Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present); Independent ( – ); Labour ( – ).
Register of interests
Every entry the member has in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as Parliament currently publishes it. The wording and values are the member's own declarations; nothing here has been assessed by this site.
Totals add only the entries that declare an amount received: payments for work, donations, gifts, and funded visits (register categories 1.1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Ongoing employment is listed but not added, because its figure is a rate rather than a sum received. Each entry is dated by when the benefit happened, not when it was registered, and placed under the party the member sat for on that date. A member who changed party therefore has a separate total for each.
Date
Category
Entry
Declared value
Sitting for
Source
3. Gifts, UK sources
Middlesbrough Football & Athletic Company (1986) Ltd - £1,250.00
I welcome the Budget’s council tax rebate, which will provide much-needed relief to over 50,000 households in Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, but hardship remains. The Trussell Trust reports that local food banks distributed over 10,000 emergency food parcels last year—up almost 50% on pre-pandemic levels. Does the Minister agree that more ambitious action is needed, and will he ensure that the Government’s response to the Milburn and Timms reviews does not further restrict social security support, leaving people unable to afford the essentials, and instead advances Labour’s commitment to end the need for emergency food?
<Question HRSContentId="{44726909-ADBD-4483-AF06-747A3A075E9C}">T1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{D07858B6-F5BE-4A05-BFFC-9E310AC4FB8D}">If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.</QuestionText></Question>
I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks concerning the Spanish rail disaster.
Research from Common Wealth estimates that £129 billion was spent on outsourcing public services in 2024-25, generating billions in private profits. I welcome the announcement from the First Secretary of State of a dedicated insourcing unit. Will the Secretary of State meet with recognised trade unions to develop a Department for Transport insourcing strategy, including across rail and other transport services, to improve value for money, rebuild public capacity and protect workers?
The Global Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Sanctions Regulations 2026
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I draw Members’ attention to my role as co-chair of the Britain-Palestine all-party parliamentary <span id="14" class="column-number" data-column-number="14"></span>group. I welcome these regulations and congratulate the Minister on laying them before Parliament. These powers apply globally. Colleagues have rightly cited the heinous crimes in Sudan and Ukraine, but I want to focus on their potential application to Israel’s conduct in the occupied state of Palestine, where recent events demonstrate the urgency of translating these new powers into action.
Earlier this month, more than 100 humanitarian human rights organisations, including Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that Israeli restrictions on aid, essential equipment and reconstruction materials continue to prevent Gaza’s recovery. Meanwhile, the UN reports at least 160 settler attacks associated with the west bank olive harvest in the first fortnight of October alone, sometimes involving Israeli forces. The World Health Organisation reports median approval delays of 74 days for medical supplies, with 40% of laboratory and diagnostic equipment awaiting approval.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has similarly documented continuing obstacles affecting the delivery of essential humanitarian supplies and equipment. Against that background, I, too, have some questions for the Minister. First, are the Government currently assessing whether the documented actions in Gaza and the west bank meet the new grounds for designation, including the responsibility of Ministers, military commanders, senior officials and those involved in the arbitrary detention of Palestinian children?
Secondly, will the humanitarian assistance provisions be applied to those responsible for decisions or omissions obstructing food, medicines, essential equipment and the operation of humanitarian organisations wherever the statutory criteria are met? Thirdly, how will the Government assess financiers, companies and commercial interests supporting or facilitating qualifying violations, including those associated with the maintenance and expansion of illegal settlements?
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) referred to the Great Israeli Real Estate Event earlier this year. I have also been made aware that, at Sunday’s MedEx UK event in London, an organisation was distributing leaflets advertising medical vacancies in illegal Israeli settlements, while another exhibitor was reportedly offering to help British people to relocate to what it described as “awesome” settlements. What is the Government’s response to that? Will the Government issue new guidance to the Charity Commission, banks and other financial institutions and relevant businesses making clear their obligations and the risks of financing or facilitating qualifying violations associated with illegal settlements?
