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15 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)
Q<QNum HRSContentId="{3453FFA9-B174-425C-985D-53BC8C736DA8}"> </QNum> Jacqui, you also raised something that I like, because it is Green party policy—though I should not be bringing that up here—which is breaking up the Home Office. In the discussions and the evidence we have heard, other people have said that it is a huge amount of work to set up the new tribunal service. Would it be easier to just start again with the Home Office and create a new branch of it that does immigration versus and police and enforcement, or is that for the future? Jacqui McKenzie: Maybe for the future, because I totally accept Professor Singer’s point: one of the issues about the new authority—I keep getting its name wrong, because it has changed its name three times—is that it is going to be expensive and unwieldy. For much less money, we could probably make the current system work. I know that these are difficult times for the country with budgets and so forth, so I do not necessarily want to propose something that is going to be very expensive. However, in the long term, the bit of the Home Office that makes these sorts of decisions probably needs to be a separate entity.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)
Q<QNum HRSContentId="{B7817E7E-9A7F-4A1B-B697-28B00601141D}"> </QNum> I have a couple of questions that seek more information, so I will fire through those two to begin with. Madeleine Sumption and the Refugee Council told us that there is not full data on which human rights claims grounds are currently accepted, refused, appealed and then accepted, or refused on appeal. Is there any way the Department could get more of that information to us before our line-by-line consideration of the Bill? The Refugee Council said there was no information on the proportion of people claiming asylum support as opposed to living off their own means while they are here, or not living off any means and being exploited. That is important information to know about in the context of the repayments clauses. Could you try to get that information for us before our line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill? The Government need a baseline for the outcome that they are seeking. Anna Turley: I appreciate that. We may have that information, but I do not have it to hand today—apologies. I am more than happy to have a look internally, have discussions and see if we can get that information to the Committee, if we have access to it.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)
Q<QNum HRSContentId="{01C7D4A9-62D0-4E42-BD36-44960EF54EC3}"> </QNum> A few witnesses asked—as does some of the written evidence—for more information on the regulations that will follow the legislation to be published before we consider the relevant clauses of the Bill. I think that relates mainly to the definitions and criteria of protection status under clause 21, and to how destitution will be defined under clause 23 and where the threshold for making contributions will be set in order to avoid hardship. Will those regulations be published in draft form for the Committee before we consider those clauses? Anna Turley: I take your point on the core protection point and on destitution. Our intention was always to set out that detail in due course. On any legislative changes, we want to ensure that we lay that out properly for proper scrutiny, so I will endeavour to do that for the Committee.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)
Q<QNum HRSContentId="{E25A7CF5-62E6-454A-AD8F-B06108D88B97}"> </QNum> I have a quick question on engagement. One thing that has come out of my own constituency work is that people making asylum applications are mainly successful in the end—sometimes when they get my help—but there are a lot of criticisms of the process, particularly in relation to access and the way that the forms are presented, and in understanding what they need to do, being able to provide the right information and being asked for it in a clear way. All those different things might cause discrimination in the process or cause claims not to be approved when they should be. We have established that claims that should have been approved in the first place are a burden on the courts. There is also human error in the Home Office. Have you managed to engage with any asylum seekers on solving their problems, or about their views on the Bill? We have heard from witnesses representing asylum seekers, but engagement with the people who are affected would be useful, so I wonder what the Department has done. Anna Turley: I am always a believer in service user feedback, including from people who have been through the process and have lived experience, to help us develop better policymaking. This Bill process notwithstanding, I would be keen to look at that more broadly. In terms of the Bill process, there was a consultation after the Home Secretary’s statement—before my time, I believe—which everybody would have had the opportunity to feed into. I reflect on the point about perhaps looking at specific users’ experience that they might not have been able to share during the process for fear of compromising their situation. On whether there is another means by which we can talk to people who have been through the process, we are always trying to improve our processes. Dan Hobbs: Most of our consultation is done through the advocacy group. There is a national framework of stakeholder engagement with various different aspects—children, accommodation and elements like that—that the asylum group runs. Much of that lived experience is expressed through those groups. That is done in partnership with organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Refugee Council. Bas also has a community engagement team that gets a lot of information from people who use our services. Bas Javid: We have two very distinct elements of engagement. I have a national community engagement team, which links with local authorities, charity groups, churches and other places of worship, and communities more generally—just on immigration, not necessarily on enforcement. Only this week, I have set up a new command, called the returns assistance and engagement operations. The primary focus of that command is people who are failed asylum seekers, still in the UK, and would need some returns assistance. Part of that is engagement and communication, as there are often language barriers and other communication challenges, and part is building up a level of trust. The focus of the command is entirely on trying to increase the voluntary returns, which is my primary focus. I would much rather do a voluntary return than an enforced one—it is safer, cheaper and quicker, and it is more dignified.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)
