he intend proper enforcement to be undertaken, because without robust enforcement and information on the consequences of failure to comply with the clause, the safeguarding duty risks being diminished? I will not go into the details of Government amendment 76. I fundamentally accept the need for it, because it deals with devolution. It does prompt a question about timescales, however, which the Minister might be able to put my mind at rest about. We want these improvements to be made, because they address the safety of children and the provision of transport for children, which are important. Yet through the devolution process that we all have to respect, we run the risk of a delayed response in devolved areas of the country, because there is currently no guarantee of timescales in the clause. I understand the constitutional niceties that the Minister has to comply with, but it would be helpful for Committee members, and for Members of the House more widely, to receive some assurance that conversations have at least taken place with the devolved Administrations, so that they are fully aware of the need for this amendment and their own legislative processes are not unduly delayed. If he could reassure me on that point, I would be grateful.

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15. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    Clause 34 concerns crime and antisocial behaviour. It is about improving personal safety and the perception of safety for people, especially women and girls, which was a key component of the Government’s manifesto. The measures aim to train staff in the bus industry to identify and respond to acts of crime, including violence against people, particularly women and girls, and antisocial behaviour. The Minister will deal with the details of the clause in his remarks, so I will reduce my comments as much as I can. Although the principles of clause 34 are, of course, difficult to argue against, I have a number of concerns about the current drafting, similar to the concerns I had with clause 33, that I urge the Minister to address. Proposed new section 144F(2) of the Transport Act 2000 requires training “to identify, respond appropriately to and, where safe to do so, prevent” crime and antisocial behaviour, but it does not set out minimum content standards or accreditation requirements. This is a sensitive issue. We are anticipating drivers putting themselves into certainly confrontational—perhaps even violent—situations, so we have to be very careful what we are asking them to do in the legislation. Will the Minister confirm that it is not the intention of the legislation to require bus drivers to physically intervene in potentially violent situations? That is quite an important point that we need to make clear. How will we ensure the consistency of training quality across different bus regions? Has any assessment been undertaken of the availability of training professionals across the country? It is not a niche area, but it is certainly a small area of training. If not, how can the Minister impose a requirement without having undertaken an assessment of the ability of the sector to comply with that requirement?

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16. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s greater knowledge of training in this area. I am substantially persuaded by the information that he put forward in his intervention. Amendment 52, which is in my name, seeks to ensure that any training or requirements established under this clause do not include guidance that would advise, encourage, direct or imply that individuals, in this instance bus drivers, should put themselves in danger at any stage. I am grateful for the Minister’s non-verbal indication during my earlier comments that I was right in assuming that that was not the Government’s intention, but my amendment would make express what the Minister has implied. Although it is entirely right that drivers and frontline staff receive training to identify, respond to and, where safe, prevent criminal and antisocial behaviour, we must be clear that their personal safety is also essential. The amendment ensures that no training delivered under these provisions would ever advise to the contrary. It preserves the purpose of clause 34 by ensuring staff that are trained to recognise and respond appropriately to crime and antisocial behaviour while guaranteeing that such training will never instruct them to act beyond what is reasonable and safe. I will leave it the Minister to address amendment 73. Amendment 75, also tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, would require relevant senior managers to undertake regular training on disability awareness and accessibility. I appreciate its intention, but I have two concerns. First, it would inevitably place an additional regulatory burden on operators and local transport authorities, where there is currently no clear evidence of an existing gap that needs to be filled. We have to remind ourselves that we are not running the buses in this Committee; we are creating legislation that requires other people to run the buses in a certain way. As legislators, it is always tempting to think, “Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s put that in the Bill.” However, we sometimes forget that we are dealing with primary legislation, which requires an Act of Parliament to change. We need to be very careful that we do not create an administrative overload, and this provision would be an additional regulatory burden without clear evidence. We also need to be cognisant of the fact that, although some of the potentially affected organisations will be local transport authorities or large municipal bus companies—at least in the future—many of the affected businesses will be small and medium-sized enterprises, some of which will be very small local bus operators that need to be protected from over-regulation. Secondly, there is a danger of duplication and confusion when there are other statutory duties and guidance being created in the Bill, particularly those in clause 30 that deal with the safety and accessibility of stopping places. We need to ensure clarity, not an overlapping jurisdiction of training mandates, which may cause regulator confusion. Those are my concerns about amendment 75.

