Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present).
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.
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4. Visits outside the UK
International visit to Taiwan between 16 September 2026 and 23 September 2026Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
It is not just Afghanistan where we see a rollback in the protection of women and girls. Last week, I was in Sierra Leone, working with parliamentarians there to try to prevent sexual-based violence. As part of that trip, we went to the maternal health unit in Freetown, where the UK has been supporting the health industry for the last 20 years. We cut all of our funding to that last year, which means there is now no money for procurement or for any healthcare in that country. What are we going to do for countries where we have cut all our funding to help them transition in a meaningful way, rather than presenting them, basically, with a death sentence?
Climate change is not a distant threat; it is already reshaping lives and livelihoods around the world. The Earth is warming, and rainfall patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable. Sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are now more frequent and more severe. The impacts of climate change are being felt more than ever, both at home in the UK and, even more acutely, in the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries.
Climate change is often discussed in terms of emission targets, financial commitments and international agreements, but behind these debates there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding—a crisis of homes destroyed, crops failing, livelihoods lost and communities struggling to rebuild in the wake of disasters that they did little to cause. We witnessed such a reality most recently in Nepal. In a matter of hours, devastating floods washed away entire cities, leaving thousands of people dead or missing, and forcing many more to face an uncertain future, in a country where a quarter of the population already live in poverty. But Nepal is not an isolated case, and with a “super El Niño” in prospect, such disasters are set to become the norm, if countries are unable to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
It is against this backdrop that the International Development Committee has published its report examining the UK’s international climate finance commitments. Our inquiry focused on three overarching themes. First, the Government’s successive reductions to official development assistance have made it difficult to deliver on their climate finance commitments to lower and middle-income countries in a transparent, meaningful and credible way. Frustratingly, rather than striving to deliver genuine climate and nature outcomes, the Government have been cutting corners to maintain headline spending commitments, and this is impacting on our international credibility.
Our report highlights that the Government have also substantially reduced the ODA portion of the UK’s climate finance commitment for the next three years. This comes at a time when climate finance needs are growing and sustained international leadership is more important than ever. To that end, I welcome the new Foreign Secretary, who, I would argue, is uniquely qualified to meet this challenge, but let me be clear: it is an enormous challenge. Recent policy shifts in the US, alongside signalling from major multilateral institutions that they may scale back or abandon climate finance targets, have created an increasingly uncertain landscape for climate action. In that context, the case for strong and consistent UK leadership has never been clearer.<span id="96" class="column-number" data-column-number="96"></span>
Secondly, UK climate finance is not simply about how much money is spent; it is about who can access it, who benefits from it and who has a voice in how it is used. In a period of constrained public finances, the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of the UK’s climate finance is vital. Throughout our inquiry, we repeatedly heard that climate finance is most effective when local organisations, communities and sub-national Governments can access high-quality funding directly and play a meaningful role in designing and delivering climate solutions.
We also heard compelling evidence about the importance of inclusion. For example, women and girls disproportionately bear the brunt of climate impacts yet receive less than 1% of climate finance globally. However, women and girls are often agents of change in their communities, and are capable of driving long-lasting climate outcomes. It is clear that, too often, those most affected by climate challenges face the greatest barriers to accessing the UK’s climate finance. That is why the Committee’s report argues that the UK’s climate finance—regardless of whether it is delivered through its own programmes, multilateral institutions or partners—must be more accessible, inclusive and responsive to the needs and priorities of the most climate-vulnerable countries.
Thirdly, we considered the Government’s evolving approach to mobilising private finance for climate adaptation and mitigation. We recognise that, in a resource-constrained environment, the Government are increasingly seeking to mobilise private capital to help them meet their climate finance obligations. We acknowledge that the pathway to addressing climate change must include the private sector. However, our Government have a critical role in creating an enabling environment that allows finance to flow to where it is needed most. That means using the UK’s development finance institutions, guarantees, partnerships and diplomatic influence strategically to reduce risk, strengthen local capacity, support investable projects, and direct investments towards climate and nature outcomes.
However, the shift from donor to investor must not come at the expense of poverty reduction. Public climate finance has a unique role to play in supporting the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries—particularly those to which private finance investment is least likely to go. The Government must therefore ensure that their efforts to mobilise private finance complement, rather than replace, grant-based solutions, so that we can support those communities that need it most.
Let me be blunt: climate change threatens to reverse decades of hard-won progress towards meeting the sustainable development goals. That not only risks perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty, instability and humanitarian need in the most climate-vulnerable countries, but will have downstream implications for the UK’s prosperity and security. The question facing the Government is not simply how much climate finance can be provided; the real test is whether the UK can demonstrate that every pound spent delivers genuine climate and nature outcomes. That means being more transparent, focusing on evidence, targeting our limited ODA climate finance where it is needed most, and ensuring that it strengthens, rather than undermines, broader development objectives.<span id="97" class="column-number" data-column-number="97"></span>
The Committee’s report should serve as a reminder that climate finance should not be treated as an optional extra to ODA. It should not be reprioritised or repurposed in the face of competing priorities; rather, it should be treated as an essential part of how the UK meets its global responsibilities under the Paris agreement and meaningfully contributes to tackling the defining challenge of our times.
