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The Minister claims that new information has come to light, which has resulted in the ambassador being sacked. Can he confirm that this is the only new information, and that all the other information was in the Prime Minister’s knowledge?
On Friday, I had the privilege of meeting Lawrence Bowman, the new chief executive of South Western Railway, who brings with him over 20 years of experience in the industry. We travelled from Salisbury to Tisbury. He says that he has to write a five-year plan. I am keen to ensure that that has the maximum impact and deals with the Tisbury loop. Salisbury is on the gateway to the south-west. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State delegated an official or a Minister to meet me so that, as the five-year plan is constructed, there are no unreasonable constraints or misunderstandings over what is necessary to ensure that the railway is at the centre of economic growth in the south-west.
At Porton Down in my constituency, there is a hub of life science businesses. I have listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and I recognise the difficult dilemmas that all Governments have in where to focus investment. However, the Minister must surely recognise that the additional cost of employing people, with the additional rights and burdens that that puts on employers—particularly small employers—plus 11 weeks of speculation about further tax increases will not make any sector feel more comfortable about where to invest in this country.
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role. May I echo the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) in drawing his attention to the reply that his predecessor gave to me on 27 February concerning the Government’s response to the report on valproate? It really is necessary that we get a response. Janet Williams and Emma Murphy from the Independent Foetal Anti-Convulsant Trust came to see me this week. They are grateful for the opportunity to meet a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, but they really need a formal response to the commissioner’s report of 19 months ago.
6. What steps she is taking to include ferry services in the integrated public transport strategy.
I welcome the new maritime Minister to his place—it comes to something when Isle of Wight ferry company Red Funnel is operating ferries that are older than the new Minister. Will he speak to his new colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for English devolution, to ensure that the new Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent actually has regulatory or licensing powers over transport across the Solent? If the Government create a new local leader without any powers over integrating the island that I represent, as the Member for Isle of Wight East, into the mainland, they will have failed to deliver any form of genuine integrated local transport for my constituents.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I agree with the points that my hon. Friend’s is making. The train to my constituency runs through his constituency, and he has referred to it already. Unfortunately, my constituency is reliant on entirely privatised ferry companies in order for us to get there. Does he agree that if this Government’s outlook on transport is to be truly integrated, they need to connect all parts of the United Kingdom and stop focusing only on cities?
The hon. Member mentions ferries. Perhaps she will show a little sympathy to me and my constituents, because we are entirely reliant on ferries that are unregulated and privatised, so neither the local authority nor the Government have any say over those services, whereas her local authority does have a say over her ferries. She might want to reflect on the role of Government in all modes of transport across the UK.
Will the new Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for the business. On this 24th anniversary of 9/11, I know the whole House will want to join me and, I am sure, the Leader of the House in sending our best wishes to the families and the friends of the victims of those horrendous terrorist attacks. So, too, our best wishes go to those grieving the murder of Charlie Kirk in the USA, and to our own great colleague, the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), for the terrible news she has had this morning. I thank the recently departed Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). She and I had our disagreements; I do not think there is much doubt about that. She supported the wrong football team, and I struggled to get her to answer my questions, but she was diligent and effective in responding to Members across the House, as well as in Committee. Without getting too teary about it, I will even miss her appalling puns. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Hurricane tax dodge blew away the Deputy Prime Minister and destroyed the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted phase two, but it has brought us the former Labour Chief Whip! He was a history teacher, and there cannot be many better forms of public service than that. After his distinguished career channelling industriously away in the usual channels, I warmly welcome him blinking into the bright lights of the Dispatch Box. I had somehow thought that, having plumbed the depths of incompetence over the summer, the Government would now settle down a bit. How naïve—how desperately foolish—I was. The No. 10 team were obviously taking the mickey. They were laughing at us. “You think this is incompetent?”, they said, “We have hardly got going. We can do vastly better than that. Resets are for wimps—let’s have a full-blown crash