Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,779 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In answer to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), the Minister seemed to imply—to Opposition Members’ ears anyway—that the United States would be paying, I think he said, a larger quantum of the funding for the deal. I think he was referring to the operational cost of the base. May I ask for confirmation that the United States is not contributing at all to the £30 billion lease under the settlement?
On a very serious note, the Opposition have been accused of being pro-Russia, pro-China and pro-Iran repeatedly by the Prime Minister, which the Minister has defended, because we dared to oppose the Chagos deal. If he wants unity, we need to see that on both sides of the House.
The Scottish Conservatives have suggested that we should be prioritising Scottish-based students for medical places at university, because they are much more likely to stay in the UK and therefore contribute to our workforce. Would the hon. Gentleman support that to help the backlog and health services in Scotland?
Will the hon. Member give way?
I thank the hon. Member so much for giving way so gladly. I have visited universities recently, too, and they also point to the real-terms cut in funding from the Scottish Government having a real impact on their budgets. In the interests of fairness, will he reflect on that too?
The hon. Gentleman talks about ideological blocks. The oil and gas sector, as he well knows, is crucial to Scotland, especially to the north-east of Scotland. Allowing it to flourish and to be supported into the future will have just as much of an economic benefit. Will he reflect on that and perhaps have a word with his Front Benchers, to try to persuade them that supporting the oil and gas sector has benefits for the whole of Scotland and the UK, particularly at the moment, when we are suffering so much with economic growth?
Q9. This time a year ago, farmers and many others across the country were about to go to the polls, perhaps to vote Labour for the first time because they took the Prime Minister at his word that he and his party would never leave farmers in the background again. Within weeks, however, that trust had been completely shattered by the family farm tax. Farmers know how devastating that tax will be, the industry knows how devastating that tax will be, we on the Conservative Benches know how devastating it will be, and more and more of the Prime Minister’s own Back Benchers do, too. Following the U-turn on winter fuel payments, following the U-turn on grooming gangs, and following the many, many U-turns on welfare payments yesterday, will the Prime Minister now tell farmers up and down the country when it will be their turn for a U-turn and that he will scrap the family farm tax?
I am grateful to the Minister for his speech and for bringing this important and very necessary measure to the House. I also thank him for the briefing I was provided with earlier today. Let us be clear what these measures are and are not about. Do we support free speech? Yes. Do we support the right to protest? Yes. Do we support freedom of expression? Yes. However, the very freedoms that make our democracy what it is are exactly the freedoms that the groups we are considering are putting at risk, which is why this order is needed. The groups we are discussing—Palestine Action, Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement—have nothing whatsoever to do with legitimate protest. They would not be facing proscription if they were demonstrating peacefully, respectfully or legally, as so many groups and organisations across the country do and must continue to be able to do freely. These groups have chosen a different path entirely, and for that reason this action is rightly being taken against them.
The right to protest is a hugely important part of our democracy. We support the right to protest and the right to free speech. We do not support a right to commit criminal damage or to intimidate or threaten the public, but that is exactly what these groups are doing and why they are quite rightly being proscribed. We must be clear-eyed about the broader threat landscape we face. Terrorism remains one of the most serious threats to our national security. Whether it comes from international networks, those radicalised online or extremist groups operating on our soil, the threat is real and evolving and it must demand our constant vigilance. Our security services work tirelessly day and night to keep us safe. They have disrupted countless plots that the public will never know about, but we cannot be complacent. The nature of terrorism has changed—from sophisticated networks to lone actors, from physical attacks to attacks on cyber networks, and from foreign battlefields to our own communities—and our response must evolve accordingly. We should reflect on what terrorism is. As defined by the Terrorism Act 2000, it occurs when an action’s “use or threat is designed to influence the government…or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and…the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.” The full list of actions are detailed in the Act, but they include serious violence against a person, those that endanger life or health and safety, and those that seriously damage property. Proscription is not a step taken lightly, but it is a strong and necessary tool that the previous as well as the current Government have used and should use to protect the public, and to ensure that our police and security services have fuller access to the resources they need to keep the public, our institutions and our way of life safe. No one could hear the Minister’s description of the actions of Palestine Action, MMR and RIM and consider them to be those of peaceful, legitimate protest groups.
I thank the hon. Member for that, but if Palestine Action is using pyrotechnics against people who are escaping an attack by that organisation, that is intent. If it intends to damage Royal Air Force property and Ministry of Defence property by sabotaging RAF jets at Brize Norton, that is intent. It is showing intent as well as the other organisations. These groups do not share our values. They do not respect our country. They do not care about our way of life and they show no regard for the safety of our citizens. On the Conservative Benches, we are proud of the actions taken by previous Conservative Governments to strengthen our counter-terrorism framework. We gave our police and security services the powers they needed to confront evolving threats, and we welcome and support the Home Secretary making use of the same powers today. As the Minister said, proscription is a vital tool and a strong deterrent, but it is only a part—albeit a very important part—of what we need to do to keep our country safe. On its own, it is not enough. It must be followed by enforcement. We will, of course, be watching closely to ensure the police have the resources and the backing they need from the Labour Government to do just that. As the Minister and I have said, the first job of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. We, as the official Opposition, will always support the Government in that aim. The activities of these organisations have clearly met the threshold for proscription under the Terrorism Act, and we on the Opposition Benches are very happy to support the Government in their aims today.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on securing this important debate. We have had a short but good debate with well-informed contributions from all right hon. and hon. Members. I am pleased to speak about the contribution of whistleblowers —the men and women who often, at great personal cost, speak truth to power and expose wrongdoing that threatens the public interest. Whistleblowers are a vital component of any transparent and accountable society. From exposing financial misconduct in public contracts to raising the alarm about unsafe practices in hospitals, schools and the criminal justice system, they are often the first line of defence against systemic failure. They help protect taxpayer money, uphold ethical standards and, in some cases, save lives. Under the previous Conservative Government, we took their contribution seriously. We recognised that whistleblowers must be supported, not silenced. That is why we commissioned a comprehensive review of the UK’s whistleblowing framework. That review, launched in 2023, aimed to modernise the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, reflecting the changing nature of workplaces, technology and organisational cultures. We took concrete steps. The last Government expanded the list of prescribed persons—independent bodies to whom whistleblowers can safely report wrongdoing. We introduced new protections for whistleblowers in health and social care, ensuring that staff who spoke up about abuse or unsafe conditions could not be victimised or dismissed. We supported the establishment of confidential reporting channels across Government Departments, particularly in defence procurement and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, where vast sums of public money are at stake. We also supported the Office of the Whistleblower Bill, championed in the other place by Baroness Kramer and others—a cross-party effort that recognised that current enforcement is fragmented and that an independent body with real teeth is essential if we are to protect whistleblowers and punish retaliation effectively. I regret to say that the current Government are undoing much of that progress.