Q<QNum HRSContentId="{DB53153A-4B79-4003-ACC1-E8AE10CD8F5C}"> </QNum> Do you have routes through to the people affected so that you could ask about the Bill’s provisions? Bas Javid: Yes. On when we pick up feedback from people, particularly around the system, for example, one of the things that we recently rolled out is different apps and communication systems that we did not have before. We are much more on the front foot about contacting people at an early stage of a removals process, rather than later. When we do that, we feed back to our asylum colleagues any information or feedback relevant to assisting them to improve the process.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
The hon. Gentleman has made extraordinary claims about the reserves of shale gas. There are currently no commercially proven reserves of shale gas in the UK, and yet he is suggesting that there are tens of billions at hand just to be plucked. The evidence actually shows that the cost of renewables is going down constantly. I ask him to pay courtesy to the convention of the House that we speak truth in this place and to cite his sources.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
No, the sources for your claims about reserves—
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
I want to clarify the question I actually asked.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am requesting that he cites his sources for the claims he has made as to the reserves of shale gas in this country.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
No!
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who made a passionate and utterly convincing case for the need for a green energy revolution and the benefits it would provide not only environmentally, but socially for the communities we are here to represent. We have heard fantastic arguments from across the House for a full ban on fracking. It is not just about the earthquake risks and the environmental damage to local communities, or because it is completely publicly unpopular, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) pointed out. British citizens do not want fracking, and banning fracking fully is a very popular policy. Fundamentally, however, there is one key reason why we must have a full ban on fracking, which is that we must keep fossil fuels in the ground. We know that we live in a hugely warming world.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
Fossil fuels are traded globally. If we open up new production of fossil fuels, the reality is that that will do nothing for bills, do almost nothing for energy security and be a complete distraction from the investments we must make in the transition to the clean, green, renewable energy future that is our only hope of a sustainable economy not just in the long term, but in the short and medium terms. These are the industries of the future, and people who argue that we should continue to invest in typewriters during the era of the personal computer or continue to invest in horses and carriages during the era of the car are simply stuck in the past. We cannot continue to have our heads in the sand.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
No, that is a complete mischaracterisation of my argument. We know, for example, that Jackdaw would generate 27 jobs—the number of people who fit on the top of a double-decker bus.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
Yes, seriously. I can give the hon. Member the reference, unlike for the extraordinary statistics he cited in his speech, which apparently have no basis in actual evidence. Fundamentally, we have to stop pouring fossil fuel on the fire of the climate crisis, and that means we need a full ban on fracking.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
It is indeed true that there is considerable public subsidy for oil and gas, as well as revenues from the windfall taxes. As the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth pointed out, the fossil fuel companies are making tens of billions of pounds in profit, which is raked in from consumers. Fundamentally, renewables are the cheap, clean, green energy of the future, and we need to shift in that direction as quickly as possible. We are here talking about fracking, but there is no commercially viable shale gas reserve in the entirety of the UK.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
No, the argument that there is commercially viable production is a nonsense. The hon. Member should look at the information from the British Geological Survey.
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15 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Fracking Ban