reshuffle. Let’s have a new Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, as well as a new Deputy Prime Minister. And let’s undermine the Chancellor of the Exchequer by ostentatiously lining up the former Chief Secretary to replace her. The markets will really welcome that. Even better—let’s have an election for deputy leader of the party. People are already scared to death about all the taxes coming in the Budget, but they will be completely reassured if we run a Labour leadership election at the same time. Ideally, we can make the deputy leader a former Cabinet Minister whom the Prime Minister has just abruptly fired. That’ll be good for stability. Oh, and we can go further! We can actively undermine relations with our closest ally if we throw in a major scandal over the Prime Minister’s personal choice as ambassador to the USA.” If only this were a joke—instead, it is a tragedy. It is like we are trapped in an unending episode of “The Office”, with the Prime Minister as David Brent. The unions are ratcheting up their pay demands. The RMT is holding seven days of rolling walk-outs. The tube has come to a standstill. The only people who probably will not be affected are junior doctors in London, who have voted to have strikes until the new year, so they will be staying at home anyway. As the former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies remarked, it all shows how “staggeringly unprepared” Labour was for government, and it is we across this House and all our constituents who are paying the price for their arrogance and negligence. The Leader of the House will only just be coming up to speed now, of course—one perfectly understands that—but, if I may, I would make one early request of him, with the utmost seriousness. He will know that many thousands of veterans, including hundreds in my constituency and in his, have had their lives thrown into uncertainty and bad—desperate, in some cases—anxiety by the Government’s decision to repeal the Northern Ireland veterans legislation, the Northern Ireland (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. That was more than a year ago now. The Government promised a legally sound and effective legislative solution to the problem they had created, so could the Leader of the House let us know—now or in a written update before the recess—when the Northern Ireland Secretary will come to the House and publish that solution?
Before I ask my question, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the fact that last night, a man lost his life, a wife lost her husband, and children lost their father because of political intolerance. It was a personal tragedy, but also a tragedy for the body politic. I want to take a moment to recognise the importance of free speech in our democracies. The Secretary of State quite rightly talks about improving rail performance, yet we are in a city paralysed by strike action from the RMT. The Government claim that nationalising the railways under Great British Railways will bring untold improvements. They are “untold”; Lord Hendy tells us that there will be rigorous performance standards, but he has repeatedly refused to set out what they will be. When will the Secretary of State set out the standards by which the Government’s nationalisation experiment should be judged—or are they still discussing them with the RMT?
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will be aware of the mistakes made during the counting of votes yesterday. Are you able to give some guidance to those on the Treasury Bench on the importance of the work of the Whips?
I join the Liberal Democrat spokesperson in thanking the hon. Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for securing the debate. It gives us an opportunity to talk about the chasm between the Government’s grand promises and the grim reality for passengers, businesses and communities, as has been ably demonstrated by many of the contributions from Back Benchers. I do not have time to do justice to all those who have made contributions: I will leave that task to the Minister. I will move quickly on to roads and the Government’s record on roads, which has come in for some criticism today. The infrastructure spending review that the Conservatives were responsible for in the run-up to the last election was the road investment strategy 2, which ran from 2020 to 2025. That was some £24 billion of investment, delivering major upgrades, unlocking infrastructure to enable 186,000 new homes for our constituents, improving freeport and airport links, and improving safety with 151 refuge areas built on smart motorways. We now move to 2025-30, with RIS3, which is Labour’s opportunity to outshine us. Has it done so? Absolutely not. RIS3 is marked by the killing of key enhancements, which I will come to, and instead of action we have targets here and consultations there, but it is very light on delivery. We have a Government of review and policy papers, and that speaks to a wider truth about the Government. It is led by a lawyer Prime Minister who values process over political judgment—just think about his approach to sacking our ambassador to Washington. The Prime Minister’s original defence was that the process was followed: there was no political judgment. We can see that in the transport policy too. What we need is not process. We do not need further targets here and consultations there: we need action. We need action on the A12 improvements—a £1.2 billion project. The scheme had been signed off, the housing had been cleared and businesses had been relocated, but it was scrapped without warning by this Government. The A12 is a core artery for Essex and South Suffolk. What about the regional inequality of that region?