The hon. Lady clearly has a great deal of experience as a solicitor before her election to this place. I am not trying to make the case that everything is as it should be—in fact, I just said that the system clearly needs reform—but I think the last Conservative Government should be proud of concrete steps they took, which I hope will be built on by the new Government, but at the moment, the evidence is pointing the other way. Despite warm words about transparency and ethics in public life, Labour has shown a concerning reluctance to strengthen whistleblower protections. The much anticipated response to the 2023 review has been repeatedly delayed. In the meantime, those brave enough to speak up remain exposed to career-ending retaliation, blacklisting or legal threats. Worse still, Labour has quietly watered down safeguards in some of the very sectors where whistleblowers are most needed. I point, for example, to the recent decision to roll back reforms on anonymous reporting in the national health service. In the name of organisational cohesion, Labour is silencing dissent and discouraging staff from flagging issues that could directly impact patient safety.
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s correction. This House would be a far better place if everyone corrected their errors in a much timelier manner. We all make mistakes, and it is good when we stand up and admit to them. This same attitude is evident in the Government’s approach to transparency in the armed forces. Those on the Conservative Front Bench in the other place have been pressing the Government to include a whistleblowing function in the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill. The noble Baroness Goldie’s amendments would give armed forces personnel the ability to raise a whistleblowing complaint to the commissioner, with the commissioner required to investigate and ensure complete anonymity. The Government have repeatedly opposed adding a whistleblowing function to that Bill. Labour peers and MPs have voted against the noble Baroness Goldie’s amendments three times to date, arguing that they are unnecessary. The Government have claimed these amendments could make it less likely for someone to come forward purely by including the terms “whistleblower” and “whistleblowing”, yet that language is already widely used in such schemes. The NHS has a whistleblowing scheme known as the freedom to speak up policy, which directly uses the term “whistleblowing”. The Children’s Commissioner issues an annual whistleblowing report. To say that those terms would discourage people from raising issues is a fallacy and is not consistent with Government policy. If Labour was serious about this, it would have backed our amendment that would allow whistleblowers to come forward to the commissioner. We have also seen worrying reports that Labour’s planned overhaul of procurement oversight may remove mandatory reporting requirements that flag up the fraud or conflicts of interest that are often brought to light by whistleblowers working inside those systems. That is not the direction we should be travelling in. A Government who are truly confident in their integrity should not fear whistleblowers; they should welcome them. They are not saboteurs, and they are not disloyal—they are patriots who put principle before personal gain, and they deserve better. The Opposition remain committed to championing whistleblower protections. We believe in robust and enforceable safeguards. We believe in the need for an independent body to investigate whistleblower complaints and to protect those who speak up, and we will continue to hold the Government to account for any failure to protect those who protect the public interest.
I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of space weather on the UK. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. There are debates in this House that deal with the visible challenges of our time, such as conflict, inflation and public services, and then every so often, there are those that deal with the dangers not yet on our doorstep, but hurtling towards us all the same. This is such a debate. The threat that I raise today does not wear a uniform, cross borders or sail across oceans. It travels from the heart of our solar system, faster than sound, silent and invisible. It is called space weather, and it poses one of the gravest risks to our modern way of life. I will start with a simple truth: the sun, for all its warmth and majesty, can also be a menace. It gives us energy, light and life, but without warning it can unleash waves of electromagnetic fury so powerful and indiscriminate that they can bring nations to a standstill in a matter of minutes. This is not speculation or science fiction; it is based on history and science, and it is an urgent question of national resilience. In 1859, a solar storm known as the Carrington event ignited telegraph wires, shocked operators and lit up the skies from Canada to the Caribbean. In the 21st century, such a storm would do more than send sparks down copper wires. It would knock out GPS, disable satellites, crash the grid, blind radar systems and paralyse entire regions. In 1989, Quebec’s power grid collapsed in under two minutes; schools shut, hospitals faltered and 6 million people were left in the dark. In 2012, a storm of Carrington magnitude missed Earth by just a matter of days. After that, NASA estimated that the global cost would have exceeded $2.6 trillion. In short, we are not speculating about what might happen; we are merely observing what has already happened, just not to us—or at least not yet. In effect, we are living between bullets: one already fired, another having just missed, and a third, we must assume, now chambered. We live in a nation defined by connection. Our power grid, transport system, banks, hospitals and military platforms are all linked, all digital and all dependent on space-borne technology. It is one of the great marvels of modern Britain. But it is also, if we are frank, one of our greatest vulnerabilities. A severe solar storm would not simply inconvenience us; it would disrupt the essential machinery of civilised life. High-frequency radios used by pilots and the armed forces fail. Satellites are disabled. Navigation systems go dark. Power lines are overloaded by geomagnetic surges, and cascading failures begin. The Met Office, supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering, has warned that a major event could leave parts of the UK without electricity for days or even weeks. When the power goes, everything else follows: the supermarket tills, the mobile networks, the ventilators and the pumps that keep our water flowing. The digital backbone of our modern state is silenced. It is not just a problem for astronomers or scientists in their white coats, but a matter of national security, public health, financial stability and strategic foresight. The United Kingdom does not enter this debate empty-handed. In 2021, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy produced the severe space weather preparedness strategy, which was a forward-looking and well-considered document. It identified three pillars: first, assessment to improve forecasting and monitoring; secondly, preparation to support resilience planning in key sectors; and thirdly, response and recovery to co-ordinate emergency action across Government, industry and services. Those are the right foundations, but as we all know, strategies do not defend countries; implementation does, and in that sense we are not yet where we need to be. Let me identify four urgent areas for action. First, preparedness must become mandatory, not voluntary. We rightly legislate to ensure that our infrastructure can cope with floods, so why not do the same for solar storms? We have the regulators—Ofcom, Ofgem and the Civil Aviation Authority—and we need them to require, not merely recommend, that resilience plans are in place. When the warning comes, it will not arrive with some sort of grace