Chris Philp MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jun 2026 · Murder of Henry Nowak · Hansard source

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  I thank the Home Secretary, and you, Mr Speaker, for ensuring that the Government came to the House today. The murder of Henry Nowak is devastating for his family. He was an innocent young man on the way home when he was brutally killed. Henry’s family have suffered an unimaginable loss, and I know the thoughts of the whole House will be with them all. The evil murderer Vickrum Digwa lied from start to finish, including in a false allegation of racism. On arriving at the scene, the police appeared more concerned with the accusation of racism, and even the possibility that Digwa was injured, than with helping Henry. Henry told the police that he could not breathe nine times. He told them that he had been stabbed four times. The response from the officer, which we have all heard, was, “I don’t think you have, mate.” Henry was handcuffed and dragged across the ground as he lay dying. Can you imagine what he must have felt as he cried out for help and was ignored—as the officers who should have worked to save him instead handcuffed him and inquired after the welfare of his killer, standing just inches away? Henry’s dad Mark said: “Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him.” We need the IOPC to urgently and transparently report on how it was that the police attending were more concerned with the accusation of racism than with helping a dying man. We cannot tolerate a situation in which false allegations of racism by criminals are believed. We cannot allow the colour of someone’s skin to be a consideration in how the police or other public services treat people, yet that has happened. Just recently, we learned that Valdo Calocane, who murdered three people in Nottingham, was not sectioned by mental health professionals because they thought there was “an over-representation of young black males in mental health detention”. The consequent failure to section Valdo Calocane, in part because he was black, led directly to the murder of three innocent people. The headteacher of Axel Rudakubana was accused of racist stereotyping when she described Rudakubana as a threat to safety, and the risk assessment was watered down. Rudakubana, of course, went on to stab and murder three young girls at a Southport dance class. This has not happened by accident; it is enshrined in the police’s own policy documents. The police anti-racism commitment, published in March 2025 by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing, urges police forces to reverse-engineer arrest rates for ethnic groups so that those rates are the same, even though the offending rates are different, by treating different ethnic groups differently. Let that sink in for a moment: an official police document actually says that people should be treated differently based on the colour of their skin. I have said before at this Dispatch Box—at least twice—that that document should be withdrawn. The dangerous ideology of so-called anti-racism, which allows people to be treated differently based on race, must end. Extreme activists have hijacked the policymaking process, and this is where that has led. It has no place in policing; it has no place anywhere. Does the Home Secretary agree that the so-called police anti-racism commitment must urgently be withdrawn? It is morally wrong and dangerous. Police forces must focus on catching criminals and keeping the public safe. They must simply treat everyone exactly the same. I will finish with the words yesterday of Mark Nowak, Henry’s father. He said: “Henry was 18. He was kind, ambitious, loved and full of promise. He had his whole life ahead of him. That future was stolen from him, and no verdict or sentence will ever give it back.” It is true that nothing can bring Henry back, but let us ensure that no one ever again experiences what Henry did in his last tragic moments.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Southport Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. Let us remember the three victims of this savage attack—Bebe King, aged just six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven; and Alice da Silva Aguiar, aged nine—and the eight more children and two adults who were seriously injured. I also want to thank Merseyside emergency services, who responded to this event. As the Home Secretary rightly said, this report identifies very serious repeated failings by public bodies. Sir Adrian said that a “merry-go-round of referrals, assessments, case-closures and ‘hand-offs’” meant no agency took the lead or properly addressed the danger Rudakubana posed. Multiple opportunities were missed to prevent this tragedy. Sir Adrian also found that Rudakubana’s parents created “significant obstructions to constructive engagement.” Sir Adrian makes important recommendations. I am glad the Home Secretary will respond by the summer, and we on the Conservative Benches will support necessary actions. During the inquiry, we heard evidence given by Rudakubana’s former headteacher Joanne Hodson. She told the inquiry that she was pressured by mental health services to water down the education, health and care plan to minimise the danger posed by Rudakubana because of his ethnicity. Miss Hodson told the inquiry: “my efforts to include this information in the EHCP were met with hostility by the father and also by mental health services. Miss Steed”, who was from child and adolescent mental health services, “even went as far as to accuse me of racially stereotyping AR as ‘a black boy with a knife’. Nothing could be further from the truth”, but “in the end…the wording of the EHCP was re-written in many places”. This contributed to the clear risks being missed. The Nottingham inquiry into the three tragic murders there identified exactly the same issue: mental health professionals in Nottingham decided not to section Valdo Calocane because they were concerned about an “over-representation of young black men in detention”. Even the Government’s notes on the Mental Health Bill accompanying the King’s Speech refer to that issue. The fixation with ethnic disproportionality is deeply damaging. Ethnicity should never be a consideration: when an agency is taking steps to protect the public, everybody should simply be treated exactly the same. We cannot allow dangerous individuals to avoid detention for public safety simply because of their ethnicity. Everybody should be treated the same. It would be helpful if the Home Secretary made clear from the Dispatch Box that she agrees with that approach and set out how the Government will change their approach in the future. Today’s report also makes it clear that Rudakubana’s autism was wrongly allowed to inhibit the way he was dealt with, yet the Government’s King’s Speech notes on the Mental Health Bill again expressly said that people with autism should be sectioned less often. Given the findings of today’s report, will the Government reconsider that? I also want to raise the aftermath of this tragedy, which saw serious rioting. It is of course important to avoid prejudicing criminal trials. However, as Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “The Government has to be aware…that if there is an information gap…then there are other voices, particularly in social media, who will try and fill it.” He went on: “Quite often, there’s a fair amount…that can be put into the public domain”, and indeed in October, two or three months after the attack but well before the trial, information concerning the al-Qaeda terror manual and ricin was put in the public domain without prejudicing the trial. The failure to provide information created an information vacuum in those early days of August 2024, and that vacuum was filled by untrue speculation online, some of it originating outside the UK, which fuelled the riots. Will the Home Secretary therefore commit to making sure that in future such information is routinely released in cases of public interest? As the mother of Elsie said at the inquiry, this tragedy must be a “line in the sand.” We owe it to the victims, to the survivors and to their families to learn the lessons from this tragedy and to make sure it never happens again.