I am aware that my hon. Friend’s Bill does not make a call on the public purse, at least on the Treasury, and it is for local authorities to opt into the scheme should they wish to. It sounds like a very exciting project and one that should be developed further. I mentioned the A12 in East Anglia, but there is also the A47 near Great Yarmouth. The Conservatives’ RIS2 included dualling to North Tuddenham, which is going on at the moment—I declare an interest as it is in my constituency—as is the dualling of the Brundall to Blofield stretch of the A47. Labour came into power and cancelled all further improvements.
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention gives me the opportunity to raise the proverbial eyebrow at his claiming credit for securing £200 million for the Thickthorn roundabout when that has been in process for many years before he was elected. As for the £50 million he mentions, I think he means the western link road, which would be a huge improvement. At the moment we have the equivalent of the M25 for Norwich, but it is missing one section of 3.9 miles. The Conservatives are squarely behind finishing it: I am surprised to hear that Labour does not support the residents of Norwich in a similar way. I will move on to what Labour has done. It has cancelled the further improvements on the A47, particularly at the other end towards Peterborough. That is just another example of where East Anglia has been ignored by Labour. Buses are the most popular form of public transport and the most important one in areas of high deprivation. They are particularly important for poorer members of society, the young, elderly and disabled. The Conservatives recognise that—we recognise that price matters—so the last Government introduced the £2 bus fare cap, and our manifesto commitment at the last election was to maintain it throughout the course of this Parliament because we recognised how popular and useful it was in increasing bus ridership. When Labour came to power, it had a choice: it could back passengers or it could back the unions. One of its first—shameful—acts in government was to give a 15% pay rise to ASLEF train drivers, who are already the best paid in Europe, paid for by a 50% increase in bus fares for passengers around the country. That speaks to a wider truth: when it comes to it, Labour is the party of the unions and not of the people.
On that point, I will give way.
I have no problem with the unions making demands—after all, they are representing the interests of their members. What I complain about is the Government giving way to them at the expense of the general public. On trains, we have got the cancelled projects as well. The midland main line electrification has been cancelled, which has led to lay-offs and the loss of expertise. It is also causing problems for the procurement of new bi-mode trains, because we no longer have any certainty as to whether the line will be electrified. At Dawlish, the Conservative Government completed phases 1 to 4 of the improvements and reinforcement of the line. Phase 5 is all that remains. What have the Government done? They have kicked it into the long grass, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for which I give him credit. Back in East Anglia, the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) highlighted the need for the Ely junction and Haughley junction projects in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to be advanced, yet they have been ignored by the Government.
I will not, because I am running out of time. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. What is the big plan? It is one of nationalisation for railways. We must look at the Government’s motive—what do they think it is going to do? It is not about unifying track and train, because that was already in the Williams-Shapps review; that was going to happen without nationalisation. Is it about reducing fares? If so, it is backfiring, because nationalised train companies’ fares are rising above inflation. Is it about increasing efficiency? One would hope so, but through the Government’s nationalisation process they are decapitating the management teams that drive efficiency in the individual rail companies. Is it about increasing passenger numbers? The inconvenient truth for Labour is that under privatisation passenger ridership on the railway doubled, because the companies were incentivised to chase ridership. That was driven by increased open access routes, yet the Government have opposed every single application for open access since the election. Is it to save money? If so, they are not doing a very good job. On South Western Railway—one of the first to be nationalised since the election—they wasted £250 million on infrastructure overspend with the rolling stock leasing companies due to Government negotiating incompetence. The truth is that the Government are doing it because it is an article of Labour faith—faith in the big state—and also a key demand of the unions. How has it gone for them? As we have heard, ASLEF has already got a 15% pay rise, and the RMT is striking now. Next time, when GBR is finished, that strike will be national. The Government are one year in. We have heard in the debate of cancelled scheme after cancelled scheme. We have also heard that prices have increased and that money has been diverted from passengers to union pay. That has done nothing for regional inequality, save for the industrial action that is spreading from London and engulfing the rest of the country. It is why passengers are so disappointed in Labour. They deserve better.