period. Secondly, we must harden our defence capability. Our armed forces are increasingly reliant on satellite-enabled systems, whether that is for communication, targeting or navigation. Every major platform, from Type 26 frigates to F-35 jets, integrates space-dependent systems. We must invest in hardened equipment and train to operate in degraded space conditions. We must fund research into back-up navigation systems and sovereign capabilities. The reality is that our adversaries are already preparing for such an environment and we must not be found lagging behind. Thirdly, we must strengthen civil contingency planning. Local resilience forums are charged with keeping our communities safe. They plan for floods, pandemics and cyber-attacks, but in many areas, they do not yet plan for solar storms. They must be given the data, the scenarios and the authority to act. Fourthly, we must lead international co-ordination. This threat does not respect borders; the response must be global. The United Kingdom should press for a framework through NATO, the G7, the UN or the European Space Agency to share data, align early-warning systems and co-ordinate national preparedness. We have led the world in tackling threats before. Let us now do the same in the case of space weather. This is not a matter of national pride; it is a matter of global necessity. Let me bring the reality home to this House. Imagine that it is mid-January. The temperatures are freezing and the skies are dark. The sun erupts and a geomagnetic storm is en route. Local hospitals are now running on back-up power, ambulances are offline, phones are down and the grid is being rationed. Supermarkets are unable to take card payments, petrol pumps do not work, water pressure drops and air traffic is grounded. Our farmers cannot access the satellite data they need, small businesses grind to a halt, trains are suspended and mobile coverage is patchy or lost. The elderly, who are already vulnerable, are now cut off, isolated and invariably frightened. That is not fiction or dramatic exaggeration; it is foreseeable and preventable. All of that happens not because we lack the knowledge, but because we failed to act on it. Governments are judged not only on whether they see crises coming, but on how they respond to them. There are threats we cannot foresee, but there are others, like this one, where the science is established, the risk is understood and the warning is clear. This is precisely the kind of threat that distinguishes those Governments that react from those that prepare. The storm may come next year or not for a generation but, when it does, it will be too late to start preparing then. This is not the moment for drift or delay; it is the moment for decisive leadership. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to address six critical questions; they are not intended to catch anyone out but to encourage action. First, will the Government publish a delivery plan with clear targets and funding to give force to the 2021 strategy? Secondly, will Ministers bring forward statutory requirements for critical infrastructure operators to mitigate this risk? Thirdly, are the Government satisfied that our armed forces are equipped and trained to operate in the event of a space weather blackout? Fourthly, what investment is being made in forecasting capabilities, including support of the ESA Vigil mission and co-ordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and others? Fifthly, will the Cabinet Office require local resilience forums to prepare for this threat, as they do for other category 1 emergencies? Finally, will Britain now lead efforts to build an international framework for preparedness, starting with NATO or the G7? The case is clear, the risk is real and the time to act is now. Let us not be the generation that read the reports, saw the warnings, nodded thoughtfully and then did nothing. Let us instead be the generation that looked beyond the horizon, recognised the scale of the threat and acted with the seriousness it demands. The sun may well be 93 million miles away, but its reach is far closer than we think. When the next storm comes, let it not find us asleep at the wheel. Let it find us ready and prepared. Let it find a country that saw the storm and stood firm in the face of it.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stringer. I thank the Minister for bringing these regulations to the Committee today. It is again encouraging to see that this Government have drawn upon our previous consultations to shape this statutory instrument; between December 2023 and March 2024, the previous Conservative Government held a consultation with the devolved nations on reforming the producer responsibility system for waste electricals. I am pleased that the Minister talked about the disposable vapes ban as well, which was initiated by the previous Conservative Government. We very much welcome the fact that this Labour Government have taken that baton and taken it forward. The Minister mentioned the important environmental benefits of that legislation; there are also other significant benefits in terms of public health, specifically for our young people, who have really been targeted inappropriately around these disposable vapes. It will protect wildlife and domestic animals as well, as I have spoken about to the Minister and in the Chamber. Turning back to the legislation we are talking about today, that previous consultation proposed creating a new category of electrical equipment for vapes, and 91% of respondents agreed with that policy change. I am pleased that these regulations will create that new category, and I hope that businesses producing electrical and electronic equipment in the toy and leisure sector—category 7 of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013—will be happy to see that this will mean that they are no longer picking up the costs for those who produce e-cigarettes, vapes and heated tobacco products. Those products are considerably more costly to collect and recycle than toys and other leisure equipment, primarily due to the materials used in their construction and the need for specialised treatment to handle nicotine and other potentially toxic substances within the equipment. This statutory instrument will ensure that the financial obligation for those costs falls fairly on the producers of those devices. The consultation also sought views on online marketplaces, and 87% of respondents agreed on that, highlighting that large volumes of electricals are being placed on the market via online marketplaces, which the Minister mentioned, and that there needs to be a level playing field between producers that sell electricals through different channels. I am therefore pleased to say that we, His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition, are very supportive of this instrument. It is not right that the entirety of the financial obligations falls upon producers who are properly registered under the 2013 regulations. It creates an unfair situation in which those who avoid the financial obligations are benefiting, and those who follow the rules are bearing the costs. This also has serious consequences for competition, and at a time when businesses are facing rising costs due to the Chancellor’s mismanagement of economy, it is another hammer blow to businesses. While we are offering no objections to the instrument, I hope the Minister can provide some assurances on how the relevant authorities, such as the Environment Agency in England, will ensure that online marketplaces are complying with their new obligations. With regard to the new responsibilities on online marketplaces, the Government have confirmed that they expect there to be small contractual and familiarisation costs. Does the Minister have any concern that some online suppliers may withdraw their products from UK markets, reducing choice and availability for UK customers? We will be supporting the regulations, and I am grateful that they were brought before the Committee.