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman and several other people, so I will move to my conclusion. Fundamentally, we are living in a burning world. The 11 hottest years on record were the past 11 years. The three hottest years on record were the past three years. The trajectory is going up and up, and this is not just a question of graphs on paper and reports from the World Meteorological Organisation; we are feeling it in our communities. The Prime Minister, when he considers decisions on things like fracking, should listen to communities in places such as Stourbridge, West Sussex and Stoke-on-Trent, where people have had their homes burned by wildfires that have been supercharged by the climate change that is already built in. It would be utterly irresponsible to pour yet more fuel on the fire of climate crisis. We need to recognise the reality that is hitting us in the face: a barrelling and accelerating climate crisis. We need to do everything we can to change direction, and the very least of those things has to be a full ban on fracking. Can the Minister confirm that when the energy independence Bill comes to this House after the recess, it will include a fulfilment of the Government’s previous promise to implement a full and statutory ban on fracking that cannot simply be overturned by ministerial diktat? Will he apply the ban to existing licences? We have to leave fossil fuels in the ground and supercharge our transition to the green, clean energy revolution, which is the only fundamental basis for a sustainable and prosperous future for all of the UK.
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14 Sep 2026ParliamentHannah Spencer
SEND Specialists: Schools
Children in Gorton and Denton are being left without suitable education while families wait for SEND tribunal appeals, but they are waiting for school places that do not exist. Does the Minister agree that we need an independent assessment of SEND school capacity? The Government reforms will not help if we do not first fix the capacity crisis.
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14 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Topical Questions
I have been contacted by students, parents and teachers in my constituency telling me that the cost of transport is a key barrier to accessing education and other opportunities. A 19-year-old told me recently that it costs her more than £9 for a return fare to the county town of Hereford, and Hereford sixth-form college has told me that 21 young people dropped out last year because of transport problems. Does the Secretary of State recognise that the cost of travel is a big barrier to accessing education, training and work? Will she work with Cabinet colleagues and the Treasury to implement free bus travel for all young people, in order to invest in them?
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14 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Israel and Palestine
I will use my contribution to do two things: first, to reiterate that international law and human rights are absolutely critical, and secondly, to reflect on the responsibilities that they impose on the UK and on our wider responsibilities as parliamentarians and citizens. International law and human rights frameworks are vital guiding principles. The terrorist atrocities of 7 October were a clear and obscene violation of those principles. Every single person responsible for those horrors must be held to account, and every life taken or damaged must never be forgotten. Equally, the collective punishment of the people of Gaza is also a clear and obscene violation of international law and breaches basic human rights. We see mass atrocities, displacement, deliberate starvation, the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, withholding access to water and medical supplies, and the targeting of journalists and aid convoys. We must call what has been happening in Gaza what it is: genocide. In the occupied west bank, we have seen the violent expansion of illegal settlements, ethnic cleansing, the execution of children, detention without trial, people forced to live under apartheid and settler terrorism. All of that has been happening for decades, but it is worse since 7 October, with Prime Minister Netanyahu emboldened by the current US President. Political leaders have largely fallen short when it comes to holding the Israeli Government to account for their human rights crimes and their flagrant disregard for international law, but policial leaders come and go. Meanwhile the international courts get on with their work upholding the standards and the UN resolutions that the world has collectively agreed. We need political leadership and we need it to be guided by international law and human rights frameworks, so it was hugely welcome to hear the Secretary of State last week recognise the 2024 ICJ conclusion that the occupation of Palestine is illegal, reiterate the illegality of expansionist settlements and take the vital first step of banning trade with and advertising of those illegal settlements. Their illegality is absolutely clear under international law. The UK has done the right thing in recognising the role of international law and human rights standards, and it is starting to act accordingly, but genuine respect for international law and human rights means we cannot pick and choose. Suspending the licences of some arms used by the IDF in Gaza and the licensing of other arms and exports that materially contribute to the occupation makes a difference, but the double lock that the Government have announced does not include components for the F-35 combat aircraft that, according to Campaign Against The Arms Trade, is the most substantive part of the UK’s arms trade with Israel. It cannot be beyond the wit of officialdom to find a way of tracing these parts, so that they are not used. The UK remains complicit in Israel’s genocidal war crimes until it ends its role in supporting Israeli forces. I urge the UK Government to be consistent in their commitment to the legal and human rights frameworks that underpin their recent decisions. I welcome the steps they have taken, but it is too little, too late and there is much more to be done. Secondly, I want to reflect on the wider responsibilities that we all have, especially as parliamentarians, in the context of rising hate crime and growing divisions in our communities. We each have a responsibility to show leadership, to stand against antisemitism, to stand against Islamophobia, not