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17. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

    If hon. Members cast their minds back to earlier, they will know my exact views on amendment 75, so I will not repeat them. I will not speak on amendment 69, because my remarks would be similar to those on amendment 75. I will, however, speak briefly on clause 35. Clause 35 will introduce measures on disability training. There is currently a requirement in article 16 of EU regulation 181/2011 for mandatory training on disability awareness and disability assistance to be undertaken by particular categories of staff of carriers and terminal managing bodies, with different categories of staff required to do different elements of the training. The Government are totally right to realise that that is an unnecessary complication, and that there needs to be a tidying up exercise so that all staff dealing with passengers in the transport sector receive similar training. Clause 35 streamlines the requirement so that all categories of local bus service staff referenced in article 16 of the EU regulation should undertake both disability assistance and disability awareness training, and stay current every five years. It enables bus drivers and staff who deal directly with the travelling public or issues related to them, including those who provide direct assistance to passengers, to be informed of the needs and experiences of disabled people—quite right too. That is a good clarification. Clause 36 deals with training about disability and contains further provisions. Its intentions are as decent as those of clause 35, and they are undeniably important. Namely, it seeks to ensure the effective implementation of disability awareness training requirements. However, we need to be aware of the potential issues with regulatory overreach and the administration burden. Measures under subsection (1) of the clause empower the Secretary of State to require operators to keep, publish and provide compliance records. I am repeating myself slightly, but this is an important point: we are dealing with primary legislation that covers the entire sector. It affects not just big organisations but SMEs; we have to remember that not all operators are large organisations. For SMEs with a small workforce or a small fleet, increases to the administrative burden can be disproportionate to the benefit that such requirements to maintain data can bring to others. I wonder whether that burden is justified in terms of its outcome, and not just theoretical tidiness. Theoretically, I understand the provision and it makes sense. We are saying, “We want operators to do these things, therefore we want records that are updated and published regularly.” In reality, that comes with a time and labour cost. How will services be improved in practical terms as a result of the additional requirement? Has the Minister already conducted an impact assessment of the additional financial and administrative burdens that the measure will place on smaller local authorities and bus operators? Government amendment 20 ensures that references in the Rights of Passengers in Bus and Coach Transport (Exemptions and Enforcement) Regulations 2013 to the “enforcement authority” cover traffic commissioners responsible for taking enforcement action under regulation 10A. Again, I will leave it to the Minister to address the amendment. I hope Committee members are applauding my changed approach to the pace at which I am going through some of these provisions—it is against my better judgment. As a former lawyer, I love going into the subsections, but I am trying to canter on. There is a concern with amendment 20 that we are loading a whole load of additional obligations on to traffic commissioners, these previously unknown—certainly in my case—servants of the state. A question arises about capacity and the funding necessary to increase it. Traffic commissioners already oversee a vast amount of regulatory functions for operating licensing, vehicle standards and general compliance across the bus and coach sectors. The Bill, particularly clause 36, adds significant additional enforcement duties, and that obviously comes at a cost in both manpower and legal fees. If a commissioner takes enforcement action, they have to be prepared to defend their decisions in court, and that is expensive, particularly if they lose. We can all agree that there are significant costs associated with the clause, should it be enacted, but the Bill is silent on funding for traffic commissioners—there is no mention of it all. What is the assessed cost to traffic commissioners of the proposed changes, in aggregate? What changes will be made to traffic commissioner budgets to allow for this burden? Will the Minister conduct an assessment of the current work of traffic commissioners and whether they have the resources and time to fulfil this additional duty? Those are minor but important points; we have to think about the practicalities of what we are asking. This is not guidance but primary legislation, so we need to be cognisant of its consequences and prepare for them. Government amendment 21 follows amendment 20, and I have no comment on it. The same goes for Government amendment 22, which is another procedural tidying-up exercise that I have no objection to. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Kate Dearden.)

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18. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I seek clarification on the import of the hon. Lady’s amendment. On Transport for London, she said that no newly purchased bus would be outside this consideration. Proposed new section 151A(1), for which she seeks to bring the date forward, states: “The operator of a service that falls within subsection (2) may not use a vehicle that falls within subsection (3)”. Her amendment would therefore mean that no existing bus that was not zero emission at the tailpipe could be used from 2027 onwards. Is that really her intention?