In the Minister’s response, he quoted the answer from the Defence Secretary to my question, saying that he had no choice. But the reason for doing this deal is the worry about being taken to court—so the Government do have a choice, and that is what my constituents and Opposition Members are so upset about. The Government could have a fight in the court and appeal the decision, yet they have chosen not to, and they will not explain why. Will the Minister set out what the need was for immediacy and why he and his Government will not go to the court for the tribunal he is so worried about to have that fight? If the case were shut down, Opposition Members would understand, and if it was found that we had a legal responsibility to pay, we would do so, but we do not, and we have not had our day in court as a country. That is the travesty of the deal.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West on bringing forward this very important piece of legislation. I declare an interest as a consultant paediatrician who has looked after a number of children with rare conditions such as teratoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Wilms’ tumour and retinoblastoma, to name but a few. One of the issues with rare cancers, which transposes to rare diseases in general, is that they are often diagnosed late, because people do not recognise that they have symptoms of a rare disease and their health professionals are not as familiar with them because they are rare. The presentation and diagnosis are then late and, as such, the treatment is more difficult. That is compounded further because there has been less research on those topics, so it is not clear what the best treatment for those conditions is. On top of that, the patient may have to travel very long distances to see a specialist who is familiar with the condition, adding both logistical difficulty and cost to that patient’s care. Some steps are in place to try to improve the situation. The orphan drug regime gives market exclusivity for 10 years, and it provides for lower and refunded fees from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for the services it provides. Nevertheless, it can still be non-commercially advantageous to put money into developing a drug that is going to be used on no more than a handful of people, however beneficial it is for the individuals concerned. I welcome the Bill, but wish to make a couple of points. First, in principle it is best that trials are first broached with the patient by a member of their healthcare team. Of course, a member of any given healthcare team—I speak as one myself—will never be aware of all the trials available to all patients at any one time. I welcome the Lord O’Shaughnessy review—commissioned by the last Government and accepted by the current one—which talks about getting a consensus on how best patients can be informed of trials. I wonder whether we should have a system in which patients opt out of not the trial itself but being asked about trials. At the outset, they could be asked, “Would you like to receive information on trials—yes or no?”, so that more people can be aware of how they can contribute. When people are diagnosed with something rare, they often want to contribute to helping others who will come after them. Will the Minister tell us more about the national cancer plan, which was consulted on earlier this year? I welcome the fact that the children and young people cancer taskforce, which was paused, is being reinstituted. Also, how will the Bill apply to repurposed drugs? Sometimes new medicines are developed for a particular condition, but we often find that medicines can be reformulated and used in a different way to provide a different form of treatment to help individuals with a different condition. How will that apply in respect of both the measures in the Bill and the O’Shaughnessy review? As a paediatrician, I am very pleased that the Bill applies to children. Overall, I think the Bill is great. It offers hope for many in the future. Will the Minister say something about other rare conditions? As well as rare cancers, people get other rare conditions, and they are affected by the same challenges with research and treatment, and by delays in diagnosis and travel. Overall, doctors are able to save people’s lives, and improve people’s lives, one at a time, but Parliament and research offer the opportunity to do that on a much bigger scale. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West for what he is doing today.
After yesterday’s complete chaos, my constituents are bracing themselves for big tax increases in the autumn. How does the Minister think they feel when they see the Mauritian Government crowing about virtually abolishing income tax in Mauritius thanks to the largesse that he is about to pour on them?
What proportion of the commissioner’s time, and that of his or her staff, does the Minister envisage being devoted to individual matters of casework, of the sort he has just described, and what proportion will be around thematic investigations, such as the state of service housing?
I rise to raise an important point that has been reported in the media over the last 24 hours about the future of the Royal Marines. As a former Royal Marine and the Member of Parliament who represents the commando training centre in Lympstone, I think this is an issue that we need to discuss now. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some answers. It has been reported that the Royal Marines are moving away from their conventional amphibious operations and that large-scale beach landings and traditional force protections from sea are being replaced with small, flexible teams designed to operate alongside special forces. Let me be clear: adaptability is vital, and I am sure that there are many merits in the direction of travel, but it is important that the Minister tells the House about this and gives us the opportunity to discuss it. I worry that abandoning hard-won capabilities without a clear and credible replacement is not adaptation; it is risk. I would like to put some questions to the Minister. Are the Government removing the United Kingdom’s amphibious warfare capability? If so, what replaces it? What is the long-term plan to project force from sea to land if not through the Royal Marines in their traditional role? We have no delivery dates for the multi-role strike ships that are meant to underpin the new commando force concept. There is also no detailed plan and no answer on whether they will provide genuine operational flexibility or simply be a scaled-back presence. Will the MRSS be able to deploy full commando units at scale in high-threat environments or are they designed purely for small team operations? If it is the latter, is that now the full extent of our national amphibious ambitions? That brings us to special forces support, which I know is not an issue that we can discuss in the Chamber with the Security Minister, who served with the special forces support group, in great detail. However, it has been reported that 40 Commando has been tasked to operate alongside the Special Boat Service in sensitive national missions, including evacuations and hostage rescue. What does that mean for the Royal Marines’ contribution to the special forces support group? Is the SFSG being restructured or reassigned? That speaks to a deeper point regarding our NATO allies. We talk in the strategic defence review about being “NATO first”. NATO has long counted on the UK’s high-end amphibious expertise. It matters to our national resilience in a world where rapid deployment from the sea is often the only option. Above all, it matters to the men and women who serve, and they deserve clarity about their future roles, mission and identity. I therefore urge the Minister to come forward with honest, detailed answers—not slogans or spin, but clarity on capability, posture and intent—because defence policy cannot be made in stealth.