Fourthly, the E1 settlement tender concerns 1,234 homes, with bids not due to be opened before 19 November. Will the Government seek to make their first evidence-based designations before 19 November while there is still an opportunity to deter further commitments to the E1 development? Will the Minister also provide Parliament with a timetable for the implementation of these powers and the wider promised action on settlement goods and services?
I very much welcome the regulations, but their effectiveness will be judged by whether they deliver timely and meaningful accountability, not simply by the powers they place on the statute book. I would welcome some comment by the Minister and hopefully some reassurance on these matters.<span id="15" class="column-number" data-column-number="15"></span>
I am grateful to the Policing Minister for her confirmation that £5.2 million will be sent to Cleveland police to help to deal with the mutual aid bill—that is most welcome—but she will recognise that the police funding formula is simply not fit for purpose, especially when Cleveland has the highest level of crime and the poorest level of resources devoted to it. Although I welcome her indication about exceptional funding, does she agree that the situation will not be resolved until there is a complete reconfiguration of policing in this country? The people of Cleveland cannot wait for police restructuring.
<Question HRSContentId="{BF47CBD0-2153-4D69-A6F5-40E7A9928749}">6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{64784C57-8477-4F0D-84FA-FC430F3C25B4}">What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill on access to justice for victims and survivors of the troubles.</QuestionText> </Question>
The Bill we passed last night gives the Attorney General of England and Wales the power to override decisions on troubles-related prosecutions, yet the Secretary of State told the House yesterday:
“This is not to take anything away from the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland or in Great Britain.”<span id="vol791_col1018" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="1018" data-volume-number="791" data-external-id="9DEF15BF-4BDC-45D8-B863-5BDE085C72AE">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 20 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 1018.]</span>
But that is precisely what the Bill does. The Attorney General could effectively overrule a decision by Northern Ireland’s independent Public Prosecution Service. How can the Secretary of State reconcile that with the 2000 criminal justice review that flowed from the Good Friday agreement, which deliberately removed political interference from prosecution decisions?
It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood). I thank her for her eloquence and advocacy. She communicated with such power, conviction and sense, and I thank her for what she has said. I thank all hon. Members, right hon. Members and gallant Members for the incredible contributions that have been made over the last two days. People have come to this vexed and troubling issue with a great deal of commitment and determination to get to the right outcome for a better future and a better understanding of the past, and I thank the hon. Lady for that.
I was not born in Northern Ireland, and I do not live there, but my grandparents were from Belfast. They were a Protestant and a Catholic who left for the perfect, peaceful idyll that is the west of Scotland. My maternal great-grandparents were from Carrickmacross in County Monaghan, and all my wife’s family are from Tyrone. That part of the world supplied the working-class labour that brought about the burgeoning iron and steel industry. Our connections and associations with the <span id="1031" class="column-number" data-column-number="1031"></span>island of Ireland are deep, and there is a passion for people to see a positive outcome and resolution and to include the many working-class men who found themselves on the streets in Northern Ireland in their tender years. I thank again the hon. Member for Lagan Valley.
I welcome this Bill as an important improvement on the previous Government’s deeply flawed legacy Act. Repealing the conditional amnesty scheme and restoring civil proceedings are significant steps towards delivering truth, justice and accountability. I recognise the vital importance of treating former service personnel fairly, including by acknowledging the extraordinarily difficult circumstances in which many served. I had the pleasure of being one of the founding members of the Royal British Legion’s Solicitors Group, which is pro bono. I have worked with service personnel at close quarters, and I am overwhelmed and overawed by their commitment and dedication to their duty.