Will the Minister give way on that point?
I must declare that my wife works in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. The Minister and the Chancellor claim to want to boost growth, yet investment is fleeing the very sectors that he claims are a priority. Is it not the case that the vague aspirations of the Government do not meet the real-world test and that the people who are going to suffer from this are his constituents and, unfortunately, mine?
In just one year, this Labour Government have already failed rural Britain on transport. They have scrapped the £2 bus fare cap, pushing up costs for working people; they have wasted £250 million in the process of nationalising South Western Railway, while my commuters are still stuck with cancelled peak services; and they continue to pour billions of pounds into London, while communities such as Farnham, Bordon, Haslemere and Liphook in my constituency are left behind. My constituency is just 40 miles from London, yet the difference in connectivity is stark. London enjoys a world-class system—well, when it is not being held to ransom by greedy tube driver unions, as is the case this week—but Farnham, Haslemere, Bordon and Liphook are treated very differently. The contrast with London is outrageous. In the capital, there is a bus stop every 400 metres and services run every five to 10 minutes throughout the night. In my constituency, buses are 30 to 90 minutes apart, if they run at all, and many disappear entirely after 7 pm. Students at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham cannot get to Guildford in the evening. Meanwhile, Londoners can choose from over 100 night bus routes. Whereas passengers in London pay a fixed £1.75 fare, people in rural Surrey and Hampshire pay much more, because Labour hiked the cap. My constituents will remember that Labour put up their fares, which is why I took action. I convened the Bordon taskforce to bring Stagecoach, local councils and local leaders around the table, and the results speak for themselves. The newly revised No. 18 bus service now runs every 30 minutes on weekdays and Saturdays, and hourly on Sundays, linking Bordon, Whitehill, Farnham and Aldershot. The No. 13 service between Bordon, Alton and Basingstoke has also been strengthened, with six Sunday return journeys. Stagecoach even trialled free travel this June after my push for better value. These are tangible improvements that make life easier for thousands of people, but gaps still remain. It is extraordinary that there is no bus connection between Bordon and Petersfield—only 11 miles apart—except for a single school service. That is why I am in talks with East Hampshire district council to establish a new route, modelled on the Waverley “hospital hoppa”—a scheme for which I secured funding in Farnham.
My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. He is absolutely right: this Government are focused on metropolitan areas, and constituencies like his and mine, which are rural and semi- rural, are simply left behind. His mention of rail neatly brings me to my points on rail. Rail tells the same story as buses. Three of my four major towns have train stations, but Bordon, the third largest one, has none, and the lines that do exist are fragmented and unreliable. Only this week, the 7.28 from Farnham to Waterloo was cancelled. Too often, peak-time trains arrive at Haslemere or Liphook with just four coaches. When I challenged South Western Railway on that, I was told that to avoid cancellations nearer London, it reassigned carriages away from my area. I made it clear: my commuters are not second-class citizens, and that needs to change. At South Western’s Farnham depot this summer, I pressed the company directly on the £250 million Arterio fleet, which is meant to relieve overcrowding but is still sitting idle for want of drivers or because of faults. I secured assurances of change, and I will now hold the company to account. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, the Government wasted £250 million nationalising South Western Railway. That money could have delivered a permanent Bordon-to-Liphook bus link for 1,000 years. Instead, urban areas get Crossrail and trams, while my constituents get cancellations and four-carriage trains. That is clearly not acceptable. Much more help is needed for my constituents. Rural communities such as mine cannot keep being treated as second class. Levelling up, economic growth and net zero—all laudable aims—mean nothing if millions of people in my constituency and the surrounding areas cannot get a bus on a Sunday, or a train with more than four carriages on a Monday morning. That is the reality of Labour’s transport policy: higher fares, wasted money and broken promises. That is unacceptable to my constituents and, I hope, unacceptable to the constituents of every single Member of this House.
