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27 Oct 2026ParliamentCarla Denyer
Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill
As we approach 10 years since the Grenfell tragedy, I thank the Grenfell community and families for the tireless campaigning that they should not have had to do. I welcome the Bill as far as it goes. It includes important measures that are needed, but there remain serious concerns that it does not do enough for those still trapped by the terrible cladding scandal. The issue of the remediation of unsafe cladding in buildings of less than 11 metres is a big problem in my constituency, but it is not just a Bristol issue. There are a number of medium-height blocks of flats in Bristol Central with flammable cladding. I am going to tell the story of just one of those flats. It is a mid-rise block that is part of a development of three blocks. The other two blocks are taller—over 11 metres. They have the same developer and were built at the same time. All the buildings have the same dangerous cladding; the taller two are eligible for the building safety fund, but the one that is under 11 metres is not. A leading specialist building surveyor has identified that the shorter building also has severe cladding deficiencies that are in urgent need of remediation. Until recently, the flat was the home of a 97-year-old woman, who eventually moved into a residential home. Because she owned a flat, she was not eligible for a council-funded care home place, so her children needed to sell the flat to fund her care—except they could not. The Conservative Government’s position was that there is no systemic fire safety issue in buildings under 11 metres. In 2022, the then Government said that they had examined specific buildings under 11 metres and found that “in the overwhelming majority of cases it has subsequently been confirmed that they do not require remediation.”—[Official Report, 26 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 1419.] The Labour Government under Keir Starmer maintained that position, stating in September 2024 that: “the risk to life is usually lower in buildings under 11 metres, and they are very unlikely to need the same costly remediation.”—[Official Report, 11 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 929.] The result is that buildings under 11 metres are not eligible for funding under the building safety fund. The catch? Try telling all that to the mortgage market. No lender will give a mortgage to a flat in a building with unsafe cladding, regardless of height. Therefore, the children of my 97-year-old constituent cannot sell the flat on the open market. They cannot persuade the company that holds the freehold to pay for the remediations from its own balance sheet—believe me, they have tried. That company has insisted that it will only fulfil its legal obligations and not spend a penny more, and based on the legislation, the company believes it is not liable. The building’s insurance policy will also not cover the cladding work. Even if the owners of the five flats in this small block wanted to pay for the work themselves—which would be wholly unjust, because it is not their fault—as leaseholders, according to their lease, they are not permitted to contribute more than £15,000 per flat. It is estimated that the work would cost more than £1 million. What are people meant to do? They are trapped in an intolerable Catch-22 situation. The two adult children of this 97-year-old woman were forced to buy the flat themselves in order to release the equity to fund her care. It is lucky that they could afford to do that, although “lucky” seems like a wild choice of word to describe their situation. They are now stuck in possession of an unsafe flat that they do not live in and never wanted to own, with no recourse to the developers, the insurance, the warrantees or anything else to rectify the cladding faults. In July 2026, as we have heard, MHCLG launched a separate funding pot to address cladding fire safety risks in buildings under 11 metres, called the cladding safety scheme. The Government said that this delivered on their commitment in the remediation acceleration plan and supported a risk-based approach to remediation. However, the application window for the scheme was open for just three months. It has now closed. The management company of the building in my constituency has applied, but there has been no response, and there is apparently no guarantee of receiving this targeted funding. The Bill before us proposes sticking with the Conservative and Starmer Governments’ insistence that “relevant buildings” means only buildings of 11 metres or more. Surely the Minister can see that that is not good enough. I have a few questions for the Minister. First, is she confident that three months was long enough for 100% of those in charge of affected buildings under 11 metres to hear about the fund and apply to it? That includes both for-profit management companies, which, famously, can be pretty sluggish when it comes to repairs in their buildings, and internal management companies made up of owner-occupiers and leaseholders, who are often juggling flat admin alongside a full-time job and being a parent. Secondly, is the fund large enough to cover all the affected sub-11 metre buildings? Thirdly, if the Government do not make funding available for all the affected sub-11 metre buildings, what will the Minister’s message be to the leaseholders of flats that do not receive the funding? Finally, will the Minister take steps to end this funding lottery and ensure that the remediation of buildings below 11 metres is incorporated into the main Bill and is fully funded, and that there is a legal requirement on freeholders to do this work?
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27 Oct 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Strengthening Community Resilience
The Minister is right to highlight the growing risk of the loss of services and utilities in emergencies. Preparedness needs to be driven at a national level, but much of it needs to be delivered at a local level. Will the Minister tell us how he is ensuring that local resilience forums are adequately funded, and can he assure us that every part of the UK has got a local resilience plan in place?
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26 Oct 2026ParliamentHannah Spencer
Performance of Royal Mail
Last Friday, I spent the morning with the brilliant, dedicated postal workers at my local delivery office in Denton. Yet people across the constituency regularly tell me they are not receiving post, despite the staff clearly doing everything they can to keep the service going under immense pressure. Does the hon. Member agree that the privatisation of Royal Mail has clearly failed and that the Government must take urgent action to restore a reliable postal service that also treats workers fairly?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 81, in clause 23, page 21, line 33, at end insert— “(3A) Subject to subsection (3B), where the Secretary of State did not make a decision on a person’s protection claim within 180 days of the making of the protection claim, any sums to be paid by the person under subsection (3) must be reduced by 20% for every period of 30 days that elapsed before a decision on the person’s protection claim was made. (3B) Subsection 3A does not apply where a decision on the protection claim was not made within 180 days of the claim being made due to the actions of the applicant. (3C) For the purposes of subsection (3A), ‘protection claim’ has the same meaning as in section 82(2)(a) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.” This amendment would reduce the level of payments required from a person by 20% for every 30 days longer than six months that passed before a decision was made on the person’s asylum claim.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
It is pleasure to have you back in the Chair, Mrs Barker. I hope my voice holds out, as I will speak at some length on these amendments. The Committee has reached the part about charging refugees for the support that they receive, so I want to make some points about my overall discomfort with these proposals. Requiring retrospective payments from refugees after they have secured the right to stay is completely wrong. Many organisations, including the Refugee Council, are rightly calling the proposal a refugee tax, because it is a tax for successfully claiming asylum, and it breaks our commitments under the convention. The proposals do not guard against destitution, so I believe that they also breach article 25 of the universal declaration of human rights—my favourite article—which states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” That absolutely applies to refugees. Local authorities have told us that the requirements will push more families into poverty and will place a greater strain on family support services, advice services, crisis response services and housing services at the local authority level, for which duties towards children will remain. I am not certain that the Government have properly considered the impacts.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