It has been said in recent hours in this debate that nobody is questioning the performance of our service personnel who found themselves in that situation, and that it is not veterans against civilians. I met two senior retired Army officers last month—Lieutenant Colonel the Reverend Nicholas Mercer and Brigadier John Donnelly CBE—thanks to Amnesty International and the Centre for Military Justice. Both of them challenged the suggestion that British forces have faced a flood of vexatious litigation under the European convention on human rights, and I worry about the scaremongering that has been perpetrated in that regard. As Nicholas Mercer has argued, the application of the Human Rights Act is vital, because it means that the guilty can be held accountable and the innocent exonerated. That is an important principle. Human rights protections are not the enemy of fair treatment for veterans; they are part of what makes that fairness possible.
However, I must express my concerns. The Government have chosen to publish such a voluminous package of amendments with barely seven days’ notice and have given us just two days to consider them, and that is a concern. I am also concerned about some of the tonality, which has explicitly presented the Bill as providing additional legal protections and safeguards for veterans. Whatever the Government’s intentions, some of these measures may be viewed very differently by victims’ families, particularly those who spent decades seeking answers about the actions of the state and the circumstances in which their loved ones died. What is presented to veterans as reassurance may be experienced by those families as another barrier to justice.
That matters enormously. The Secretary of State has a responsibility to not only improve the legal framework for dealing with the past, but rebuild confidence among communities whose trust in the institutions of the state has been profoundly damaged by their experience of the troubles. He said yesterday—I think I am quoting him correctly—that the principle of the duty of candour will be imported into this legislation when the Public Office (Accountability) Bill passes. I hope he will intervene on me, because I am seeking some clarification. Surely the duty of candour will be imported into this legislation, not simply the principle.
I am enormously grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification. That is immensely helpful, but I revert to my point that in seeking to reassure one constituency, there is a risk of undermining the confidence of others—not only in the Government’s approach to reconciliation, but in their ability to secure truth, accountability and access to justice.
Most seriously, I fear that some of these proposals risk cutting across the detailed institutional safeguards established through the Good Friday agreement and the reforms that followed it. The first is Government new clause 50 and the Attorney General’s consent to prosecutions. That new clause would require the Attorney General’s consent before proceedings could be instituted for the most serious troubles-related offences. What is the compelling justification for introducing this additional political safeguard into the prosecution process? That question has been raised by other Members, and I join them in asking it. It is not simply a technical adjustment; it risks undermining a central reform arising from the Good Friday agreement. The 2000 criminal justice review specifically sought to protect prosecutorial independence by removing the Attorney General’s power to direct prosecutors in individual cases or on policy matters.
That reform was particularly important because of the history of political interference and concerns about the prosecution of members of the security forces during the conflict. The independent Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland already applies evidential and public interest tests when deciding whether to prosecute. Why should a further decision now rest with a Government-appointed law officer who is potentially exposed to representations from ministerial colleagues? The de Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane documented political pressure on the then Attorney General over the prosecution of state agent Brian Nelson. That history demonstrates precisely why those institutional safeguards were introduced.
Government new clause 50 also appears to impose no requirement on the Attorney General to explain a refusal of consent, while the availability of judicial review may be limited. How can families have confidence in a process where an independent prosecutor might conclude that a serious offence should be prosecuted, only for a Government law officer to prevent that prosecution without adequate explanation or scrutiny?
The Good Friday agreement was not simply a political declaration of peace and reconciliation. Its implementation required detailed reforms to institutions, including the criminal justice system, designed to establish independence and to instil public confidence. We have to tread with the greatest care not to undermine the Good Friday agreement in any way. We should be extremely cautious about disturbing those safeguards, particularly when it <span id="1033" class="column-number" data-column-number="1033"></span>would risk reviving precisely the concerns that they were intended to address. I therefore urge the Government to reconsider new clause 50. Fairness for veterans must not mean creating a new mechanism through which serious criminality could escape prosecution.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this debate.
Let me start with a simple proposition. Cleveland police cannot be expected to tackle the highest levels of recorded crime in the country with the lowest levels of police resource. It is not fair on our officers or our communities; it is not good enough. The figures are stark: Cleveland has about 123 recorded crimes per 1,000 people—the highest rate of any police force in England and Wales—and Middlesbrough has the highest recorded crime of any local authority area.