I thank my fellow Committee member for her question. She well knows that in some of the places we visit, farmers have not been able to plant crops for years. Those are areas that we expect the food in our supermarkets to come from. Unless we recognise this as an international catastrophe with which we are all connected, we will never get to the resolution that we need.
I thank my hon. Friend and Committee member, who has consistently made this argument. The Government need to give us that transparency so that we can see what does and does not work, and then replicate that on a global scale. Without that clear information being presented to this House, it becomes impossible to see the impact we are having.
The hon. Member makes a powerful point, which I have heard him make for decades, about trying to support women and girls to flourish wherever they find themselves. I would say that the most straightforward thing the Government could do right now is to publish the data about who the money goes to and how it impacts positively on their lives. The Committee has been calling for that for as long as I have chaired it, and I think the Government really need to act on it.
Today is a really good day. I have been in this Chamber for more than a decade, watching my industry being allowed to wither on the vine. Secretary of State, a huge thank you to you for understanding the potential in the Rotherham, Brinsworth, and Stocksbridge sites, which work hand in hand. It is not just about the sites themselves, but the infrastructure around them. We have a whole supply chain that needs these sites back and running again. Of course, this is green steel, or recycled steel, so it fits exactly with the Government’s industrial strategy—it is the linchpin.
Secretary of State, thank you for continuing the pay so far and thank you for committing to continue it for the next six months. Can he also speak a little about the training that the staff will get? While they are grateful to be furloughed, they want to be working, and that means that they need to be fit the day that he says we can open the doors. They want to be ready to go. Can he also say a little about product accreditation? Literally every week, I have people from around the country calling in, trying to purchase steel. However, to purchase it, accreditation needs to be in place. Finally, can he speak a little about any anticipated restart costs? I know the workers are doing all they can to maintain the sites, but there are likely to be costs. Today is a good day, and I thank the Secretary of State.
I have watched the assisted dying debate for many years, since it started in Oregon. Many countries across the world now have <span id="1351" class="column-number" data-column-number="1351"></span>assisted dying, including some of our Crown dependencies, and I am pleased that this Bill builds on the good and rejects the bad that can be seen. I am also reassured that there have been hundreds of hours of debate and scrutiny, which has built the Bill in front of us, so I am very comfortable supporting it.
I know that people have extremely strong views on this Bill, and I respect them for that. I want to speak to the people who are undecided, because a lot of myths have attached themselves to this Bill, and I hope to knock some of them out. I am not sure if Members are aware that I ran a children’s hospice before coming to this place. I can say that the palliative care system is amazing. The end-of-life care it provides is absolutely incredible, but everything everybody has said about it being a postcode lottery is true. It depends on whether a facility is in your area, has space, and has funding. We need more funding, and we need universal palliative care, but that is not what this debate is about.
When the subject was first debated, I was deeply shocked by the number of disability groups and disabled people who thought that the Bill was targeted at them. I had not realised how vulnerable they felt in our society, and that they could believe that the Bill might be an attack on them.
I am not going to give way, because we are really pushed for time. I want to say to those people that the Bill is tightly drafted. It specifies that it is for people of sound mind who have a terminal diagnosis of six months or less, and that has to be verified by two clinicians and then a panel to ensure—
I am still not giving way. The two clinicians, followed by the panel, will ensure that the person is of sound mind, and will make sure that this is something that they want to do.
A lot of time has been taken up debating the issue of coercive control. I defer to my amazing hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) on that subject; her entire career has been spent fighting against coercive control. As she said in her powerful speech, there are not robust measures in place for people—generally women—who are suffering domestic violence or coercive control, but in this Bill, there are some measures to try to ensure that there is no coercion of people who take this action.
What is this debate about? It is about choice. It is about giving adults of sound mind choice in the last six months of their life. Currently, the only choices available are these: if people have a lot of money and are physically able, they can go to Dignitas; otherwise, as was so powerfully and emotionally outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove), they can take their own life. It is not acceptable for us to continue with that position.
The issue is not just about pain. However, I know from experience that there is some pain that is unmanageable, and not everybody gets the dignified death that they want. I would like adults who are able to make an informed choice to be able to choose the time. Let us look at what <span id="1352" class="column-number" data-column-number="1352"></span>has happened internationally. Many people who go through the process and get to certification do not actually use it. It is a comfort blanket to them, an insurance policy. Let us not be under the illusion that as soon as people get their certificate, they are marched off, and that is it. That is absolute nonsense. The choice is there, all the way through. When hon. Members walk through the Lobby later today, I ask them to think about their constituents and their ability to have an informed choice. I genuinely believe that this legislation provides that.
I welcome the entirety of this statement, particularly the acceptance of the ICJ advisory recommendation that Israel is illegally occupying Palestine. The ICJ recommendation is broad and damning. It is not just about settlements; it is about taking Palestinian natural resources, forced transfer, taking Palestinian land, taking their goods and taking their businesses. It is also about stopping Palestinian trade and the free movement of people, and about imposing Israeli laws on the Palestinian people.
Has the Foreign Secretary given any consideration to moving a motion at the UN Security Council to protect Palestinian rights? Is he doing anything to support the Palestinian Authority to be able to govern effectively? Is he doing more to urge Israeli politicians and the Israeli Government to enable journalists and politicians to enter Gaza, so that we can see for ourselves exactly what is going on?