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19. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    As has become my custom, I will start with the clause and then look at the amendments. I will be relatively brief, but it is worth highlighting that clause 37 deals with the use of zero emission vehicles for local services in England. It is intended to prevent the use of new non-zero emission buses in local bus services in England, but inevitably there a number of qualifications to the proposed ban. Under proposed new section 151A(2)(a), the ban will be limited to local bus services or London local services, the rationale behind which is presumably that long-distance buses do not currently have the technology to reliably use electric batteries, as opposed to other forms of lower-carbon technology. That raises questions about rural services that are classified as “local” but are, in fact, long distance. The county of Norfolk is a big old place, and there are long journeys that are classified as “local”. I raise a flag at the way in which the Government have sought to vary the classification by taking out long-distance journeys, and assuming that bus battery technology is therefore capable of dealing with all other local services. That is not necessarily the case where long rural routes, which are classified as “local”, still face the same disadvantage in battery technology, as it is currently developed. I am raising that issue with the Minister so that he can go away and think about it. The date of registration is 1 January 2030. The consequence of the clause is that it bans tailpipe emissions, and there is a separate, but slightly more philosophical, point. I have a challenge to the Government’s policy direction: it looks like the Government are picking winners—in fact, they definitely are—in relation to low-carbon technology. The tailpipe emissions include CO2, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide and particulates, which is all set out in subsection (3)(c). Currently, only hydrogen and electric buses would qualify, so there is a huge implication to this clause. This is a blanket ban for new registrations, which undoubtedly has some positives but also some negatives of which we collectively ought to be aware. The positives of these vehicles are their quietness and, as the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion pointed out, air quality. That is a significant positive. I was born and went to school in my early years in London, and the difference in air quality in this city between then and now is enormous. It is a totally different experience from back in the 1970s, when vehicle fumes just enveloped us. That has made a huge difference. If we agree to the amendment, however, we would be legislating enormous cost increases for the creators of fleets. We need to be careful: the cost of a standard Euro VI compliant bus, which has the most efficient engine, is about £180,000. An electric equivalent is about half a million pounds. These are hugely different orders of cost.

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20. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I was just coming to that. The hon. Lady is quite right, but I am talking about the up-front capital cost. The lifetime running cost may well be cheaper for an electric bus, but the creator has to finance their capital cost on day one, whereas the lifetime operating costs are spread over the effective lifetime of the asset, which, for an electric bus, is an interesting question, actually. The lifetime of the structure of the bus may be 15 or 20 years, but we are not yet sure what the effective lifetime of the battery component of the bus is, and whether or not it needs to be replaced after about 10 years. The data is not particularly robust on that. If it means that we have to change out enormous battery banks during the operating process, that would be a significant additional secondary capex cost. The Department for Transport figures for March 2024 say that there are 29,400 buses used by local bus companies. If we are going to replace all of those, that would be an £8 billion investment. That is very significant, and it is not considered in the impact assessment. There are some long-term savings, as the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion quite rightly pointed out. It is not just the differential in costs between electric and diesel; there are reduced maintenance costs as well. There are many fewer moving parts with an electric vehicle as well as the lower fuel cost, but the capex costs are front-loaded, and we cannot ignore that. Have the Government considered the financing consequences of imposing large, increased, front-loaded capex costs on bus companies? I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response. The second issue here is that through the current drafting, the Government are inevitably picking a winner in terms of technology for low-carbon vehicles, because it focuses on tailpipe emissions and ignores whole-life carbon assessments. That is important; again, we must have a balance of approach here. There is a significant benefit in zero tailpipe emissions, which is primarily about air quality as opposed to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. There are very significant emissions during the construction of large-scale battery-operated buses, and there are alternatives under development. In the life cycle of the vehicle, if we take into account its construction, operation and disassembly, it is likely that new technologies, particularly ones using synthetic fuels, could be lower in carbon terms, albeit emitting Euro VI equivalent particulates at the tailpipe. The Bill denies an opportunity for that market to develop. There are currently artificially-produced fuels made using renewable energy that have no net CO2 emissions over their life cycle. If they are interested, I can explain the basic process to Members: it uses carbon capture plus hydrogen from renewable electricity, synthesised via processes such as the Fischer-Tropsch or methanol synthesis, to create e-diesel, e-kerosene, e-methanol or e-gasoline. The key benefit is that it works with existing engines and fuel infrastructure, and avoids the enormous carbon emissions from wasting existing built infrastructure and machinery. We need to understand that we have “spent” an enormous amount of carbon and greenhouse gases in constructing the 29,400 vehicles—buses—already out there, many of which have a natural life that could be extended significantly. We do not even need to convert them: we could just pour a synthetic fuel into the same bus, saving all the carbon associated with the manufacturing of new, large-scale hydrogen or electricity buses. At the very least, that would be a significant transitional material to extend the use of existing, or pre-manufactured, vehicles. We try to reduce, reuse and recycle, and that would be an absolutely classic case of a good thing, and yet the clause, I am afraid to say, prohibits the development of that market. I suspect that that is not the intention of the Department or the Minister, but that is what will happen.