One of my amendments would raise the level for repayments beyond mere destitution, which is wise in the circumstances, given some of the feedback we have received from support services, charities and local authorities. The clause will also entrench inequality among refugees. Not all refugees applying for asylum in this country require support; some have managed to flee the circumstances that led to their needing asylum with some resources. In her letter responding to questions in the oral sessions, the Minister confirmed that “around two in every five people awaiting an initial decision on their claim were in Home Office provided accommodation”. She also said that some of them may have received accommodation in the past, but that figure is not a high proportion of refugees. The clause therefore targets the most vulnerable—those without the means to support themselves—in an already vulnerable population. The clause will apply only to those who use Home Office accommodation, but, given the randomness of the circumstances in which people become refugees, many come with skills from previous employment—jobs that have been torn away from them—and would be able to support themselves if they were simply allowed to work, as I propose in my new clause 24, which we will debate later. I believe the whole clause needs to go, but I have also tabled targeted amendments with constructive measures to mitigate its impact. Amendment 81 would reduce payments if the Home Office’s decisions are delayed. At the moment, the main driver of cost in asylum support is delayed decision making, and sometimes poor-quality initial decisions leading to appeals. The Bill reflects neither that nor the detrimental impact that delayed decisions can have on people’s ability to find employment and thus make repayments. The amendment would require that, once someone has been awaiting a decision for longer than six months, or 180 days, the charge intended to be levied against them—the refugee tax—would decrease by 20% for every further 30 days that passed. Amendment 81 is only fair, given that, according to the Home Secretary, the aim of part 4 of the Bill is partly to tackle the cost of asylum support. The Home Secretary must recognise that the drivers of those costs are delays in decision making and poor decisions. How long it takes to process a claim is not up to the individual, and delayed decisions will have a detrimental impact on their ability to find employment, integrate and make repayments. In some professions, continued practice is a condition of continued recognition in that role, so delays could have disruptive consequences on people’s ability to earn. The reduction in payments that the amendment proposes would also reflect those kinds of impacts.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
I am afraid I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. The evidence we have heard about the impact on people’s ability to integrate and on community cohesion has been clear. Amendment 81 in particular would be a good measure because it would incentivise the Home Office to reduce those costs and make decisions on time. It would also mean that people kept in the system for longer than necessary are not unfairly penalised for overly long decisions. That is the focus of the amendment. If the asylum claim took longer than six months because of the actions of the applicant, this would not apply—the amendment covers that as well. On my amendment 76, as mentioned earlier, if the Government decide to go ahead with the payments, they cannot guard against destitution with their requirement. Poverty ought to be the defining measure. That would allay a lot of the fears of local authorities, which are nevertheless obliged to deal with the consequences of people being in poverty. It would also save money, reduce those impacts and be much clearer about what would happen. People are fearful that the word “destitution” is a very low bar. As defined in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, someone is destitute if they do “not have adequate accommodation or any means of obtaining it”, or if they have “adequate accommodation or the means of obtaining it, but cannot meet his other essential living needs.” The Government’s definition of “essential living needs”, as set out in the Asylum Support Regulations 2000, is extremely minimal. As the Bill is drafted, individuals or families could be required to pay this charge, regardless of whether they are deemed to be in poverty, or even deep material poverty, if we are to use those definitions.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
The evidence I have comes from local authorities that have given evidence to the Committee and are very worried that their obligations will be extended by this Bill. People will be driven into poverty by the Home Office taking this money away from the overall system in the local area. It would be useful if the Home Office told us where the money will be spent in order to alleviate that. I am not sure that the Bill sets out where the repayments are going to go, but the implication is that they will go to the Home Office, not to local authorities. Amendment 76 would change the provision related to the repayment of asylum support so that people would not be required to make payments if doing so would leave them or their household impoverished. It also defines impoverishment as having an equivalised net income of less than 60% of the median—a fairly normal definition of poverty that is also the Government’s own definition for whether a household is low income. Clearly, it is the Government’s intention to provide safeguards to ensure that people are not made destitute. This amendment would strengthen that safeguard on the face of the Bill so that people who fled war and have been granted protection are not plunged into deeper poverty, just as they are starting the process of rebuilding their lives and integrating into communities. Finally, my amendment 79 is fairly pragmatic. It sets out that payments may not exceed the actual cost of supporting an individual. Currently, there is no link in the Bill between the level of the charge and the cost of support provided to someone. I would like to hear what the Government’s intentions are in setting out those charges. There is a broad power in the Bill and it would come through regulations. However, we need reassurance that no one could face a charge higher than the cost of the actual support they have received. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary said that clause 23 creates a power “that requires those who have received taxpayer-funded support to pay back a portion when they can.”––[Official Report, Immigration and Asylum Public Bill Committee, 13 July 2026; c. 678.] The implication is clearly that this should not exceed the cost of being supported. Government amendment 124 would allow the Home Secretary to reduce the payments owed. It would be useful to hear more detail from the Minister about the criteria for applying the power to reduce the payments and about the cases in which they would expect the amounts people owed to be reduced. If the Government plan on reducing them, in line with the amendment, would they consider putting that on the face of the Bill?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
That is an entirely fair point. There has been a focus on the lowest-possible-cost accommodation, and it is only right that people can stay closer to where they may have a connection and all the other considerations. It is important that those figures are just the current average. Overall, given the gravity of the impacts and the concerns from local authorities and many of my constituents about the problems, I want to see answers from the Minister on the amendments that would mitigate the impacts. I will be pressing my amendments to a vote if I do not hear good answers, and I will be opposing clause 23.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