On that point, will the Minister give way?
On that point, will the Minister give way?
What the Minister says raises a more fundamental question. Just like the release of the strategic defence review to trade bodies and to the press before its publication, we are reading about issues in the press but do not have the opportunity to discuss them in Parliament. While I welcome the Minister’s offer to have a conversation with him, why can we not have that conversation in the Chamber now?
Does the Minister accept, though, that poor road access from the north of the United Kingdom is one impediment to investment in Northern Ireland, and therefore another reason why we should see the A75 upgrading?
People across the Staffordshire Moorlands are extremely concerned by the number of applications granted for solar farms and battery storage facilities. Will the Prime Minister give them some reassurance that he will change the law and that we will see good agricultural land saved for producing food, as it rightly should be?
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I feel older, wiser and significantly more sleep-deprived. I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I also thank NESO for its rapid work. The report is clear that there have been serious failings by National Grid to fix an issue that it knew about for seven years. The Minister is right; that is unacceptable. What is most important, though, is what happens now. I have some questions for the Minister. First, who at National Grid made the decision to defer critical maintenance of the transformer in 2022? He said that he would hold them accountable, so how will he do that? He spoke about breaching licence conditions. What are the penalties for doing that and what accountability mechanisms will he use? Secondly, the report says that the North Hyde site did not meet modern standards on physical barriers between transformers. Can the Minister confirm he has asked National Grid to review substations with transformers built before the current standards were put in place? Thirdly, what steps will he take to look at the resilience of our energy system, particularly in the light of the heightened geopolitical risk that we all face? The key message that we should take from the report on the Heathrow blackout is the importance of critical national infrastructure to our energy security and our national security. In that regard, it is the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change who is playing with fire. A week after the blackout hit Heathrow, Spain and Portugal gave us a stark warning of what happens when countries fail to protect their energy security: public transport down, payment systems down and millions of people unable to cook, travel or contact their families. Tragically, people lost their lives. In the case of North Hyde, the blackout affected schools, the London Underground, Hillingdon hospital and 70,000 customers, some of whom had to move out of their homes. That is the price we pay when we do not take energy security seriously. It is not a nice-to-have—energy is a basic need—and yet this Government are putting our energy at risk. The national security strategy that the Government published just last week included 12 mentions of climate but not a single mention of the risk that China poses to our energy system. Last year, our intelligence services warned that Chinese state-sponsored hackers were working to disrupt and destroy critical infrastructure in the event of conflict, and yet the Secretary of State is rushing to make Britain dependent on Chinese solar panels, Chinese rare earths and Chinese batteries in just five years’ time. We have just seen China limit the export of critical minerals in its trade war with the US. We have seen kill switches found in Chinese inverters. The US intelligence services have warned us about the risk of surveillance devices in Chinese wind turbines. I first wrote to the Secretary of State eight months ago, asking him to publish an assessment of what his targets mean for our reliance on Chinese imports. He has not even bothered to reply. If the Secretary of State wants to hand over the keys of our energy supply to the Chinese Communist party, he should come to this House and explain why. We are lucky enough in this country to be surrounded by our own gas fields, but the Secretary of State does not care. This is a man who would rather import gas from Norway, from the very same fields in the North sea that he is banning Britain from using; who is pouring concrete down our gas wells; and who is blocking off any contingency plan that Britain might need in a crisis. I do not say this lightly, but this is a man who is putting our national security at risk. Today we are talking about the first transformer fire in a decade in this country and he did not even bother to turn up. That is the problem. The Secretary of State might prefer to be in Brazil, Baku, Beijing or wherever he is today, but he should be here to explain himself, because as the former head of MI6 said, he is pursuing an energy policy that is “completely crazy” when it comes to national security. I want clean energy from nuclear, from small modular reactors and from the next generation of British innovation, but first and foremost I want energy that keeps the lights on and keeps bills down. This Government are going to leave us completely reliant on foreign imports: from China, from Norway, from Qatar—from anywhere as long as it is not Britain. NESO and Ofgem will do their work, but the Minister must do his work too. Alongside the work of the North Hyde report, can he confirm that he will come back and update the House on his plans to protect the energy resilience of this country?
I thank the hon. Lady for giving notice of her point of order. The Chair does not have the power to separate out decisions on the contents of a statutory instrument. In making her point of order, she has put her concerns on the record.
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for having given advance notice of it. The procedure for raising a complaint of this sort is by writing to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and it is not a matter for the Chair.
The Minister rightly says that the base on Diego Garcia is vital for our national security, and we all agree on that. The key issue is what notification has to be given to the Mauritius Government for the base to be used for operational purposes.
In the Defence Secretary’s statement on 22 May, he stated with regard to potential legal rulings against us that “The most proximate, and the most potentially serious, is the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.”—[Official Report, 22 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 1291.] The US, which operates the base, is not even a signatory to UNCLOS. How would ITLOS have ruled a binding legal judgment that we would have recognised? It is notable that ITLOS has not been mentioned since that statement?