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21. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I accept that currently synthetic fuels are expensive, because they are at the development stage, but I do not believe that the Government’s intention is for the clause to write them out. I recognise that the Minister is unlikely to tear up his clause on my say-so, but I would be grateful if he discussed the issue further with his Department. I will leave it to the Minister to consider amendments 32 and 33, and the same can be said for amendments 78 and 58, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Finally, therefore, amendment 63 would require the Secretary of State, within six months, to produce a report assessing the adequacy of funding for the replacement of emitting buses with zero emission versions. The amendment is right to focus once again on the central issue of funding, because that is totally absent from the existing drafting of the clause, but—a fatal “but” from my perspective—the amendment focuses on the LTAs. In fact, however, in the vast majority of cases, the cost lies with private operators and not with the local transport authority. The amendment makes no mention of what should be done for them, and that lets the Government off the hook, frankly, of addressing the real problem, which is the bus companies and the impact on them, as opposed to the local transport authorities. That is probably an inadvertent oversight, but I just point it out.

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22. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    It is very hard to add anything to that. I fully support the comments of the hon. Member, and of the hon. Member for North Norfolk. Clause 38 is excellent. It is a great addition—it was introduced by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb in the other place—because it requires the Secretary of State to undertake a review of, essentially, the impact of the Bill within two years of its passing. The meat of the clause is in subsection (2), which states that the review must assess “the change in the level of services to villages since the passing of this Act,” and “the number of villages in England not served by bus services”, as well as the “demographic characteristics of villages in relation to the level of business services available”, and finally, “the impact of this Act on the provision of bus services to villages in England.” It is the review of, “What have we achieved today?” That report will be useful, because it will kick-start discussion of solutions to rural transport. The hon. Member for North Norfolk has already referred to Sanders, which is a family-owned regional bus company—I think it has grown such that I can properly call it regional. We also have First Bus in Norfolk. We have a radial approach. We know the impact of the £2 bus fare on ridership in our county: it was very useful, including by enabling residents of Fakenham, in my constituency, to get down to Norwich—that is a bus journey of three quarters of an hour for £2. It has been an effective policy to increase ridership. We will see what impact the Bill, if it becomes an Act, will have on ridership and provision in the country as a whole, especially in rural areas. I suspect that the answer is that it will have absolutely no impact. A review would expose the Bill for what it is: virtue signalling without any funding at all to support the supposed ambitions of local transport authorities. If the Government vote against clause 38 standing part of the Bill, that will clearly demonstrate their concern that the Bill is performative, that it will not actually make services better, and that it has in fact been a monumental waste of time, without funding. Time and again, throughout consideration of the Bill, I have said that the Conservative party is not against franchising; in fact, it is a Conservative policy development. In the right circumstances, it is a good solution—it is progress—but we have to accept that it is expensive. The Government are pretending that they are facilitating a whole load of local transport authorities to franchise, but are not giving them any money to do it, so we are left with a meaningless shell. The review mandated by clause 38 would hold the Government to account. If I were proven wrong by the report, and it lists a huge number of additional services that have been supplied as a result of the Bill, I would happily come back here and eat my hat.

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23. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I am grateful for the intervention. I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said. Moving on, new clause 53 would require a review of the minimum level of bus services required for communities, within a quite ambitious six months. I leave it to the Minister to respond to that.

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24. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I rise to strongly support clause 39, which was the inspiration of Lord Hampton, the Cross Bencher who tabled it in the other place. It would require the Secretary of State to collaborate with industry stakeholders to implement a vision zero programme for buses, with the aim of eliminating serious injuries during bus operations and improving overall safety in the sector. It is very hard to argue against that as an objective for the Bill. The Minister expressed support for the concept and direction of travel. His primary argument against the clause was that it would somehow get in the way of a multimodal approach to the reduction of injuries on transport, but there is no reason why it need do so. It could co-ordinate with a multimodal transport response. Nothing in the clause prevents it from being part of a wider piece of work. I accept that the legislative requirement would be limited to the bus sector, but a non-legislative multimodal approach would be perfectly permissible, and it is a ministerial sleight of hand to suggest otherwise. The Minister is using some other review as an excuse not to keep this very good clause. The reason why it is a good clause is that personal injury to passengers on buses caused by sharp braking is a significant issue. A 2019 study for Transport for London showed that three quarters of bus passenger injuries in London were due to non-collision incidents, such as sharp braking or harsh manoeuvres. This disproportionately affects older females and standing passengers, whether they are standing for the journey or standing on their approach to a stopping place. The challenge with the current statistics is that they are binary—they report either collision injuries or non-collision injuries—and are not broken down further into, for example, sharp braking or avoiding manoeuvres. The clause would help to get to the bottom of where risk lies, expose the data and lead to an effective focus on remediation efforts. I strongly support it.