to conflate criticism of the Israeli Government with antisemitism and to call it out when we see others doing that, not to hold the Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli authorities or the ideologies that drive them, and not to hold Palestinians responsible for the actions of Hamas. We have a responsibility to recognise the many ways in which those who advocate for Palestine are defamed, often as antisemitic, as a way of shutting down or silencing their advocacy, and to recognise the damage that that does by distracting from critical work identifying and confronting antisemitism, which is so crucial at a time when attacks on Jewish communities and Jewish spaces in this country and around the world are increasing. We have a responsibility to recognise anti-Palestinian racism and the multiple ways it manifests itself in our politics and society: a responsibility to stop putting people in boxes, to stop defining them as either allies or enemies with nothing in between, and a responsibility to resist the whipping up of hatred and the way in which nuance, understanding and compassion are being bludgeoned to extinction in public discourse. All of us need to show leadership in our dialogue, in our constituencies, communities and our own parties, and to demonstrate in our words and our deeds that there is no competition or contradiction between supporting and defending Palestinian human rights, and supporting and defending thriving Jewish communities here in our country. I am making these points in this debate because the response to what is happening in Palestine and Israel is being used by some political actors here in the UK to whip up antisemitism; by some to advance anti-migrant and anti-Muslim agendas; by some to justify chilling restrictions on civil liberties and our right to free speech and to peacefully protest; and by some to stoke division between minoritised communities. Leadership requires being alive to those realities and risks and recognising how they might prevent the emergence of shared visions of justice, democracy, human rights and religious and political pluralism. That underscores the importance of defending and upholding the international legal and human rights frameworks that we already have fully and wholeheartedly. Twenty-five years ago, I took up a job co-ordinating the UK arm of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. I was an atheist working for a Christian organisation with Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities in the lands of Israel and Palestine to build peace. The spirit of working across boundaries is the only thing that will get us to peace and justice.
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14 Sep 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Water Sector: Public Ownership
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. After successive years of failure, we need a water sector that serves people, not profit. We in the Green party have long made a cast-iron pledge to support bringing water back into public ownership. During its passage, I attempted to expand the powers of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 to enable environmental failures—not just insolvency—to trigger Government intervention, and I backed a cross-party amendment on mutual ownership. The Government rejected both, and public ownership itself was denied any place in the legislation by the Minister. Over the last three and a half decades, we have seen companies ripping off consumers while failing to invest in our crumbling infrastructure. While investors receive billions in dividends, the system needs its biggest ever investment programme. More than £50 billion has been pocketed by shareholders since privatisation, while around £16 billion is needed in the next few years just to fix storm overflows and solve poisonous nitrate pollution. Instead of pouring money into profits and managing failures, we need to build a system that is fit for the future. It is no wonder that this privatisation experiment has failed: water is a public resource and a natural monopoly. Fantastical figures are used to scare people off the pursuit of public ownership as a solution. The figure of £90 billion was first cooked up in a Social Market Foundation report paid for by—oh!—four prominent members of the water sector. The Government could leave the debt with the debt holders and look at alternative models, such as Common Wealth’s economic assessment reflecting years of neglected infrastructure, companies struggling with insolvency, and debt leveraging for commercial survival. While costs would be incurred in facilitating the transfer, an honest valuation would put public ownership within reach. As we see company debt and statutory fines loaded on to bills, record sewage spills and billions in dividend payouts, I implore the Government to set out a timetable to restore our water to public ownership and end Thatcher’s failed 37-year privatisation experiment.
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11 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am here because we do need to change the law, so that dying people have the choice of a better death than too many horrible progressive terminal diseases allow for now. I am here because of my own conscience; I am a humanist and a patron of Humanists UK. I am also here with the support of so many of our citizens who desperately want to see a change in the law. Many of my constituents have written to me to tell me their personal story of losing people under the worst circumstances because the status quo did not allow them another choice. Two weeks ago, I heard from my constituent, Julia, who told me about her mother, Jane, and asked me to speak about her case. Faced with a progressive terminal neurological diagnosis at 92 and unable to travel alone for help, Julia’s mother decided in secret to end her life in a very distressing way that I cannot bring myself to describe today. Julia said: “I had no idea that she was going to act on her