When driving tests came up at Transport questions in May, it was revealed that the wait time for a driving test on average was up, from 17 weeks in July 2024 to 22 weeks now. It has since been revealed that many test centres around the country have reached the maximum legal limit of a 24-week wait. Will the Minister acknowledge that for thousands of people up and down the country waiting for a driving test—waiting for that step on the ladder to get their first job or to college through the freedom of driving—it is simply not good enough for the Secretary of State to have pushed back the Government’s new target to fix this to 2026? Real people need real answers now, so will he redouble the efforts to get the wait time at least back down to the point it was at when the last Government left office?
The Minister is right that there is still more to be done—there is a lot more to be done. He inherited a broken system from his own predecessor in the Department for Transport, under whom the problem got significantly worse over the last year. I do not think the Minister is listening to the country. I cannot be alone in having an inbox full of emails from constituents complaining about the wait time to get themselves or, indeed, their children a driving test. My constituent Sarah wrote: “Young people’s work opportunities are significantly reduced by not being able to drive,” particularly in rural England, in this case Steeple Claydon in my constituency. Sarah sets her alarm for 5.45 every day to try to secure a test, and the best she has managed is next February. Will the Minister apologise to everybody up and down the land who sets their alarm early because the Government are making the situation a lot worse?
This is about the Prime Minister’s judgment. By Mandelson’s own admission, there is more very embarrassing information coming, so the Prime Minister could have said to the House yesterday, “I will suspend him, pending further investigation,” but he did not; he backed him. Can the Prime Minister be 100% sure that, in making any trade deals, or in any negotiations, Mr Mandelson has not been compromised by the information that has now come forward, and will he commit to investigating that?
May I ask the new Leader of the House for some help? I have been working with the Hinckley school to try and get its science and technology building project sorted. That has been going on for a couple of years and we are at a crucial point with contractors. With the reshuffle, the Minister in charge of that portfolio has been moved on, and we are therefore in a pending position. I have already sent the information to the Leader of the House and I would be grateful if he would contact the Department for Education on my behalf to put pressure on to ensure that we get a decision made on this, so that the development can get started before the winter sets in.
I thank the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher). He honours John by securing the debate. All hon. Members who have spoken have honoured respectively the people they held so dear, in the most powerful way possible by turning personal grief into public purpose. I therefore thank them all for giving their time to speak. There was a TikTok video that went viral. It opens with a young woman energetically and innocently asking: “Be honest: who do you call whenever you’re at your lowest? Who’s that one person?” The stitched video replies come in, with men answering. The replies are harrowing and insightful: “Nobody. I’m a man. No one cares.” “Not a single soul.” “Nobody.” “No one, cause I am all alone.” “I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I don’t call anyone.” “Nobody. I’m a guy—no one gives a s***” “Speaking for the guys, literally no one.” “You all call someone?” “There’s no one. Nobody who cares.” “No one. I’m a man. No one cares.” “Not a single person. I wouldn’t turn to a single person on this earth as they will use it against me.” “I wouldn’t call anyone.” “What—we can call somebody?” That small insight from a seemingly jokey platform hits on what we—the House and wider society—must look at to try to understand why men feel they are not valued. Why do they feel they cannot call someone? Why do they fear doing so will be used against them? Why do they fear asking for help? Many hide in plain sight, struggling and battling until it is too late. After all, we know from the Samaritans that about two thirds of suicide victims are not known to mental health services. Hon. Members may wonder why I am choosing to focus my comments on men when the latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that suicide rates are at their highest level since 1999. As we have heard, men account for three quarters of all suicides in the UK. The latest paper by the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys puts that in stark light. It showed that more men under 50 die in the UK due to suicide than for any other reason; 14 men every day die by suicide in the UK; 74% of all suicides are male; three times as many men die by suicide every year than die in a vehicle accident; and by 2023, over 90,000 men in England and Wales had died by suicide this century. That is enough to fill Wembley stadium. There is so much to do in this area. I want to highlight the focus and progress of the previous Government. Through the NHS long-term plan, an additional £57 million was provided by the former Conservative Government between 2019-20 and 2023-24 