I take the hon. Lady’s point that people who have claimed asylum should be regarded as akin to those here on work visas. However, does she understand the points in my amendments about how different groups of asylum seekers are being treated differently? People who needed accommodation due to poverty will be asked to pay back, while those who did not need accommodation, due to not being in poverty, are not. That distinction, which sets different asylum seeker groups against each other, is unhelpful.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)
For clarity, if this is akin to those on work visas, why are the Government proposing that only those asylum seekers who were here in poverty should pay back those contributions? Why not have a more redistributive approach and also charge the most well-off people seeking asylum, or make it more progressive?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
It is very good to have you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Twigg. From the discussions we have had today, I think it is clear what a mess the proposals in clauses 23 and 24 are. If it is not an itemised recovery of costs, it is a refugee tax—worse, it has become clear that is only a poor refugee tax. As such, the philosophical basis for the proposals is broken. The Government have set a terribly high bar for being excused, and they are not seeking any payment from successful refugees who have the means to support themselves while they wait for a decision. That is despite the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes likening the proposal to NHS surcharges for those on work visas, to which the Minister also referred. The Government have been clear that they are setting a flat charge rate, but they will not apply it to all asylum seekers. Why not? If one accepts the premise of the charge—I do not—would that not be fairer across the board? The Government propose to charge it only to those people who are destitute when they arrive here. This will do much harm to these people’s ability to settle in the future. Why would the Government drive them into poverty for extended periods and cause that kind of problem? It seems unfair to impose this on people. The Government have introduced this in clause 23, while amendment 141, tabled by the Conservatives, tries to codify it further. In my view, any kind of refugee tax should not be an additional barrier to stability. These clauses are reckless, unfair, cruel and irrational. Without my amendments, they become even worse. I will seek to divide the Committee on them. Question put, That the amendment be made.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 77, in clause 23, page 22, line 9, leave out “18 at all times” and insert “21 at any time”. This amendment would extend the exemption for repaying asylum support from any person who was under the age of 18 at all times they were in receipt of support to any person who was under the age of 21 at any time they were in receipt of support.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
I have four amendments in this group, and I will speak as briefly as I can about each of them. They are in the spirit of trying to improve the clauses even though I oppose them in principle. Amendment 77 seeks to strengthen the exemption on children and increase the age to 21. As the explanatory statement says, it would “extend the exemption for repaying asylum support from any person who was under the age of 18 at all times they were in receipt of support to any person who was under the age of 21 at any time they were in receipt of support.” It is welcome that the Government have already acknowledged that children should not be counted within this policy, including that parents should not have to pay £10,000 for any dependants who are children. However, there are two concerns that this amendment is seeking to address. First, on the face of the Bill, an individual has to be: “under 18 at all times at which they received asylum support” That implies that if someone turns 18 the day before they are granted status, they would still be liable for the full payment of up to £10,000, which the Government have confirmed they want to charge at a flat rate. That seems particularly unfair, especially when one considers that applicants have no control over how long it will take for their application to be processed. Additionally, the Bill does not reflect that when someone turns 18, they are still a young person just starting their adult life. Through measures announced elsewhere, such as the work and study protection framework, the Government have made it clear that they want people to be encouraged into study and work opportunities. It therefore seems both harsh and counterproductive to be giving a young person thousands of pounds of debt when they are taking their very first steps in building a new life in a new country. The change in amendment 77 would therefore better protect children and young people who have gone through the asylum system and allow them to have the best start at rebuilding their lives in the UK. Amendment 78 adds further exemptions to those that the Government have outlined. The only exemption on the face of the Bill is currently for children who are under 18, although more amendments could be added through regulations. I am happy for amendment 78 to be a probing amendment, provided that the Government are prepared to give some clarity on further exemptions that they might be prepared to add.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
Does the hon. Member have any insight into the gap that I think the Minister left in the discussion on the last group, between claims that repayments will be affordable and what it says in the Bill, which is that it will only avoid destitution? Does the hon. Member agree that there is a gap between those two definitions?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
I have spoken quite a lot about my overall position on these clauses, but I would like to say a little more about the fact that clause 23 gives the Home Secretary the power to require these unfair payments from a minority of asylum seekers who are destitute when they arrive here. The Minister needs to consider the lack of safe routes and the extent to which people wanting to claim asylum here end up more destitute as they are exploited the entire way by the kind of organised criminals that are currently running the only routes into this country. We need to see much more detail than is on the face of the Bill about how the system will work. I essentially wish to speak in support of amendment 140, tabled by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire. He makes a good point. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary promised that Parliament would have the opportunity to see draft regulations, but we have not seen them yet. The Committee is being asked to assess and approve a system when we are not able to scrutinise the details. We deserve to see more of them now. They are not minor details. We have already spoken about the fact that £10,000 is the amount that the Government are talking about, but that is not on the face of the Bill, and neither is the payment threshold nor how much people will have to pay over that amount. All of that is information that we would need to assess the impact that this policy would have on individual refugees at the point they are trying to rebuild their lives, not just on the public purse, as the Opposition amendment seeks to set out. Although the Government have indicated how they might recover those payments, the detail of the Bill does not cover everything. They say it will enable the Home Office to have its own cost recovery mechanism, supported by HMRC, which will apparently play its part. How will that work, how will it sit within other parts of the Government’s core protection system, and how much will it cost? That is especially important when weighed against the fact that the policy might bring in only limited amounts and may even reduce the overall tax take from this group. Without knowledge of the decisions about the system, the Government may be proposing something that costs the public purse large amounts in cash terms, let alone in its wider impacts. I think we need to see the Government’s analysis of all this. It is also important to acknowledge that individuals claiming asylum have fled war and persecution and are not responsible for the overall cost of asylum support. That cost has grown, often as a result of policy decisions or failings of this Government and the previous one. Earlier, we discussed the difference in cost