oft-stated desire, although in retrospect I realise that a phone call we had in the morning of that day she said goodbye in her own way, and she also made sure that it would be her friend and carer who would find her.” That was instead of Julia herself the next morning. Julia continued: “While I miss her terribly, I am proud of her for her determination, and grateful that, the manner of her death apart, she has left me with positive memories of her, rather than the gradual eroding of her self that she (and I, to be honest,) were both dreading… Now I am coming out of the weeds of my grief at her loss, I am determined to help make her legacy the right for people in her situation—when they are faced with losing all agency—to have the choice to take the ultimate act of agency over their life.” That is what we are here for. We are here to make something more humane than the situation that Julia and her mum Jane faced. Examples like these are real people—brave for telling us their stories—who have demonstrably been harmed by the law as it stands. People are raising concern about potential harms if we change things. We have debated this so many times, and now, for every concern I have heard expressed that this new law might be used by someone who is ineligible or by someone who is not choosing freely the way that their terminal illness will play out, I believe we see real safeguards in the Bill before us. They are very, very strict. These requirements will be too much for some dying people, in fact. Some people will be denied the service in this Bill today, but others will benefit, and there is a clear moral case and duty for Parliament as a whole to act to progress this issue. Now, there is not just a moral case for this Bill, which we have debated before, but a democratic case, too. The serious, careful work we started here must be completed in the normal way in the upper House for the democratic process to be complete. Last year, we voted and voted again on the principle, in Committee and on Report. The promoter of the previous Bill, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), listened and proposed over 100 of her own amendments and accepted more than 30 from opponents who wanted to go maybe further than she or I would have liked. She worked with civil servants to make its workability crystal clear, and a Minister reported back to us that the Bill was workable. Other amendments were voted on in this House on Report. On Third Reading, we debated what we had designed, and voted again. We passed a sound piece of legislation last year, and I believe we sent the Lords a good Bill and a safe Bill—a compassionate and workable change in the law that they could refine if they wished. We must now say to the Lords that they must collectively do as MPs did and consider the Bill with the seriousness it deserves, do their duty in putting their votes on the record—vote, just as we did—and bring it to a conclusion in that place. I ask hon. Members to please vote for this Bill to continue so that its progress and all the work we have done so far to build something better than the status quo for dying people does not end today.
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentHannah Spencer
Social Housing Bill [Lords]
Green MPs welcome the Bill as a step in the right direction—it includes important changes—but it does not match the scale of our housing crisis. It needs to be braver and bolder, and deliver the council homes that our communities desperately need. Social housing is not just a roof over someone’s head. It is the secure home they come back to after a long day; it is where their kids grow up and their grandkids come round. It means knowing their neighbours and having somewhere safe and secure to put down roots. That is the kind of security that everyone deserves. However, more than 1.3 million households are waiting for a social home, and more than 170,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. That statistic alone should shame us into action. Councils are giving millions of pounds to private landlords, and I see what the lack of council housing means for people in Gorton and Denton every single day. Across Manchester and Tameside, 3,180 households are in temporary accommodation, including 5,368 children. There are parents and four children, including twin babies with additional needs, squeezed into a two-bedroom home; a family of seven, including a child with a rare genetic disorder, are living in an overcrowded three-bedroom home; and a couple who have been on waiting lists for over 10 years, and are now approaching retirement, are terrified that they simply will not be able to afford their rent when they have to stop working. We need to do three things. The first is to stop selling off the homes that we already have. We need to abolish right to buy. The Bill makes it harder for homes to be sold off, but if more than a million households are waiting for a social home, how can we justify selling off any of them? That is not to criticise anyone who has bought their council home; those people are not to blame —the policy is. Scotland ended right to buy in 2016, and Wales has done the same; it is time for England to join them. Secondly, we need to build more social homes. After the second world war, councils built more than 120,000 social homes a year on average. We need that ambition again, because today, councils in England are building an average of just 1,320 social rent homes a year, and by my maths, that is an average of about four per constituency. When the Prime Minister was campaigning to be MP for Makerfield, he said that all of the £39 billion affordable housing fund should be dedicated to building council homes, but he has now backtracked on that. Why? We need to get building again, properly and at scale. Thirdly, we need to buy back the council housing stock. Green MPs are fully behind councils that are buying homes to bring them back into council housing. “Buy the supply” is an idea brilliantly championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry). We need more of that. My message to the Government is simple: be braver, abolish right to buy, build social homes at scale, and do more of “buy the supply”.