I welcome the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025 and place on record my wholehearted support for our armed forces and the role they play in providing national security and defence of this nation, both at home and deployed on operations across the globe. As a new MP last year, the first Delegated Legislation Committee I sat on considered the previous continuation order. I was very proud to be able to do that. As a veteran and now the MP for a constituency in Huntingdon with British, US and wider NATO forces, I know first hand how vital political support for our military is today. Although we have moved past the period of kinetic operations that typified my generation of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, the world feels more dangerous today than it did at that time. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 precipitated a sea change in the nature of warfare. The manoeuvre warfare of old that we saw during the initial invasion, unchanged in a generation and familiar to those of my generation and several before that, has been replaced by cyber, drones, grey zones and subthreshold activity that feels like warfare but not so long ago would have been the preserve of science fiction or an episode of “Black Mirror”. That is the thread that must run through the strategic defence review and it is in such areas that we must ensure our armed forces are equipped to compete in across domains. I do not doubt the Government’s sentiment in wishing to increase defence spending to ensure that we remain a credible and capable NATO ally, and that we continue to punch above our weight on the world stage. As an island nation in a notionally geographically safe part of the world, the legacy of our imperial past is one of world policing, post-colonial responsibility and expeditionary warfare. Our decentralised, persistent nuclear capability ensures that we are a nation that continues to be taken seriously, but my concern is that we are in danger of being benched, as those NATO allies closer to the fray, who feel the threat from Russia on the eastern flank and the High North most keenly, will, with their vastly increased defence budgets and whole-of-society approaches to defence, make us a second-tier nation. The pledge to uplift defence spending to 5%, with the claim that we will achieve 4.1% by April 2027, is simply not credible. This smoke and mirrors approach reflects the fact that the sums do not add up. We saw only yesterday that the Government’s botched welfare reform has left a £4.5 billion gap in the spending plans, which is coupled with a further £1.25 billion from the winter fuel U-turn. Where will that money come from? Spending cuts or higher taxes are now inevitable, and growth projections look at best sluggish. Meanwhile, the Government claim that they can reach 2.6% on defence plus security, but they refuse to break down the quantum of that spending. How much of that 2.6% is actually on hard defence, and how much is on the intelligence services? By our estimates, the number is somewhere in the region of 0.15%, which suggests that the real defence budget as a proportion of GDP is only 2.45%. If we bear in mind that a sizeable proportion of that figure is solely our continuous at-sea deterrent, the figure for our conventional forces drops to somewhere in the region of 1.7%—a long way from the numbers that the Government are putting forward. The 4.1% figure that the Government are now puffing their chest out about includes 1.5% on national security and general resilience. This contains everything from UK arts spending to rural broadband. Under the chapter on pursuing asymmetric advantage, paragraph 25 details that the royal research ship Sir David Attenborough plays a part regarding understanding environmental changes in the Arctic ocean, which means that Boaty McBoatface is included in the Prime Minister’s defence spending figures. Do we honestly think that Russia and China will take that seriously? The huge capability commitments that we see in the SDR and in the forthcoming equipment plan far outstrip our spending power. We are quite literally writing cheques that we may never be able to cash. Not only have we pledged to create an entirely new domain in cyber, but we are about to embark on an essential modernisation process which now simply does not look funded. The global combat air programme—a project not due to be delivered until the back end of the next decade, but one that runs the risk of being outpaced by technological change—is exquisitely capable, but in 20 years’ time, will a sixth-generation fighter need to be crewed? It may be crewed in 2040, but GCAP’s out of service date is likely to be beyond 2070. Do we honestly believe that crewed aircraft will be relevant by then? Furthermore, how will we deliver the loyal wingmen in the system of systems that it forms part of? Drones are clearly the future of warfare, and although we continue to use Ukraine as the proving grounds for a new capability against a near-peer adversary, the British Army should be on the front foot, rapidly equipping and training with drones, rather than using e-sports as the only drone warfare training of note. I see the Minister taking notes. While he is writing stuff down, let me suggest that a two-stage warhead a la Javelin on an FPV—first person view—drone is surely the next generation anti-armour capability that we need, thus consigning enfilade fire from a defilade position to a thing of the past, despite my own anti-tank roots. Meanwhile, Project Grayburn means that we will replace 150,000 SA80A3 rifles by 2030—a significant logistical commitment, in terms not just of changing the weapon system, but of possibly changing the nature of the ammunition as well. Although that will increase stopping power, it will also remove the purpose of 5.56, which I am sure we do not need to go into in the Chamber today, and everything that goes with that, including rifle racks, ammunition pouches, magazines and mag chargers. This is the nitty-gritty of changing a weapons platform that really does take its toll on exactly how we would implement that. We also intend to replace nearly 6,000 Land Rovers by 2030, which is another significant logistical commitment in terms of training soldiers to drive them, putting those vehicles out, and making sure that we have the logistical trail in place to be able to service those vehicles. These smaller but still resource-intensive tasks place more and more strain on our personnel. Only today, I understand that the Ministry of Defence police have cut 1,500 roles. With the Military Provost Guard Service under-resourced and unable to replace them, the burden has fallen on regular soldiers to augment their guarding tasks. Such additional tasks with weekend guards erodes goodwill and continues to contribute to retention problems. Only a few weeks ago, I was in Poland visiting the RAF conducting the NATO air policing role, interdicting Russian penetration along NATO’s border. The personnel there were rightly extremely proud to serve, but at the same time the strain that the current operational tempo was placing on those in specialist roles was immense, requiring them repeatedly to spend long periods away from home. Incredibly, the additional penalty that they pay is a financial one, with all but those on the highest LSA bands finding that the pay they receive for being separated from their families is often, at best, negligible and, at worst, a financial hit. Second-order effects mean that an individual who may be being paid more to be on operations is not physically at home to help with the tasks there; that means having to pay for a babysitter rather than having their spouse look after the children. They have to pay for a dog walker rather than being able to leave the dog at home, for when the spouse returns. Those costs add up, and they simply are not factored into those extra payments that people receive for being on tour. Meanwhile, we continue to see those who have already served their nation questioning whether they continue to enjoy the support of those they have risked their lives to serve. The concerns around the treatment of Northern Ireland veterans leave Operation Banner veterans rightly very concerned about their futures and about being held accountable for actions from over 50 years ago. Without clarity on whether protections will be guaranteed for those who serve their country, future recruitment could suffer hugely. People serving their country will lose confidence under this Government that they will not one day be treated as a criminal. It raises questions over my own service and that of my peers. The goalposts could one day move for us, and I know that that applies to former service people on both sides of the House. I see the Security Minister on the Front Bench who served so proudly in Afghanistan. I welcome the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025, and I was proud to play my small part in the history of one of our finest institutions. I recognise and acknowledge the sentiment and intent of Defence Ministers to deliver for our service personnel; I do not call that into question for one second. However, I wish to place on record my concerns that the limitations placed on them by Treasury accounting and the smoke and mirrors approach to hitting our NATO pledges will put the cross-party consensus on defence at risk, and the fiscal rules and botched legislation will reduce the Chancellor’s spending power in a dangerous new world. This Government must demonstrate their front-footed commitment with tangible results, not just pledges.