between nightly paid hotel accommodation and properly settled dispersal accommodation in genuine homes. The Government are not spending their money wisely at present, and I think Ministers are seeking to address that. Would tackling that not be more cost-effective than trying to recover money from close-to-destitute asylum seekers? The Home Secretary has also said this policy is introducing a “contributory principle”. What she ignores, however, is that refugees do contribute, and have always done so, through working, paying taxes and contributing to their local communities. In fact, on wider impacts, the refugee tax is not introducing the idea that refugees should contribute. In my view, it is making it harder for them to do so, while also harming community cohesion and integration. A policy that was truly focused on increasing refugee contributions could look at how barriers to employment can be removed, so that people can access work more easily, progress in a career and transfer their qualifications to this country. I have had casework on those matters, which are barriers to refugees contributing to society through their taxes and making the most of the skills they can bring here by accessing education and further training. That would all help the Government to address asylum support costs, but it would do so by supporting vulnerable refugees, not targeting them with this tax. Has the Minister really addressed, in any of her comments today, the facts in the letter she wrote to us at the end of the oral evidence session, which admits fully that three in five of the people currently awaiting a decision are not claiming support? Why are those people not being asked to contribute in any way, if recovering the costs from people is the most important thing to the Government? Amendment 140 gets to the heart of that: what is the balance of payments? Finally, I believe this policy is cruel. It seeks to deter people from coming to this country, and that is the key reason why it is so targeted at the most vulnerable refugees, and not at those who can pay their own way. However, will it actually work as a deterrent? In general, the Home Office already has evidence that punitive measures such as the refugee tax have little impact on where people choose to seek asylum. Furthermore, in the oral evidence session, when asked about this, the Refugee Council highlighted that people will be able to avoid these payments simply by not applying for asylum support while their application is being processed, a risk also recognised in the Home Office’s impact assessment. Although that may reduce asylum support costs, I do not think that such a result is the Government’s intention, as it will push more people seeking asylum into vulnerable situations in which they can be exploited further. Do the Government not think that policies from this and previous Governments have already done enough of that?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)
My question is more about the revenue and its spending. We have heard from local authorities concerned that they might have higher costs as a result of the measures. Can the Minister give us any reassurance that the costs will not spill over into services that might be affected by some of the things in the impact assessment?
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentCarla Denyer
Black History Month
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate marking Black History Month, and I thank the Minister for opening the debate with a speech so powerful that it gave me the chills. I do not think that is because I might have caught a cold off her on Monday, although that may be the case. In my maiden speech, I talked about how the story of my home city, Bristol, cannot be disentangled from the UK’s shameful and immoral history of colonialism and slavery. That is a history that we cannot and must not turn away from. Bristol merchants financed over 2,000 slaving voyages between 1698 and 1807. These ships carried over 500,000 enslaved Africans from Africa to face slave labour in the Americas. This shameful trade is an ongoing stain, and it is why my party backs slavery reparations. Since 2020, we have supported the idea of a UK Government-backed all-party parliamentary commission of inquiry for truth and reparatory justice, aligned with the United Nations frameworks, to address the legacy of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism. I am proud to say that my city also backs that call following a motion brought by my former colleague, Green Councillor Cleo Lake, five years ago. This is work that I hope to continue to push on as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations. The UN’s declaration earlier this year, which said that the trafficking of enslaved Africans is the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as a “concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”, is therefore very welcome. I hope this strong UN stance will encourage the UK Government to mark Black History Month by acknowledging the inhumane crimes that Britain inflicted on African people for centuries, and the ongoing impact of those crimes on the global south today. My constituency, Bristol Central, is home to a blue plaque at the Seven Stars inn in Redcliffe that marks how Thomas Clarkson, an anti-slavery activist, together with the landlord of the Seven Stars, collected testimonies from sailors in 1787 that were used as evidence in Parliament. These statements played a role in the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which eventually led to the end of the transatlantic slave trade. Fast-forwarding 150 years, we have already heard extensively today about the 1963 Bristol bus boycott, which was a landmark moment in race relations in the UK. On the same day that Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech in the US, the Bristol Omnibus Company agreed to end its racist hiring practices following a successful boycott campaign. As we have heard, the boycott was widely cited as a turning point for racial justice in the UK and ultimately led to the Race Relations Act 1965. Bristol’s more recent history saw 15,000 Black Lives Matter supporters gather in the city in 2020 and the toppling of a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader who is believed to have transported about 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas between 1672 and 1689. That statue, in its damaged state, is now displayed in a glass case in the M Shed Museum, in my constituency, where it is surrounded by some of the placards held by protesters on the day it was toppled. Bristol city council’s culture team say this about the exhibit: “This is not erasing history, this is recording history. History isn’t something that can remain static and preserved—that moment was history in action.” Those words feel particularly salient to this debate, because in celebrating those people in our communities whose contributions are all too often unseen, we are—as Cherron Inko-Tariah MBE, the editor of Black History Month UK Magazine, puts it—also writing history. We are making the history that we want recorded, and keeping it alive. To that end, I want to give a special shout-out to one of the many people making black history in Bristol today: the first lord mayor of Bristol to come from the Somali community, Councillor Yassin Mohamud. Yassin brings his experience as a refugee, his experience as a member of the black and minority ethnic community, and his work representing one of Bristol’s more deprived areas to the role of lord mayor. As he said shortly before taking up the post, his focus is on unity “to bring people together, to celebrate the diversity and strength of our city, and to ensure that every community feels recognised and valued.”
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentCarla Denyer
Black History Month
I will indeed. The now Lord Rees, who was the first black mayor of Bristol and one of the first in Europe, also featured in my maiden speech, and I recognise the great contribution that he made to our city. Finally, I want to highlight the campaign launched last year for Bristol to become the UK’s civil rights capital. The fact that two Members from outside Bristol have already told the story of the city’s pivotal role in British black history supports the case for that very strongly. The campaign brings together academics, business leaders and politicians, including Lord Rees. I will quote directly from one of the campaign’s lead organisers, Julz Davis. He said: “Bristol has never waited for permission to lead. This city has shown the country what change looks like. Activism has always been the lifeblood of systemic change here.” Black History Month is a much-needed chance to remember the importance of systemic change and how many people are making that change happen. To quote Cherron Inko-Tariah again: “There is still so much we do not know. So many stories waiting to be uncovered. So many names waiting to be spoken. So much history waiting to be reclaimed, recorded and shared.” That potential is very alive in this Chamber today, in my home city of Bristol and across our communities, and I look forward to continuing to work cross-party to help realise it.