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Civil Service Pension Scheme
Numerous constituents of mine have had the same problems with the civil service pension scheme run by Capita. One example is Ruth, whose husband worked for the Ministry of Defence and died in service nearly a year ago. She has been waiting 11 months for a death-in-service payment and pension. Capita promised to have this resolved, with all bereavement cases done by the end of August. It broke that promise. This week, she is still waiting. This is utterly unacceptable. I welcome the Minister saying that there will be penalties for Capita, but does she not recognise that this is such a clear example that outsourcing does not work? Will she ensure that Capita is not given contracts like this ever again?
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Topical Questions
The next national adaptation programme, NAP4, is not due until 2028, but the wildfires and droughts we saw this summer and the impending extreme El Niño show that we cannot wait that long. Will the Minister commit to taking urgent action to tackle resilience before then and give our farmers, communities and householders the support they need to face the challenges of drought, wildfire and flood risk?
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Business of the House
I welcome the Prime Minister’s stated intention to tackle the social care crisis and to work cross-party to that end, but I was disappointed that the talks convened in July did not involve all the parties that had previously been involved in the existing cross-party social care talks. Will the Leader of the House update the House on the timetable for the next steps in those cross-party talks? Will he also assure the House that they will be genuinely cross-party, because we on the opposition Benches are keen to work with the Government to tackle this essential issue?
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Point of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the end of July, the Prime Minister announced that he was holding cross-party talks on social care. He did not invite the Green party, despite our involvement in the Casey commission cross-party talks for the past 18 months. When I expressed my concern about that in business questions this morning, the Leader of the House suggested that smaller parties had not taken up an invitation. No doubt inadvertently, that is misleading because no such invitation was ever issued to the Green party. Will you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how I might go about getting the record corrected?
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10 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Point of Order
I did.
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9 Sep 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Summer Health and Resilience
During one of the summer heatwaves, a hospital serving my constituency—the Norfolk and Norwich university hospital—had to switch off its MRI scanners, resulting in hundreds of people losing their appointments. Does the Secretary of State agree that that shows the range of challenges facing the NHS? Will the Government’s investment plans look at how to keep equipment working and how to keep patients and NHS staff safe in extreme heat?
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8 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Safety of the Jewish Community
Will the hon. Member give way on that point?
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8 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Safety of the Jewish Community
At a recent event hosted by my wonderful local progressive synagogue, lots of issues were raised with me. This is a synagogue—it is not a representative of the Israeli Government. We cannot have anyone conflating Jewish faith with that. This is a synagogue that prays for Palestinians every week, but in that place, in my progressive city of Brighton and Hove, security and safety were still the absolute backdrop to everything raised; they have real fear. Would the hon. Member agree that it is so important for us to build solidarity and cohesion in communities, and make sure we do not drive further wedges between people in tackling this issue?
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8 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Israel and Palestine
I warmly welcome the statement and thank the Foreign Secretary for taking this step. Yes, it has been far too long coming, and, yes, there is much more to do, but this is a significant statement, both in terms of recognition—the reality of the unlawfulness of the occupation—and in following through, with a promise to take action to ban trade with settlements. However, does the Foreign Secretary not recognise that, in the context of now years of genocide in Gaza—ever-accelerating ethnic cleansing in the west bank, as he has pointed out himself—waiting another six to nine months to implement these sanctions is still too long? We must speed up.
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8 Sep 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Health Bill
The CEO of Healthwatch Norfolk said today: “To cease the statutory functions of Healthwatch without a suitable alternative in place…is to risk another major failing in patient safety and scrutiny of the health system.” Did the Minister’s remarks just now suggest that the Government may be reviewing the plans to scrap Healthwatch?
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7 Sep 2026ParliamentSiân Berry
Dover and Portsmouth: Protests