What has happened to police numbers? Since 2010, we have suffered the worst percentage reduction in full-time equivalent officers of any force. It is down 15%, from 1,652 to just 1,405, or 247 fewer officers at a time of extraordinary demand. That is the disgraceful legacy of the Conservative party. Yet against that backdrop, Cleveland police is still one of the most improved forces in the land, and I commend Chief Constable Victoria Fuller for that achievement. It is now dealing with significant increases in recalls to prison, which have rocketed in recent times.
Our officers are being asked to do more with less. They are confronting serious crime, antisocial behaviour and major incidents with a depleted workforce. The appalling A66 collision in August brought the pressures into sharp focus. Seven lives were lost, including two magnificent and brave Cleveland police officers, PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. I pay tribute to them and their families, and to their colleagues, who have continued to serve our communities in the most difficult of circumstances. The incident also exposed the demands placed on a small force, which has required mutual aid from other constabularies and continues to be ravaged by the ongoing evil of organised crime.
The A66 collision rightly brought Cleveland’s resources and funding under renewed scrutiny. We must learn the lessons, but we must not pretend that this terrible incident created the problems. The underlying pressures have been building for years. I welcome the Government’s £2 million of additional support. It is right that Cleveland receives help, given the exceptional demands, but let us be honest: a one-off £2 million payment is not a permanent solution to a structural funding deficit. The scale of the challenge is substantial. In any event, given that the mutual aid bill is already way north of £4 million, Matt Storey, our wonderful police and crime commissioner, said that the £2 million “won’t touch the sides.”
With the mutual aid, Cleveland has delivered 100% of 999 calls answered within the prescribed period and has made massive inroads into clearing arrest warrants, but it will end soon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) said, realistic and conservative estimates put the additional annual funding required at north of £24 million per annum recurring. I welcome the Government’s commitment to review the police funding formula, but the published timetable concerns the review of police structures, and we have no firm date for a new funding formula to be implemented.
My colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), and I have said repeatedly that Cleveland cannot be told to wait while <span id="91WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="91WH"></span>Whitehall works through another lengthy process. The Government have acknowledged that interim measures can be considered to better align funding with policing priorities, so I ask the Minister directly: why not start with Cleveland? I urge the Government to consider piloting a revised needs-based allocation for Cleveland for 2027-28, taking proper account of its exceptional crime rate, deprivation and depleted officer numbers, followed by a decision on additional recurring funding. That would not pre-empt national reform; it would demonstrate that the Government understand the difference between a long-term plan and an immediate responsibility to keep people safe. We cannot rebuild policing on the cheap, and we cannot ask our communities to wait indefinitely for change. That funding must deliver something people can see and feel in their daily lives: effective neighbourhood policing and the eradication of organised crime groups. People want to feel safe walking home and raising their children.
I beg the Minister to hear the pleas of the bereaved families, who have let it be known that they want the legacy of PCs Tom Clough and Matthew Blades to be fairer funding and an equitable policing settlement for Cleveland. Minister, do not let their deaths be in vain. Their tragic loss has further galvanised and unified our community. That is why restoring police capacity matters. It is not simply about figures on a spreadsheet or allocations made in Whitehall; it is about having enough officers to prevent crime, respond when things go wrong and build lasting relationships with the communities they serve.
This Labour Government was elected to change things. In Cleveland that means correcting an indefensible funding imbalance, rebuilding police capacity and putting officers back into our communities. The test is not what we announce in Westminster: it is what people see in the streets. I ask the Minister to come to Cleveland with a clear commitment, an urgent assessment of its needs, serious consideration of additional recurring funding and a needs-based pilot in 2027-28. The people of Cleveland have waited long enough. This Government must deliver visible change on the ground for our communities in Cleveland and across the north-east.