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Flood Preparation
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22 Oct 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Flood Preparation
I thank the Minister for her reply. We have already seen unprecedented climate impacts this summer, and with the super El Niño on its way, we will see threats to global weather patterns, including a forecasted colder, wetter and stormier winter for the UK. How is she working across Government to ensure that preparedness for flooding risks this winter are stepped up, to keep our communities safe?
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21 Oct 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Engagements
The Energy Secretary herself has admitted that Jackdaw will not bring down bills and will create only 27 jobs. The 2024 Labour manifesto said that the climate crisis is the greatest global challenge we face, and the UN has warned today that we are breaching safe climate limits, meaning more of the heatwaves, wildfires and catastrophic floods that killed thousands this summer. Can the Prime Minister explain why he is pouring more fuel on the fire of climate breakdown? Does he disagree with the overwhelming scientific consensus that fossil fuels must stay in the ground, or was the oil and gas lobby simply too difficult to ignore?
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21 Oct 2026ParliamentCarla Denyer
Housing Costs: Government Support
I thank the hon. Member for his important speech. In my constituency, only 2.3% of rental homes are affordable with local housing allowance—a far cry from the 30% that it is meant to be. Of course, that means that many more families, including families with children, are forced into rent arrears, poverty and homelessness. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, introducing rent controls would reduce the cost of unfreezing local housing allowance by more than £1 billion by 2030. Does the hon. Member therefore agree that the Chancellor should introduce an emergency brake on rents as well as unfreeze local housing allowance at the Budget to address the gross distortion, inequality and unfairness in the housing market?
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21 Oct 2026ParliamentCarla Denyer
Jackdaw Gasfield
Drilling at Jackdaw is an act of climate vandalism. As we have heard, it will not bring down bills and it will create only 27 jobs. Today’s announcement also reiterated the Government’s support for so-called tiebacks, which are a dodge to allow yet more drilling without new licences. Does the Minister not recognise the UN’s countless warnings that we must leave all new fossil fuels in the ground? Will he admit that allowing both Jackdaw and new tiebacks is utterly at odds with the climate science?
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21 Oct 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Support for Farmers
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech, and I agree that it is absolutely crucial for farmers to have confidence in long-term policy support. My farmers in Waveney Valley tell me they want to invest in measures that support natural flood management, restore nature, such as new hedgerows, and improve soil health, which are critical for food security. Does she agree that the window 2 debacle shows the level of interest there is, and that far more funding is needed in the SFI funding pot?
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
I beg to move amendment 61, in clause 19, page 17, line 1, at end insert— “(3AB) It is in the public interest, and in particular in the interests of the elimination of violence against women and girls, that due regard be given to circumstances arising from a person who seeks to enter or remain in the United Kingdom being a victim of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse (within the meaning of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021).” This amendment inserts a new public interest consideration into section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, requiring a court or tribunal to take into consideration the effects of violence against women and girls when deciding whether an interference with a person’s Article 8 rights is justified.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. My amendment would introduce a public interest test for survivors of violence against women and girls, domestic abuse and sexual violence into the considerations. I will also speak to the matter of leaving out the clause. I will start with the clause and what it does. The clause will fundamentally alter the balance that has long existed between article 8 rights and the public interest by restricting the courts’ ability to assess the individual circumstances of each case. Our courts and tribunals carefully balance the right to private and family life against the public interest in an effective immigration system. Our judiciary performs that task every day, helping to deliver justice, uphold the rule of law and guard against abuse. Yet the clause assumes that the balance is being struck wrongly, without the Government having demonstrated that. The main evidence is only a 2022 internal sample of Home Office decisions. The existing statutory framework already strongly favours the public interest, in particular in deportation cases. While preserving the ability to consider individual circumstances, the clause will replace that with a more prescriptive framework. Here are my views on the main changes in the clause: first, it will require courts to predict whether a person will remain financially independent. That is an inherently speculative exercise, because it fails to consider the uncertainties of ordinary life, including illness, disabilities, caring responsibilities or economic downturns. The effect is likely to discriminate most heavily against disabled people, as well as those with long-term health conditions and caring responsibilities. Secondly, the clause will discount genuine family life, because of immigration status. Family life formed while a person was here with no leave to remain would be given no weight at all, and family life formed while people’s status was precarious would be given little weight. Precarious migration status covers everyone with anything short of indefinite leave to remain or citizenship—care workers, skilled workers, international students, refugees and partners on the family route. Under the earned settlement proposals, the qualifying period to become eligible for settlement would be extended to a baseline of 10 years, and in some cases 15 or even 20 years for refugees. Many people will therefore remain on in a precarious position for years, during which the relationships they form and the children they raise would count for little or nothing under the clause. The reality is that family relationships do not cease to exist or be formed just because an immigration status is uncertain. Strasbourg accepts that precarious status can reduce the weight that is given to family life, but it has not said that it counts for nothing. In an important case, Jeunesse v. the Netherlands, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation—even when the applicant had remained without leave for years—because of the impact on her children. With a “No weight” rule, as in clause 19(4), there will be no space to assess such cases and to retain flexibility. It will weaken protection for children. Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, when courts assess a child’s best interests they do not look at one factor in isolation—they examine the full picture: a child’s age, health, education, friendships, cultural identity, family circumstances, personal development and connection to the UK—and the children are not defined by a checklist; yet clause 19 would introduce a closed checklist, under which it would be unreasonable “to expect a child to leave the United Kingdom if (and only if)” they would receive no education abroad, face “very significant obstacles” to integrating in the new country, or suffer “a very significant and long-lasting adverse effect”. Each is a very high bar. Remarkably, the Government’s impact assessment describes those factors as a “non-exhaustive” list, but subsection (7) uses the phrase “if and (only if)”. It is very clearly a closed list. The Bill therefore goes even further than the Government say they intend, in terms of its effect on children. I am also concerned that the clause applies to British children too. As drafted, it could result in a British child with a migrant parent either being separated from their parent or having to leave the UK to preserve the family unit. That results in two-tier British citizenship. The Government’s own impact assessment lists family separation among the consequences of these reforms, and says—with little humanity—that the new test will allow decision makers “to consider whether parents can maintain their relationship with a child from outside the UK” or whether a British child can “successfully adapt to life abroad”. The existing framework is not perfect, but it already places substantial weight on the public interest and has safeguards allowing courts to consider the facts of each case. Clause 19 risks upsetting that balance. At its heart, the issue here is a simple one: do we trust our courts to weigh the facts before them, or do we seek to predetermine the outcome through statutory presumptions? I believe that the existing approach better serves both justice and the rule of law, and for that reason clause 19 should not stand part of the Bill. Amendment 61 would reduce the harm of this clause, if it remains, by inserting a new public interest consideration into section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, requiring a court or tribunal to take into consideration the effects of violence against women and girls when deciding whether an interference with a person’s article 8 rights is justified. In my view, without the amendment the Bill will remove or weaken application grounds or causes of appeal relied on by many women living in abusive or exploitative conditions, making them even more vulnerable. That may leave victim-survivors at risk of being refused leave to stay, removed or deported for factors that are a direct consequence of the abuse to which they have been subjected. To bring that point home, I will provide some examples from organisations that are currently supporting such women. My first example shows how the stricter public interest considerations risk undermining evidence for financial dependency and contact with the criminal justice system being usual results of an experience of violence against women and girls. Julianne was living in another country when she began her relationship with a British man. While visiting him in the UK, she became pregnant with his child and he encouraged her to stay, promising to support her and secure her immigration status. Trusting those assurances, Julianne stayed and became an overstayer. Once her status became insecure, her partner’s behaviour changed dramatically. He subjected her to domestic abuse, isolated her from friends and family overseas, and exploited the fact that she had no support network in the UK. The abuse escalated after the birth of their child. Julianne eventually fled with her child after a violent assault. She sought medical treatment, reported the abuse to the police and received emergency support from the local authority. Traumatised and destitute, Julianne was left to navigate a complex immigration system alone, as she had been unable to secure legally aided advice and could not afford to pay for a solicitor. She lives with the constant fear of removal. I have changed Julianne’s name. Julianne had a pathway to regularisation as the parent of a British child; however, if clause 19 becomes law the barriers to regularising her immigration status would be raised significantly, potentially preventing her from qualifying to remain in the UK as the parent of a British child. Re-emphasising the weight of financial independence without reliance on state support and public services will create pressure on victim-survivors like Julianne to stay in abusive and exploitative situations instead of leaving and claiming support, as she did. Women who have been subject to economic and immigration abuse will be penalised due to their lack of financial independence. The public interest considerations would weigh heavily against Julianne because she accessed support from the local authority while protecting herself and her children from domestic abuse, and because no weight would be given to her family life, as it was established when she overstayed. Without amendment 61, there would be no discretion to consider the role her abuser played in causing her to overstay. In respect of the redefinition of family, I have a further example of where limiting family life to core cohabiting family and replacing a judicial assessment with a checklist will ignore nuances and external factors forcing a family not to cohabit, such as coercive and controlling behaviour. More broadly, women who are convicted of criminal offences would also be put at increased risk of deportation, as a high evidential standard is needed to prove a disproportionate impact on them or a family member. That includes women who are coerced or pressured into criminal activity—those driven to engaging with the criminal justice system due to unmet needs, such as being unable to afford food or having unaddressed mental health problems, and those who retaliated against the person abusing or exploiting them, or who had a counter-allegation made against them falsely. All those women are vulnerable and deserving of protection and support, not the further punishment of possible deportation. My second case study is Blanca. Blanca came to the UK with a visa to work, and while here, she married a British man and had a baby. He had a good job, so they agreed she would stop working, and they then had two more children together. Over time, he became more controlling. Although the children’s benefits were registered in her name, he controlled the payments and did not give her access to the money. As Blanca did not have her own income, he gave her money for the family’s food, but he would demand that she provide receipts and the exact change. If she bought anything he considered unnecessary, he would be angry and make her return it. That included sanitary products, which Blanca found humiliating and confusing. He also became verbally and later physically abusive towards Blanca, and she became more and more scared of him. One day, when she was in the supermarket, her period started. She did not know what to do, and she was scared of her husband seeing that she had bought something he thought was unnecessary. She stole a box of sanitary pads, but on her way out of the shop, she was stopped by security who reported her to the police. She was charged and later convicted of theft. If part 2 of the Bill were fully implemented, Blanca’s conviction would put her at high risk of deportation. No consideration would be given to the abuse that she experienced, which pushed her to commit the crime, nor would it be given to her vulnerability and trauma. In addition, as she did not have lawful status for much of the time she was in the UK, her private and family life may be deemed to hold no weight—or, at best, little weight—if it were held to have been established when she arrived with precarious status. The Committee can see that clause 19 has all these knock-on effects into further parts of the Bill, and that this additional public interest consideration is necessary. I hope the Committee will discuss and support amendment 61, if clause 19 is to remain in the Bill. I am happy for this to be a probing amendment, if the Government will consider these risks and make their own similar changes to the Bill later.
Hansard source
20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
I am very interested in the fact that the Minister has just talked about going further on good character in some guidance. Will that guidance take into account factors that might otherwise weigh against the character of someone making an appeal if they have been exploited or abused? Is that the kind of thing that the Minister is thinking about in terms of deviating from the 1981 guidance?
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