I thank hon. Members who share my disgust at the sight of intimidating, fascistic gangs and squads of men in black on our streets in Dover and Portsmouth, but the roots of organised violence are political and this needs a political response. So does the Minister agree with me that it is time to start naming hard-right and fascist politics when we see it, recognise how frightening this is for people in our communities, and stand up to the racists on our streets and here in the Chamber, rather than pandering to, repeating and accepting anti-migrant propaganda and lies.
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7 Sep 2026ParliamentHannah Spencer
Topical Questions
When the Prime Minister was campaigning to be the MP for Makerfield, he said that all of the £39 billion affordable housing fund should be dedicated to building council homes. Will the Secretary of State explain to the 3,180 families in temporary accommodation across Manchester and Tameside, many of them in Gorton and Denton, why the Government have now backtracked and are instead continuing with the lack of ambition we had under Keir Starmer, rather than building as many secure, truly affordable homes as possible?
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7 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Economic Growth
The rhetoric might have changed a bit under the new Prime Minister, but it seems that we have a continuity Chancellor on the policy front. The Minister talks about the failures of privatisation, but where is the action to bring water back into public hands? She talks about the need for an active state, but where is the action to tax wealth fairly, so that we can invest in the services we need? Fundamentally, we cannot get good growth unless it is both green and fair. We will not build sustainable prosperity by trashing nature and the climate.
Hansard source
7 Sep 2026ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Local Government Reorganisation
At the Government’s request, councillors and council officers have put a huge amount of time into preparing for these proposals—time that could have been put into improving council services. If there is going to be another extended period of instability, that will further worsen that situation. Does the Secretary of State accept that local government funding is extremely stretched, especially for councils that run services such as SEND and social care, and that councils very little money for anything else? Does she agree that if local government reorganisation is to go ahead and devolution is to be meaningful, it needs to put money into the hands of local people, and there needs to be proper funding for local government?
Hansard source
3 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Global Biodiversity and Ecosystems: National Security
We have seen just recently what ecosystem collapse looks like: collapsing glaciers in the Himalayas and horrific loss of life on Nepal-Tibet border. We see what it looks like in the UK: the hottest ever summer and the worst ever arable harvest. Things are only going to get worse. This is clearly an issue of national security, and the security services themselves are raising the alarm, not just the environmentalists. We have to change course. Farmers in my constituency of North Herefordshire see this on a daily basis. We have to change the conversation about national security and recognise that it is not just about investment in weaponry and conflict, but about acknowledging the true, existential risk posed by climate change and ecosystem collapse, both in UK and across the world, as highlighted in this report. It is disappointing that this short report had to be dragged out of the Government, kicking and screaming, and published only after a huge amount of pressure. Where is the evidence base underlying it? What are the Government afraid to share with us? Will the Government publish the full report and the evidence base that underlies it? If they will not, why not? Will they recognise that ecosystems are critical national infrastructure and have to be addressed as such? To echo a point made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), will the Government recognise that we cannot wait another few years for the national adaptation plan, given today’s announcement from the World Meteorological Organisation that climate change is supercharging natural phenomena such as El Niño, which will lead to even worse effects in the UK and globally than we saw this summer? Nature security is national security.
Hansard source
3 Sep 2026ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Jackdaw and Rosebank Oil and Gas Fields
We cannot discuss this issue without recognising that the climate breakdown is already costing us hugely: the hottest summer ever, the worst arable harvest ever, and the Met Office says that it was 130 times more likely that we faced this crisis this year. Just today, the World Meteorological Organisation has said that climate breakdown is super-charging natural phenomena such as El Niño. The shadow Secretary of State says that North sea communities need a new direction: yes, a just transition to clean energy for the future, not the dirty energy of the old. Will the Minister recognise that the climate damage created by Rosebank and Jackdaw will hugely outweigh any potential economic benefits and therefore rule them out? Fossil fuels must stay in the ground if we are to have a liveable future.
Hansard source

Green Party: a sourced timeline of public activity, with filters by source type and a sidebar of tracked totals

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

Fracking Ban

SEND Specialists: Schools

Topical Questions

Israel and Palestine

Water Sector: Public Ownership

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Civil Service Pension Scheme

Topical Questions

Business of the House

Point of Order

Point of Order

Summer Health and Resilience

Safety of the Jewish Community

Safety of the Jewish Community

Israel and Palestine

Health Bill

Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Topical Questions

Economic Growth

Local Government Reorganisation

Global Biodiversity and Ecosystems: National Security

Jackdaw and Rosebank Oil and Gas Fields