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25. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    It is rather unedifying to see the Government hiding behind arguments about article 8. If they seriously thought that article 8 was a practical consideration that prevented the adoption of the clause, why did they not seek to amend the clause? They were perfectly capable of tabling a clarifying amendment to make the clause compliant with article 8, if they really had genuine concerns about such compliance. They could have done it, but they have chosen not to. It does not befit the Minister to hide behind that as a defence for the Government’s inaction. The clause deals with the recording and sharing of data about assaults. It was proposed by the noble Lord Woodley in the other place. The Government should be aware of that, because it was after all drafted by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. I am sure the Government are good union supporters and, in other situations, I would have expected them to be highly supportive of union recommendations, although I seem to recall—I think I am right—that the RMT is not officially affiliated to the Labour party. Perhaps that explains why the clause is about to be removed from the Bill. The clause imposes a duty to record all data about assaults and violent behaviour, and a duty to consult any relevant trade unions about issues of staff safety arising from that data, which is eminently sensible. Before I go into more detail, I want to clarify that most bus journeys are in fact very safe. Data from Transport for London for 2024 suggests that only 9.6 crimes are committed per million journeys in London. I do not have the data in front of me, but I think that the equivalent data for rural Norfolk might show it is even safer. It is an increasing trend in London, however, as 4,167 crimes on London buses were reported as violence against the person in 2018-19, which was an increase of 2.5% on the previous year. In the west midlands, another hotspot, violent crime on buses increased 7% year on year in the latest statistics. Bus driver assaults is an important subsection of such crime, and in London between 2011 and 2013, on average four bus drivers every single day were assaulted or verbally abused. According to a Unite the union survey in 2024, 83% of UK bus drivers experienced abuse, with 79% saying that there had been an increase over the previous year and many reporting an inadequate employer response to assaults. That is the important bit: if bus drivers are reporting an inadequate employer response to assaults, why is requiring the proper recording of data associated with assaults such a bad thing? Surely the first step to change would be to understand the full nature of the problem. The clause would lead to better data, and therefore better support for bus drivers and passengers faced with violent crime.

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26. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    The Minister refers to the cost of concessions. Has he made an assessment, or is he aware of what the assessed cost would be, of removing the time restriction, as proposed in new clause 48?

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27. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    The new clause would introduce the simple but crucial requirement for the Secretary of State to publish a proposed bus funding formula within six months of the Bill’s passage, alongside an explanation of its rationale, an assessment of its distributional impacts, and any alternative models considered but not adopted. We all recognise that bus services are a lifeline for many of our constituents, connecting people to work, education, healthcare and social functions, and yet we come back to Banquo’s ghost: funding. There are cheques being written by local authorities that opt for franchising, but where that funding will come from is absent from the Bill—it is totally opaque. The new clause would resolve that. It would not dictate what the funding formula should be. Instead, it would ensure that when a funding formula is proposed, it is done on an evidence basis, as described in subsection (2)(b), and transparently. Such transparency is essential to maintain trust in the system, especially after the vast overspends in Greater Manchester. The new clause is proportionate and constructive, and aims to fix the significant concerns around the lack of funding detail in the Bill overall. It would help to ensure that the significant investments we make in bus services deliver the greatest possible benefits, particularly for communities that rely on them most. I will press it to a Division. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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28. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. This is an important new clause that deals with poor performance franchising. Subsection (1) would require the Secretary of State to produce a statement on when or how the Government would intervene in cases where franchised bus services were persistently failing because of poor operational or financial management. Subsection (2) says that the statement must set out the circumstances under which the Secretary of State would take over the management of a service and how those are to be identified, and that it must clarify the period of time for which the Secretary of State shall continue to manage the service. As Members will be aware, under the Bill, franchising provides local authorities with significant powers to shape, manage and procure bus services in their areas. With those powers should come an equally important responsibility: the duty to ensure that services are delivered efficiently, sustainably and to the high standards that the public rightly expect. The new clause addresses that important gap in the legislation. It requires the Secretary of State, within six months of the Act passing, to lay before Parliament a clear statement outlining their intentions and mechanisms for intervention in circumstances where franchising arrangements persistently fail due to poor operational or financial management. I will cut to the chase: we have franchising on the railways. The Government are getting themselves into a very odd position. They are saying, “We are all for devolution. We don’t want to get involved. We are removing the requirement to gain the consent of the Secretary of State to enter into franchising agreements and we have no mechanism to intervene if local transport authorities get themselves into a mess and oversee persistent underperformance.” On rail, however, they take the opposite position and their version of franchising is to nationalise. What would the Government do to remedy the situation if the transport network in a local transport authority persistently underperformed? At the moment, they are expressing no opinion at all on that. The new clause gives them the power to set out their views. It seeks to ensure that where franchising authorities or franchisees fail to deliver contracted services, there is a backstop of national intervention to guarantee continuity and standards. Buses should not be the poor relation of rail. The new clause brings the franchised bus networks in line with the franchised rail network and introduces further certainty and confidence into the franchising system for operators, passengers and local authorities alike. Everyone will know that where persistent failure occurs, there will be a robust safety net to prevent communities being left with persistently poor franchised bus services.