I see the Security Minister chuckling away. I, too, would like confirmation that, as part of the big three, the RAF Regiment was also consulted on this decision.
On the Arctic and HMS Protector, what plans do we have to procure an icebreaker to increase our footprint in that region?
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir John, and I thank you for your patience and indulgence in chairing this debate. It is almost a through-the-looking-glass moment this morning, listening to the Labour party criticising the Scottish Government for their decisions and the Scottish National party representative, the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins), criticising the Labour Government for the SNP’s decisions. For all of us, it has been an interesting morning after the night before. Scotland is struggling with the consequences of the Labour Government’s economic incompetence: taxes for businesses up, growth down, unemployment up and business confidence down. Scottish Financial Enterprise has warned: “The current inflationary pressures, coupled with stagnant productivity and increasing levels of tax, pose significant headwinds to business investment.” And that was before the charade—the farcical scenes—that we saw yesterday, which will inevitably mean more tax rises coming down the tracks in the autumn.
The hon. Member will recall that when the Conservative Government left office in July 2024, we had the fastest growing economy in the G7. He will also surely acknowledge that as a direct result of decisions taken by his Chancellor and his Government, growth has halved since Labour got into power. That is not a record of which he should be proud. Labour is growing the economy by far less than we had expected to grow the economy by when we left office. Surely he can acknowledge, because his name was on an amendment yesterday, that some of the decisions taken by his Government have been to the detriment of this country and its economic growth. Hon. Members should not take my word for it. Unite the Union has said that this Government have placed the oil and gas industry on a “cliff edge”. The Scotch Whisky Association said the increase in spirits duty was a “hammer blow”. The Scottish Hospitality Group called the Budget last year “a blow to businesses across the country”. The National Farmers Union of Scotland has made it clear that this Government’s decisions will cause “huge difficulties” to the agricultural sector in Scotland, because the family farms tax is devastating farms in Scotland. This is a Government who do not understand rural Scotland, and they clearly do not care to. National insurance contributions are up, increasing costs to businesses across the country. In my constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, the conversations that I have had since the Chancellor’s disastrous Budget last October have revolved around reducing headcount and reducing ambition for expansion, which I know is an experience shared by just about every Member of this Parliament. With the Government’s Employment Rights Bill coming down the tracks, we will see the burden on businesses increase still further and growth shrink. Business confidence across the entire United Kingdom is falling dramatically, and that is especially the case in Scotland. This Labour Government do not understand business and they have decided not to prioritise growth or prosperity. The chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise was right to urge recognition that the UK Government cannot tax their way to economic growth and sustainable growth. As for the Scottish Government, the SNP has presided over 17 years of mismanagement during its tenure. Economic growth in Scotland has been consistently lower than it has been south of the border. There is no excuse. Higher income tax rates are driving away talent, there is a failure to pass on the savings from business rates, and there have been madcap schemes that undermine the UK internal market, such as the ill-conceived deposit return scheme. At every turn, the Scottish Government seek to make business in Scotland less profitable, less productive and less competitive. Now, on top of all that, we have to add the spending review from this UK Government, which, the Scottish Hospitality Group declared does “absolutely nothing” to support its sector. The Federation of Small Businesses said that the spending review “was not the business-focused day” that it had hoped for. Unite the Union said that the spending review “lacks the vision to deliver the fundamental change needed for everyday people” and that it was a “missed opportunity to lay out the funding to tackle key issues, including the energy costs crippling British industry”. It is clear that this Chancellor’s spending review does not deliver for Scots, Scotland or Scottish business. Although we welcome the Government’s commitment to defence and spending on new nuclear, it is evident that rural Scotland—aspirational Scotland—is being ignored, overlooked and left behind by the socialist Government in London and wilfully driven into the ground by a nationalist Government in Edinburgh. The Fraser of Allander Institute has described the spending review as a “rollercoaster”, with short-term boosts followed by real-terms cuts in later years. We welcome the Government’s commitment to increase defence spending. In a time of increasing uncertainty, it is essential that we have the domestic capacity, supply chain, resources and skilled personnel to defend this country. The continued investment in the Dreadnought-class submarines is essential, and I am incredibly proud that this fleet is hosted in Scotland, at HM Naval Base Clyde. Just last week I was in Rosyth, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), to see the missile tubes for the Dreadnought-class submarines and the Columbia-class submarines for the United States being constructed by the incredibly skilled workforce at that Babcock yard. This programme is expected to support thousands of jobs in Scotland. However, serious questions about defence spending remain unanswered. The Government have still not clarified whether the Chagos deal moneys will be classified as defence spending, and they have given no indication of how they will reach the 3% and now 5% commitment to defence spending overall. After yesterday’s farcical scenes, which failed to save the Government any money whatsoever, we have no idea how they will meet the commitments signed up to at NATO just last week. The oil and gas industry, which is incredibly important to my part of the country, has been let down year after year by the Scottish nationalists, who had a policy of presumption against new oil and gas. If left to the SNP Government, they would have shut down the industry yesterday—and it looks like, with the Labour party in charge, they will get their way. By increasing the energy profits levy, removing investment allowances and abolishing new exploration licences, this Government have signalled that the North sea is uninvestable and the oil and gas industry in Scotland is closed for business. This industry is vital to the economy of Scotland and the United Kingdom, with a supply chain spanning the entire country and with roots in every single constituency. But this Government’s total ignorance of the oil and gas industry and the north-east of Scotland, their incompetence on the economy and their disregard for the hundreds of thousands of workers in the North sea, as well as their dangerous ineptitude when it comes to our energy security, are deeply damaging. I turn to the trumpeted invention of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Great British Energy. I find it difficult to muster any enthusiasm or optimism. With the ongoing ambiguity over the company’s purpose and scope, the Government still cannot answer the basic question of what on earth this organisation is going to achieve, how many people it will employ and what it will do in the long run. While we welcome the announcement of an award to Rolls-Royce for the delivery of small modular reactors following the down-selection process that I proudly launched when in government, we regret deeply that the Scottish nationalists’ luddite opposition to new nuclear—to clean power and to opportunity for Scotland—means that those benefits will not be seen north of the border. There are some positive notes. Confirmation that Edinburgh University will host the UK’s most powerful supercomputer, paving the way for leadership in artificial intelligence and computing, is welcome, but this followed a delay of almost a year, after the Labour Government announced the cancellation of the project, which was unveiled by the Conservative Government just last year. Thank you, Sir John, for your patience and indulgence this morning. I, along with many Scots, am bitterly disappointed. Scotland has been let down for 17 years by a failing nationalist Government in Edinburgh, and now it is being severely let down by a Labour Government here in London as well.