to fund suicide prevention and bereavement services in every local authority. My former colleague Sajid Javid, who was touched tragically by the experience of losing his own brother to suicide, was instrumental in starting the development of the suicide prevention strategy, which was published in 2023. Key initiatives included the development of a new nationwide, near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system that aimed to provide early detection and timely action to address changes in suicide rates. The strategy in its entirety set out over 100 actions to make progress across Government Departments, the NHS, the voluntary sector and national partners. In 2021, the previous Government also announced £150 million of funding for crisis mental health facilities and patient safety in mental health units. In January 2023, it was announced that £7 million of funding would be allocated to new mental health ambulances, with £143 million going towards 150 new projects, including schemes providing alternatives to A&E. That is welcome, but the stats show that, even with all that focus, the trend is worsening. Despite all that work and prioritisation of funding, we have yet to hear anything substantial from this Government about what they are doing on suicide prevention. As we know from one example, training can make a difference. Samaritans reports from its rail team that, for every one life lost, it is estimated that six lives are saved by interventions made thanks to the training given to National Rail and rail operating staff. That is proof that things can be done. Just yesterday it was World Suicide Prevention Day and the Prime Minister was asked twice about the topic. In response he said, first: “May I also thank those dealing with suicide prevention? Probably everybody in this House knows someone who has taken their life. It touches all of us and we must do everything we can, together, to prevent suicide.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 862.] Secondly, he said: “I think that suicide prevention matters to everybody in this House. I will reaffirm our commitment and I will work across the House with all Members to deal with suicide prevention.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 868.] Those are positive, warm words from the Prime Minister, which we are all pleased to hear. However, I think that we, across this House and among the public, would be interested in hearing the tangible actions taken by this Government after one year in office. Will the Minister provide an update on what direct, practical steps this Government are taking on suicide prevention, including the implementation of the recommendations in the strategy? What points—for example, disparities in the difference across ethnicities and races in the UK—are being addressed? I know that the Government have been consulting on a wide range of issues, particularly when it comes to men’s health and the men’s health strategy. I have been shining a light on those issues since I was elected in 2019, so I thank the Government for taking that important step forward. I understand that the Government are due to publish the mental health strategy and I commend them for that. Indeed, I note than in an Adjournment debate earlier this year, the Minister for Care stated: “In November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care brought together leading campaigners, experts and the Premier League to gather ideas and inform our strategy and our 10-year health plan. We take suicide prevention extremely seriously, because every suicide is a tragedy that has a devastating and enduring impact on families, friends and communities.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 757.] His Majesty’s Opposition welcome that step forward, but in looking at the 10-year plan, I note that suicide is mentioned only three times. I think that everyone here hopes to see it feature heavily in the upcoming men’s health strategy. Will the Minister provide an update on timescales for the strategy and how it will consider suicide prevention? Will the Government look at the prospect of a Minister for men and boys if the evidence points in that direction? We have a Minister for Women, as we believe that women have different problems across society. By that very logic, men and boys have different needs too. If we are to go down the route of segregating policies on sex, there appears to be a compelling argument to have a men’s Minister to work across Departments. That cannot be starker if we consider that for every woman who dies by suicide in the UK three men die. Another achievement by the previous Government was the launch of the suicide prevention grant fund, as we have heard, providing £10 million to 79 organisations between August 2023 and March 2025. In my constituency, the charity First Step Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland received £76,845 and the grant was used to improve specialist counselling work in prisons and to build on pilot projects. It is therefore a regret that the suicide prevention grant came to an end in March 2025 and has yet to be renewed or replaced. In response to a written question in April, the Minister for Care stated: “There are currently no plans to run another grant fund.” Will the Minister explain the basis behind the decision earlier this year not to renew or replace the suicide prevention grant fund, and what alternative provision, if any, is being provided?