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29. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    The Minister’s comments fail to address the need for a final backstop, so I will press the new clause to a Division. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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30. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

    I associate myself with all the Minister’s comments, particularly those regarding the officials and everyone who has made this Committee work over the last few weeks. I am very grateful to hear the Minister’s nice words about how he was listening carefully to what we said. If that were the case, I wonder why he did not accept any of our amendments, but it may just be a question of time—he may reflect further on them. It is great that we have managed to finish a day early, at the time that the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Halifax, had in her mind. I also thank her for the way in which she has managed the operation of this Committee behind the scenes.

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31. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    NHS 10-Year Plan

    I look forward to studying the detail of this plan, but I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to neighbourhood health centres and likewise his commitment in a previous answer to rural communities. May I therefore offer him a golden opportunity? He will have heard me over many years in this House call for funding to build a new health centre in the village of Long Crendon, which lost its GP practice during the pandemic. They have the land, they have the planning permission and it will cost less than his lower number of £200 million to build. Will he convert words to delivery and commit to Long Crendon?

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32. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Edward Argar

    NHS 10-Year Plan

    I thank the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in providing advance sight not only of his statement but of his plan. I am grateful, and others on the Government Front Bench might learn a thing or two from him. I am pleased to see the plan published. This Secretary of State is a rare thing these days: one whose announcements do tend to survive largely intact for more than a week. In the case of the plan, it is vital that it does stick. The Secretary of State is not known to be short on ambition, and to be fair that is reflected in his plan; it is ambitious. I believe that his long-term goals are right and that the reforms he has set out build on the reforms that the Conservatives set out and carried out. The desire to shift care from hospital to community, to better use technology and to move to prevention is not new at all, but it remains vital. The NHS undoubtedly needs reform, not just more cash—it is not fiscally sustainable in the long term to have 38% of day-to-day Government spending going on the NHS—so we need to focus on outcomes, not just inputs. But the plan, while welcome, is still sketchy on some of the details of delivery and how it will be paid for without the funds that the Secretary of State mentioned being eaten by pay rises and by inflation, as well as how that shift will be staffed. Greater use of the app is right, and builds on the amazing work done on the app by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) when he was Secretary of State. Greater use of technology and of genomics is right, and the Secretary of State’s big five tech bets are largely right, but, as he knows, tech alone will not deliver this; people will, so a workforce plan that is clearly aligned with his strategy is vital. Neighbourhood health centres are one of the measures at the heart of the Secretary of State’s plan. The concept is an interesting one, but it does throw up a number of questions that I hope he can answer in the spirit in which they are asked. Will the providers of those new centres be NHS public sector organisations, private sector organisations or a mixture? How will the centres fit with GP provision and other services without duplication or fishing in the same pool for staff? What assessment has he made of the cost of new buildings and technology to go in them? How many centres does he envisage, and by when? Crucially, how will he ensure that a public-private partnership model will avoid the downsides of the Blair- Brown private finance initiative model? I ask those questions from a desire not to see this fail but to succeed, because it is in all our interests that the Secretary of State does succeed, but that will take time. Given that, on page 71 of his plan he talks about the need for “immediate opportunities” to be seized. Although there will be others, may I take the opportunity to suggest just one? He should deliver on the pre-election commitment for fracture liaison services to be delivered in all communities, as campaigned for by the Royal Osteoporosis Society, The Mail on Sunday, the Express and many others. That policy would deliver savings within the comprehensive spending review period. Similarly, Melton Mowbray in my constituency has a fantastic community hospital—there will be many up and down the country—and I hope that such hospitals will be a part of delivering more services in the community. On maternity