Further to the discussion with the Minister about ensuring that victims of abuse and sexual violence are protected, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed: 105, in clause 19, page 17, line 3, leave out “should” and insert “must”.—(Blake Stephenson.) This amendment would require, rather than advise, that no weight is given to private or family life established while a person is in the United Kingdom unlawfully, with leave obtained by deception or in serious breach of their conditions. Question put, That the amendment be made.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
I will speak very briefly on clause 20, specifically subsection (4). At present, it will expand the scope of section 117D of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so that it automatically applies to everyone whose deportation the Home Secretary has decided is conducive to the public good, regardless of the objective seriousness of their offence, under the Immigration Act 1971 and its use of the word “deems”, which I think is very important. I hope the Minister can answer three questions on the clause. First, do the proportionality qualification and the exceptions in the clause offer any protection for those whose criminality is as a result of exploitation or abuse, particularly those who face immigration-related domestic abuse and have been convicted of crimes related to that? On that theme, the new clauses tabled by the official Opposition would clarify the word “serious” so that some offences would be considered serious automatically. I see the point they are trying to make, but if we made that automatic, it would not be possible for those who are exploited and drawn into criminality to face a proportionate, human-rights-based public interest test. I do not support those new clauses, nor do I support amendments 108 to 111.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)
I am asking the Minister these questions, so it would be marvellous if we could wait to see how she answers them. Thirdly, does that approach not allow the Home Secretary to unilaterally stack the deck against an appellant in an appeal, on an arbitrary basis? Does that take away from the objective seriousness of the offence that they have committed? Does the approach therefore impermissibly limit the ability of the appellate body to decide an article 8 ECHR claim on its merits, as is required under the Human Rights Act 1998?
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 21, page 19, line 19, at end insert— “(2A) In making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare and best interests of any children in respect of whom a protection claim is made or who are granted protection status.” This amendment would require regulations under Clause 21 to take into account the best interests of children.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
It is great to have you in the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Barker. Amendment 75 was tabled to the original clause 21. The Government published amendments on 13 October that removed clause 21 and added new clauses 35 and 36, a new schedule and some additional amendments linked to the new core protection status. However, the issues raised in my amendments 75 and 74—as well as in amendments 51 to 54 tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough—continue to be relevant to this debate. Amendments 75 and 74 are focused on the broad nature of the powers in relation to conferring rights and obligations or requirements on someone with or claiming protection status. That was set out in clause 21(3)(c) and is retained in subsection (3)(c) of Government new clause 36. My concerns remain relevant, as I said. I will not press my amendments to a vote, but the Government need to consider those issues seriously and respond to my points. Government new clause 35 will remove clause 21(6)—the sunset clause—which limited the time period for regulations to be made under the clause to one year after the Bill comes into force. New regulations can therefore be made indefinitely under that new clause, and I would like the Government to justify that change. Amendment 75, which was tabled to the Bill as introduced, sought to ensure that regulations must have regard to the best interests of a child. No child rights impact assessment has been produced on any aspect of this corporate action model, despite the fact that the shortening of refugee leave to 30 months already applies to children and families seeking asylum for over six months. The amendment would make sure that, before making regulations, the Government look properly at the impact of corporate action, including the short periods of leave and the long route to settlement in this—I think downgraded—protection status. I am particularly worried about this in relation to the ability to settle, make family life and all the kinds of rights that children have. When the Government do this, they need to pay particular attention to the Home Office’s legal duties under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Applied to children and young people, corporate action and the 20-year route will undermine children’s well-established need for stability, particularly refugee children as they recover and rebuild their lives following what is probably life-changing trauma and distress. In addition, repeated immigration status reviews and uncertainty around long-term residence will drive avoidable school and college moves as families are forced to relocate at short notice or potentially lose housing as a result of insecure employment status and other impacts of this shorter period of leave and the resulting uncertainty. For children, each move disrupts attendance and their ability to get pastoral or potentially special educational support. It can set back attainment or harm social integration, particularly at a stage when continuity is most important for children and young people. Temporary leave cycles and renewal windows are inevitably going to risk coinciding with exams, including GCSEs, highers, A-levels and vocational assessments. Anxiety about imminent status decisions could undermine revision and therefore exam performance, and in some cases, young people facing disruption will miss exams completely. This must be looked at very closely. I also want the Government to think about children who are getting ready for higher education; they are just about to become adults and are potentially looking to study in this country. Unstable status also makes it harder for young people to secure home fees and student financing. Short grants of leave could push refugees into the overseas fee category for a long time or leave them ineligible for maintenance support. The rights of children growing up in this country would be impacted because they would have university access and progression closed off to them. They might be forced to defer going to university, which might stall their integration into the community or harm their earnings potential. I do not think that any of those impacts are in the public interest, and I want Government to at least commit today to conducting a child rights impact assessment that will look at all of these things in part 3 of the Bill before Third Reading—and certainly before any of the regulations in this part are made. Amendment 74 would ensure that there was no regression of rights and entitlements. It is needed because the broad regulation-making powers contained in clause 21 currently have very few limitations on scope. The delegated powers memorandum says that the powers will not be used to reduce the entitlements of refugees, and this amendment would seek to reflect that by requiring that they do not reduce rights and entitlements below what was in place on the day that the Bill was introduced. The amendment merely reflects what the Government have said their intentions are: in part 48 of the delegated powers memorandum, the Government state that the measure will not be used to reduce “the entitlements currently held by refugees” or persons with humanitarian protection. The amendment seeks to reflect this commitment in the Bill: that people who have already been granted protection status before the Bill is introduced retain the rights, entitlements and protections that currently exist. That would include family reunion with no additional eligibility criteria and a five-way pathway to settlement, if interpreted correctly according to what the Government have said. That clarity is very much needed for refugees who are currently in the UK and need certainty of their situation so that they can focus on developing their life in this country—integrating, earning and all the things that will help their