I thank the hon. Lady for all the work she does with the APPG. I am looking holistically at the different parts of what we are trying to do in this space. I have already outlined all the funding that the previous Government put in, and I will come on to some of the other problems, such as the national insurance rise, because she will know that they will have a devastating impact. At the time, the Minister also stated: “We will be evaluating the impact of the fund, and the services that have been provided by the grant-funded organisations. Learning from this evaluation will help to inform…the Government’s mission to reduce the lives lost to suicide.” Could the Minister provide further details about that evaluation, such as when it will be completed and whether the Government would reconsider their decision to end the grant funding if the results show that it has had a positive impact in supporting suicide prevention? Charities were not exempted from the increase in employer national insurance contributions in the Budget. That has significantly hampered their financial situation. We just have to listen to what the Samaritans said in response to the spending review last year: “The reality is that funding for suicide prevention has dwindled down to next to nothing. To deliver our life-saving work, charities are reliant on donations—on the generosity of the public. And this is even more precarious at a time when many people across the country are facing economic hardship.” I point that out not to score political points, but to draw attention to the fact that the Labour Government need to set a direction and plan to deal with the leading killer of men and women under the age of 30. In closing, I want to recognise that yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day. Every year, 720,000 people across the world take their own lives. The theme this year was, “Changing the Narrative on Suicide”. It calls on us all to challenge harmful myths, reduce stigma and foster open, compassionate conversations about suicide. That leads me to where I started: if men do not know their value, if they do not know they have someone to confide in and if they do not truly believe that we care, we will not break the cycle, we will not make a difference and, ultimately, we will not save lives. That is the challenge laid before society, this House and, ultimately, this Government.
The idea that our country should be represented in America or on the world stage by somebody who tried to get a paedophile out of prison early will fill us all with revulsion. Can the Minister be clearer? He has said that the Prime Minister asked the Foreign Secretary to withdraw the ambassador. He said the Prime Minister made the decision, but he also said in his statement that Mandelson resigned. Did he resign or was he sacked?
rose—
19. What steps she is taking to support the sustainable aviation fuel industry.
I congratulate my parliamentary neighbour on his accession. It is good to see his talents recognised. Much of the technology currently used in sustainable aviation fuel is of foreign origin. Part of the reason for that is that no Government body directly supports the development of core technologies used for that, supporting only the development of production facilities. The Aerospace Technology Institute, for example, should be able to invest in research and development programmes to develop sustainable fuel, but is currently not permitted to do so. Will the Minister look at allowing that, so we can accelerate the development of our own technology in this area?
The House needs to understand the sheer size of the failure of the vetting process here. It is in the public domain that Peter Mandelson had to resign for not telling the truth about an interest-free loan, and that he had to resign on a second occasion because he had helped a business friend to get a passport. Beyond that, there are still unresolved doubts about his behaviour as the European Trade Commissioner, when he gave concessions to the Russians, which helped his other dubious close friend, Mr Deripaska. On the positive vetting process for when Peter Mandelson came to be a Minister again in 2010, section 3.1 of the ministerial code says: “Ministers…must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.” Secretaries of State do not have private diaries. He spent time in Mr Epstein flat, it seems quietly meeting other people involved in the Sempra deal. That cannot be seen as following his proper duties as Secretary of State. It was in the Government documents—it does not have to be a private email. Was that investigated, and was a judgment made on it?
I welcome the Leader of the House to his place and pay tribute to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell)—I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) that she supports exactly the right football team. People in Staffordshire Moorlands are very concerned that they should have their say about what happens in devolution plans. I am sure the Leader of the House will share my astonishment that the Reform-led Staffordshire county council has put forward a proposal for an east Staffordshire unitary authority, which would see not just Staffordshire Moorlands, but Burton, Uttoxeter, Tamworth and Lichfield drawn into a greater Stoke-on-Trent. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the importance of local people having their own say on what happens in their local area?