care, I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to a national investigation into maternity scandals, but I hope that will not stop him from delivering on the work done by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and Theo Clarke, which included measures that can be implemented now to help improve maternity safety. On systems reform, may I offer the Secretary of State a couple of words of caution? One is on folding the Health Services Safety Investigations Body into the Care Quality Commission, even as a discrete entity within it. HSSIB is not a regulator and is not designed as such, and it is important that those distinctions are not blurred in making that change. Similarly, may I urge him to be wary of further moving integrated care boards to larger geographies—they are at risk of becoming again the old regional health authorities—as that will move them further away from the local communities they serve and the entities providing social care in those communities with whom they must interact? That brings me finally to a significant question hanging over the plan. Unless we move faster to adjust to the challenges of social care and put it on a sustainable footing, these reforms risk failing to seize the genuine opportunity presented. In the move from cross-party talks to an independent commission, we risk losing that opportunity. Crucially, I ask the Secretary of State again to consider bringing forward the end date of that commission so that we can go further and faster on social care. I have often said to the Secretary of State that where he is wrong we will rightly hold him to account and challenge him, but where he is right we will offer constructive support. The plan, by and large, does say the right things. We must shift to outcomes and not focus continually on inputs, and we must do that through real and genuine reform. The challenges he faces will be in the detail, much of which is still to be confirmed, and crucially for the Government, in the actual delivery. He should not underestimate those challenges. I will work with him to improve the plan where it needs it, but I will support him where he pledges and brings genuine reform to our healthcare system. His plan will have a key test: will patients see the difference, and when will they see the difference? In all that we do, it is vital, as we reform our NHS, that patients are at the heart of our deliberations and our plans.

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33. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Business of the House

    In 2023, Twycross zoo and I secured £19.9 million from the levelling-up fund. I am pleased to report that, when I visited a couple of weeks ago, spades were in the ground for the global conservation centre. I thank Hinckley & Bosworth borough council, Dr Rebecca Biddle and the chief executive officer Craig Dunkerley. The centre is very important because it will not only bring jobs and tourism, but, most importantly, it will train the conservationists of the next generation. Can we have a debate on why a centre like this is so important in teaching the next generation how to protect endangered species, particularly orangutans, which this centre will focus on?

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34. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Business of the House

    Those of us who have been involved in the mishandled transition of post offices from directly managed branches to franchises, as has happened in Bexhill, have seen how poorly the Post Office has responded to local businesses that want to run those branches and the MPs who support them. Will the Leader of the House agree with me, on the record, that it really matters when businesses like the Post Office pay lip service to MPs’ views but ignore us on matters of substance?

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35. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    British Film and High-end Television

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on her statement and on the report she has produced. To succeed, great British films also need a good audience. Will my hon. Friend tell us what she thinks of the Government’s support for local and regional cinemas?

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36. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·David Mundell

    People on Low Incomes in Rural Communities

    With the closure of many churches in rural communities in England and in Scotland, too, are the commissioners concerned that people living in rural areas, particularly those on low incomes, might not be able to access worship within easy reach of their own communities?

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37. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·David Mundell

    Business of the House

    Will the Leader of the House ensure that before the summer recess there is either a statement or a debate in Government time on Sudan? She will know that it is the worst humanitarian crisis ongoing in the world: tens of thousands of people killed, millions displaced and millions facing hunger every day, particularly in the Darfur region. It is stated to be the Government’s No. 1 foreign policy priority beyond Gaza and Ukraine, and of course the UK is the penholder at the United Nations. It is vital that the issue is urgently debated in this House.