family life and their children. I have a question about a particular part of new clause 35. I welcome the detail in schedule 1 and I appreciate having it at this stage so that we can scrutinise the Bill. However, part 7 of new clause 35 gives the Secretary of State the power to “revoke a person’s protection status.” That is literally all it says. While a whole section of the immigration rules covers the situations where a person’s refugee status and humanitarian protection can be revoked, on the face of this Bill, the Government are creating a very broad ability to revoke that status, which is currently unconstrained. Why are the Government not listing suitable uses of that power on the face of the Bill? This issue is particularly relevant because in the last few weeks other parties—not represented on this Committee—have announced their desire to revoke the right to asylum and revoke refugee status for some who have already found protection in the UK. The Government rightly stood up for the right to asylum and stood against those proposals. It would be good to have that on the face of the Bill, so that we have better protections against the risk of the power being taken over by another party or future Home Secretary who would abuse it. I would like the Government to clarify that. Finally, it would be useful to hear how the Minister believes the change in new clause 35 will simplify decision-making processes since we have heard in oral evidence that the convention grounds cannot be done away with. Merging them with what had previously been known as the humanitarian protection grounds is potentially complex and confusing for people. Will the Government clarify how people will be told on what grounds they have been granted protection, in order to make sure that the Bill is very clear?
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
I would like further clarity on why those grounds—the reasons for which revocation could be made—which the Minister read out very clearly, are not simply added to the Bill at this point to make the situation incredibly clear.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
It is important to know whether the 30-month process will be more like a simple renewal—like me renewing my TV licence or something like that—or whether it will be a reinterrogation of the person seeking protection all over again? Will the onus be on the Government to say, for example, that a country has suddenly become safe, that there has been a new Government, that major changes have occurred and, therefore, that we will look more closely at a number of cases, but that in countries where the situation has remained the same, we will not be looking in depth? How simple the process will be is really bothering people. Having all their circumstances reinterrogated and having to prove themselves over and over again is something people have learned to expect from the Home Office. It is up to the Minister to reassure us on this point.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
For clarity, will the onus be on the Government to prove the change, or will it be like reapplying from scratch each time? Again, my casework shows that we are more used to the Home Office asking for chapter and verse from the applicant each time. If the Minister is prepared to promise that it will be for the Government to prove changes, that would mean a lot to many people listening.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 21 disagreed to. Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jade Botterill.)
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentHannah Spencer
Manufacturing Skills
Students in Gorton and Denton tell me they often have to spend two to three years on a course before they can even be considered for an apprenticeship. Make UK reports that 39% of manufacturers do not think our education system can deliver the skills that they need. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to make apprenticeships more accessible and flexible so people are not held back from skilled jobs and manufacturers can get the workers they desperately need?
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
House of Lords Reform
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this important debate. I represent the Green party. For many years, we have supported the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement by a fully elected second Chamber. I am personally fairly agnostic about the exact format of how that should be done, but I fundamentally believe that a basic principle of democracy is that the legitimacy of the lawmakers comes from the trust put in them. I am talking about the authority entrusted in the legislature by the people, the voters—not by the people in charge of a political party who draw up a list from time to time, some of which is clearly related to the amount of money donated for years by some of the people who end up in the other place. It is not even through the legitimacy that an individual achieves within their specialised field of expertise because of many long years of practice in that field. We should absolutely as a Parliament draw on expertise from across the full panoply of sectors in our country, but we need to ask ourselves who should be making the laws. It should be people who work on the basis of the trust given them by the voters, by the people, and on the basis of every vote having equal weight. That is why I am equally passionate about the importance of a proportionally elected Parliament. Fundamentally, we have a system in the House of Lords that is undemocratic and hugely unrepresentative in all sorts of dimensions and areas of demographics. It is untransparent because so much of the decision making about who becomes a Member is done behind closed doors. How can that be suitable for the 21st century? We have a huge problem with not only the composition but the functioning of the House of Lords. It is, of course, important that legislation is properly scrutinised and that there are full opportunities to amend it. We have questions to ask ourselves in the Commons about how well we do those things and how well our system enables us to, but we do not fix them with an institution such as the House of Lords—no matter how effective individual Members of the Lords may be. Like colleagues here, I pay tribute to the work of so many Members of the Lords who take their role seriously, bring expertise and pay attention to the job that they are there to do. However, as the hon. Member for Stroud has pointed out, there has been a huge failure in the functioning of the House of Lords because, effectively, the will of a few of its Members has overridden the will of the House of Commons. That cannot be right, so we desperately need reform. I welcome the proposal from the hon. Member for Stroud of a national commission on reform of the House of Lords. To address a point raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), I should say that I would strongly favour the inclusion of a citizen’s assembly as part of that process. I fundamentally believe that a representative sample of the British people, representing all demographics and engaging in the detail and questioning of how we construct our political system, so that the people’s voice is heard, must be a fundamental part of any reform process. We cannot continue as we are—with an undemocratic, unrepresentative, untransparent second Chamber. We must have reform.
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20 Oct 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Topical Questions
Constituents in North Herefordshire and across the country want an end to the current postcode lottery in access to adult social care. The King’s Fund published a report on equal access just last week. Has the Minister read that report, and does she agree that social care needs to be locally delivered, but nationally funded?
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Green Party: a sourced timeline of public activity, with filters by source type and a sidebar of tracked totals

Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill

Strengthening Community Resilience

Performance of Royal Mail

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Ninth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Tenth sitting)

Black History Month

Black History Month

Flood Preparation

Flood Preparation

Engagements

Housing Costs: Government Support

Jackdaw Gasfield

Support for Farmers

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Eighth sitting)

Manufacturing Skills

House of Lords Reform

Topical Questions