It is a pleasure to speak for the Opposition in this interesting debate; I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on securing it. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on his appointment. I look forward to potentially confronting him, but sometimes agreeing with him, at the Dispatch Box on numerous occasions. It has been an interesting debate. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington is right to raise concerns about a range of different challenges with pricing practices. Consumers often find them confusing and frustrating, and sometimes find themselves completely out of pocket, which is a very annoying feeling. I think we can all agree that transparency and fairness need to be at the heart of our consumer markets. My particular pet peeves, quite a few of which were listed by the hon. Member, include subscription traps—they have definitely got me quite a few times—and the meal deal where I think I have the elements right but have not, and end up paying more than I should. Unclear sizes is another issue. There are also the three-for-two offers where we do not buy the right three things but do not realise that until we are in the queue for the checkout. The one thing that I think is probably a good thing, though, is the shrinkflation of the Mars Bar; we probably need to welcome that as a sign of human progress. We have also heard some really interesting contributions this afternoon from the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). I have the honour of serving on the Treasury Committee, which is chaired by the hon. Lady, and today she outlined many of the different ways in which consumers can encounter challenges in the financial sector. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) also made a very interesting speech. The one thing that I want to pick up on in my remarks is flexible or variable pricing, because the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington outlined some of the drawbacks of such pricing, and how we can feel—particularly if we have to use the railway at peak times—how unfair it is. However, I will just caution colleagues against throwing the baby out with the bathwater regarding flexible pricing, because the flipside of it is that it allows businesses to offer much cheaper prices when demand is low. Consequently, it helps consumers to access goods and services at a price they can afford that they might otherwise miss, and it enables venues to fill their seats, airlines to fill their planes and retailers to manage their stocks efficiently. So long as flexible pricing is transparent, there are benefits for consumers and businesses. Key to consumers getting good prices is creating good competition in markets and keeping inflation down but, frankly, both those things are being exacerbated by the Government’s current economic approach, particularly inflation, because last year’s Halloween Budget included the tax hikes, the increased national insurance contributions and the reduced business rates relief that are pricing a lot of small businesses out of the market. Those are the very businesses that drive competition, and that can keep prices down. Without them, consumers face fewer choices and therefore higher costs. I will give an example from the night-time economy. According to the Night Time Industries Association, we have seen a worrying decline in venues across the UK. Recent research has revealed that over a quarter of our towns and cities that had a nightclub before the pandemic now have none, and that 16% of our towns and cities across this country have lost all their late-night venues entirely. We will hear from the Minister about the Government’s plans to cap ticket resales. Those plans risk making things worse. Capping resale profits at 10% might sound like a fair idea, but in practice it risks harming small venues and up-and-coming artists. It places additional costs on already stretched businesses, and opens the door to the black market and scams. We have seen this play out. We can learn from the state of Victoria in Australia, where a 10% profit cap on ticket resellers did not stop tickets from being sold above the price cap; it just resulted in a spike in the number of scammers, and tickets only being available to international buyers. So, the Minister might want to ask his team about that situation. We have also seen that in Ireland, a 10% tax on ticket resellers caused an increase in scams. And last year, at the wonderful Paris Olympics, viagogo was banned. Because viagogo is a ticket resale company, that meant that there were empty seats at many Olympic events. So, the ban deprived fans of spontaneous access to the Olympics, and athletes of full audiences. I urge the Minister to be wary of unintended consequences and to look closely at the proposals. The Government’s approach, as we understand it, risks penalising fans, artists and venues alike. This issue is not just about ticket touts; it is about ensuring a vibrant cultural sector, in which people can access live events safely and affordably. Regulation, if it is done badly, risks moving all of this activity underground. I wholeheartedly endorse what the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington said about keeping consumers informed, making sure that information is clear and ensuring that consumers are not misled. Let us support competition; let us enable a thriving small business sector and not stifle it; and let us back businesses that make our economy dynamic, diverse and responsive to consumer needs. In summary, I agree that we need to be vigilant about unfair practices, but we must also be pragmatic. The best protection for consumers is thriving, competitive markets, not ones burdened by excessive regulation and shrinking opportunity.
Order. With an immediate three-minute limit, I call Andrew Cooper.
Order. It might be helpful if I indicate that I will come to the Front Benchers at five minutes past 3. On a three-minute time limit, there is very little time for interventions.
I commend the hon. Gentleman for his timekeeping and the speed with which he included all that. That brings us to the Front Benchers, remembering that we would like to leave some time for the Member who introduced the debate to wind up. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
I call the shadow Minister.