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38. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Danny Kruger

    Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress

    Let me start by giving credit to the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) for her very powerful speech and for all the work that she has done on this campaign over the years, and to many other Labour Members who have spoken so well today, particularly the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who I always listen to with respect on this topic and, indeed, on some others. It has been good to hear from Members. I particularly welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who is a great new addition to this place. We see here the true voice of the Labour party. It is the Labour movement at its best, and I pay tribute to Labour Members for their campaigning on this topic. They are the heroes of the movement. We also have the heroes of the Conservative party behind me—my good friends the knights of the shires—whom it is an honour to listen to. It is like listening to Edmund Burke when my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) speaks about duty and responsibility. I congratulate the hon. Member for Salford and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings on their work together on this campaign, which, a few months ago, secured the very significant Westminster Hall debate that has been mentioned. On that day, as if the product of their work, out popped, fresh and pink, the new Minister, who was appointed to his role on that day, as if for the very purpose of answering the question of what should be done for the WASPI women. There was hope of great things from him, but I am afraid to say that we were disappointed on that day. He could offer no hope at all, yet since then we have seen a whole series of U-turns. They have become fashionable on the Government Front Bench, and who knows what we may hear the from Minister today. I recognise, and I am sure the Minister will stress, how difficult it is to address the very complicated circumstances of the very many women caught up in the pension age changes. As I am sure he will say, the ombudsman has recognised that there was no direct impact on pensioners’ incomes from the maladministration and the miscommunication of which the DWP was guilty in the 2000s. However, as Members have said— I particularly recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—women made decisions about their future, and about their life, in ignorance of their true circumstances. The failure by the DWP to successfully and appropriately communicate with the women caused them to make decisions that directly disadvantaged them. It is simply not credible, and I hope the Minister will not advance this argument, to say that correspondence from the Government is essentially pointless and has no value. That would be to suggest that there is no point in any Government communication by post. Of course, women were not advised of the changes in the circumstances, and that was the fault of the Government of the day. As many Members have said, and I acknowledge the powerful point made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), women deserve so much more. As she said, our constituents feel that they have been robbed not just of their money, but of their dignity as a consequence of these decisions. What is to be done? There has been a series of suggestions about how we might go forward. On a point of process, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon)—and I am concerned that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings seemed to agree with him—that the ombudsman’s report should in effect be binding on the Government. I do not think that is appropriate, because these are sovereign decisions that the Government, accountable to Parliament, should be making. However, I agree with the hon. Member and others that these reports should be respected by the Government, and I feel that simply did not happen in this case.

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39. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Danny Kruger

    Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress

    It is absolutely essential that the points made in the ombudsman’s report are fully acknowledged by the Government, and it is necessary, as I will explain, that some meaningful redress is made to the victims of the DWP’s maladministration. The hon. Member for Salford suggested that there could be another review of the system by the Minister for Social Security and Disability, but I do not think that the magic words, “Timms review”, will get the Government out of this hole. He has enough on his hands sorting out the mess they have made on benefits, so this is a job for this Minister, who is a very clever man, and I have great confidence in him. The suggestion made by some Members of mediation may be usefully taken forward. However, as my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said, it is simply insulting of the Government to make absolutely no redress and no acknowledgement of the injustice that the WASPI women have endured, and it is appropriate for some meaningful acknowledgement to be made. It is not for me to rescue the Government from the consequences of their own incontinence—their fiscal folly—which has got them into the mess they are in, but they have made several discretionary payments since they came to power. There were the salary increases for train drivers, without any improvement in productivity; the creation of a multibillion-pound energy company that makes no energy; our paying another country billions of pounds to take over sovereign territory belonging to the UK; and, of course, all the U-turns that have imposed significant new costs on the taxpayer, including those costing £5 billion this week alone. Obviously, Government can make discretionary payments if they want to; these are sovereign decisions that they can make. Crucially, any such decision must be funded. We saw this week that the Government essentially fell apart as a consequence of a whole series of bad decisions made in the Treasury. Parliament rose up against the Treasury and demanded change. The decision making at the heart of the Government has been woeful for the past year since Labour has come to office. I pay tribute to the parliamentarians who resisted that this week. This is a new opportunity for the Government to put right a mistake, and I look forward to hearing how the Minister proposes to do that.

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40. 3 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dame Caroline Dinenage

    Major Sporting Events

    I 100% back the words of the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and send all our best wishes to the Lionesses as they start their competition shortly. The Secretary of State will know that Royal Ascot last week attracted a viewing population of tens of millions, and “Glorious Goodwood” is about to do the same. Horseracing supports about 85,000 jobs across the UK and generates about £4 billion a year for the UK economy, but the Secretary of State will know that it faces a looming and imminent crisis. When will the Government really start to back British horseracing?

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