The spending review settlement for the Northern Ireland Office explicitly covers the Finucane inquiry, but so far the Government have refused to say how much money has been set aside for that inquiry. Will the Secretary of State please tell the House how much do the Government expect the inquiry to cost?
The Government have just had a spending review, so they must know how much they intend to spend. There will be a line in the Treasury accounts set aside for the Finucane inquiry. I do not understand why the Secretary of State finds it so hard to tell the House how much we expect to spend. Similarly, the Government must know how much compensation they expect to pay Gerry Adams, following their inexplicable decision to drop the appeal that we lodged in that case. We have repeatedly pressed the Government to legislate to prevent that compensation from being paid and the Government have dragged their heels. This morning, Policy Exchange has published an excellent new report, “Legislating about Gerry Adams and Carltona”, which sets out a clear legal solution. The Government have nowhere further to hide, so will they finally do the right thing?
It is a delight to take part in this debate, and I will speak about my lived experience. I want to put on the record that after I was shot and left the military, I received a war pension, and that having had some of my foot amputated this year, I am undergoing reassessment for that process. At one stage in my life, I was also diagnosed with complex PTSD and suffered extreme mental health issues for about 15 years, which I have openly shared in this Chamber, so I understand how people can be impacted by unforeseen circumstances. I saw that from a young age, when my dad died and left my mum, me and my two brothers on our own, with literally nothing. We had a roof over our heads, but I watched my mum go without food to put food on our table. I spoke to my mum at the weekend, and she said that the welfare support she had at that time was a lifeline. She said that she could not possibly have seen a way through if we had not had that. I grew up on free school meals, and understood that the system supported us and allowed us to get through what was a very challenging childhood, although I was brought up in a loving environment. Later in life, I lost a business and found that I could not put food on my children’s table. I had support through a challenging time, and did everything I could to work my way out of that and get back on my own two feet. As a Conservative, I firmly believe that there should be support for people when they need it, because you never know what you are going to face, and the support should be there when it is required. However, welfare should not be an option for people who do not want to work. I have seen many times multigenerational unemployment, whereby families create a career of benefits; they grow up having seen relatives in welfare for many years, and they do everything they can to stay in it. I have seen it at my surgeries, where people say to me, “I can normally cheat the system, but I’m struggling here.” It is not everybody, but I have had people openly admit that to me. As I said, the system needs to be there for people who need it, but at the moment it is my firm view that there are a lot of people who do not need it. It should always provide an incentive for people to return to work where possible, although I also understand that some people will never be able to work and we should support them. Government figures published in April stated that the total cost of health-related benefits in 2019-20 was £46.5 billion. That has risen to £75 billion this year, and is expected to rise to £97.7 billion by 2029-30. On this trajectory, the cost will almost double within a decade. The OBR predicts that the Government’s welfare reforms will increase costs by 5.3%, but expects GDP to grow by only 1.6%. I know the Secretary of State agrees that welfare needs reforming, because on 19 July she sent a “Dear Colleague” letter explaining a system that the Government believed was right. We then received another letter on 26 June that said the system has changed. If the Secretary of State has had to change her mind in the space of a week, how can we believe that the system being put forward is right? I do not believe it is, and this Bill is not a serious attempt to reform welfare. I will back that comment up. We have talked about the social security system. The Government’s forecast for the total cost of the social security system for 2025-25 is £316 billion, and today we are discussing a Bill that does not save even—or saves only about—1% of that cost. That is not reform; it is tinkering around the edges.
My hon. Friend is right. The Government have a huge majority, and they have a chance to reform welfare. If they do not take it at this moment, it will not get reformed. I believe that pausing the Bill would get the support of many Members across the House. The Government should go back, create an assessment process that can actually look at who requires welfare and who does not, and plan the system out before looking at implementing it—a multi-stage approach. I respect the Minister and am looking forward to the Timms review, but we might as well make him the Chair of the Select Committee as well; it is as if he is marking his own homework. We need to have a fairer approach, and the new system does not provide it. I believe in welfare and have benefited of a good welfare system. I am proud that we have a welfare system to support the people who need it, but it must be affordable and sustainable, and where possible it should put people back into work. I do not believe that any of these changes are going to do that. I believe, hand on heart, that every Member will recognise that saving 1% on the whole social security system is not reform—nobody can ever say it is. It is tinkering around the edges and a missed opportunity.
The winter fuel payment U-turn will cost £1.25 billion, and the welfare reform U-turn will cost £2.5 billion, all adding to Labour’s unfunded black hole. This is from a Chancellor who said that she would never make a spending commitment without explaining where the money was coming from—yet another U-turn. The Chancellor has also said that her fiscal rules are iron-clad and non-negotiable. Can she reconfirm that commitment now, or are we heading for yet another U-turn?