David Davis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Apr 2026 · NHS Management · Hansard source

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  Following on directly from the Secretary of State’s comments to my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), last month two national health service trusts in my constituency were found to be among the worst in England, one of them actually the worst. NHS England will now be brought in to turn those trusts around. However, the former chief executive of those trusts, who was responsible for overseeing their decline and was terminated in that job, has been promoted as the NHS turnaround manager for Yorkshire. Supposedly, he will be the man to correct the problem he created. That is by no means the first time that people have been found failing upwards in the national health service. What steps are the Secretary of State and the Minister taking to prevent NHS leaders who have failed in one role from being moved to a different post within the NHS?

• 14 Apr 2026 · NHS Management · Hansard source

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  3. What steps he is taking to improve the effectiveness of NHS management.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This morning’s papers report that my two national health service trusts are the worst in the country. One of the more stupid proposals of the management of one of those trusts was a plan to downgrade Goole and District hospital in my constituency. Under the leadership of the former chief executive, one Jonathan Lofthouse, those underperforming trusts repeatedly lied to me, so the House will not be surprised to hear that we had some robust conversations. Mr Lofthouse was then put on gardening leave at the astonishing salary of £285,000 a year. I would have sacked him out of hand; instead, he is now NHS England’s director of turnaround and recovery for my region, the very body tasked with fixing the failing trusts of which he was a cause. This is the institutional rewarding of failure, and it is by no means the first time. Can we therefore have a debate on the national health service’s habitual strategy of failing upwards managers who have let down our constituents?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Gurkha Veterans · Hansard source

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  Have a go!

• 26 Mar 2026 · Lucy Letby Case: Conduct of Cheshire Police · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her point. However, in many ways the reason the Lucy Letby case is so important—over and above the fact that it is a miscarriage of justice—is that it highlights weaknesses in the appeal procedure and the procedure for selecting and managing experts. I am afraid that it also demonstrates that the regulations put in place by the CPIA and other Acts of Parliament were not followed in this case, and that is one of the fundamental problems today. I will come back to some of the solutions in a moment, but that is the central difficulty. Finally, there is the question of how a police force should properly handle such complex cases, which comes back to the issue of checking that my right hon. Friend quite rightly raises. Dr Watts is clear: “Significant investigations such as Op Hummingbird should be subject to rigorous review by independent detectives, typically from an independent police force, and best practice indicates that the officers conducting the review should be unknown to members of the investigation team.” If such a review had been in place, it is unlikely that any of the breaches I have talked about so far would actually have happened. I do not have time in this debate—I have had 20 minutes already—to list every egregious failure by Cheshire police, but given the Netflix documentary broadcast a little while ago, I want to pick up on the way the police treated Letby herself. They arrested Lucy Letby three times, claiming it was necessary for questioning, despite her freely volunteering to come in for questioning. Dr Watts—an assistant chief constable, let us remember—said: “That is completely wrong”. It is extraordinary that this unthreatening young girl was marched in in handcuffs, mirroring the way American authorities try to influence public opinion against suspects when they are perp walked to court. As Dr Watts said: “The intelligence they had about Lucy was that she was nonviolent. There was absolutely no justification…for her to be handcuffed” on those occasions. Letby was also accused in court of lying about being arrested in her pyjamas, but the recent Netflix documentary proves that she was telling the truth. It is astonishing that the police officers in the court, who knew how she was dressed when she was arrested, did not intervene with the prosecutors to tell them that they had got it wrong, and instead left the jury to believe that Lucy was lying about something when she was plainly telling the truth. Frankly, it is astounding the lengths that Cheshire police was willing to go to in order to manage its own public relations—sometimes, I think, at the cost of achieving justice. So there we have it. Despite the warning signs of the Sally Clark case, we see that Cheshire police has either ignored or broken the rules, disregarding relevant safeguards time and again. It failed to pursue alternative lines of inquiry; failed to refer the case to the appropriate specialist authorities; failed to conduct proper due diligence on the appointment of key expert witnesses; failed to engage with real experts about complex statistical evidence, and failed to correctly inform the jury of that fact; and failed on several occasions to disclose critical material to the defence. On the evidence before us, there have been clear and serious departures from statutory guidance and multiple deviations from best professional practice. Because of the way the case was handled, I recommend that the police should provide Letby’s defence team with a whole series of documentation. Because of time, I will publish the full list online, but it should include: the senior investigating officer’s policy books and decision books; the records of identified lines of inquiry; logs kept by functional managers; and minutes of all meetings held, from the team meetings right up to the gold co-ordination meetings. That would at least start to demonstrate what went wrong here. I should tell the Minister that irrespective of how Cheshire police responds, I shall be writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions about these issues and asking him to review the behaviour of both the CPS and the police.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Lucy Letby Case: Conduct of Cheshire Police · Hansard source

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  I am not easily embarrassed, but the hon. Member—

• 26 Mar 2026 · Lucy Letby Case: Conduct of Cheshire Police · Hansard source

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  You rescued me from embarrassment, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let us forensically analyse the prosecution of this case, using as a reference proper police procedure, prosecutorial standards, medical murder investigation guidelines, CPS guidance, the evidence from the Thirlwall inquiry and the considered critiques from these two experienced police officers. The neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital was failing. Its medical management was at best inadequate and at worst appalling. Indeed, a week after Letby was suspended, the unit was downgraded and prevented from taking any more very seriously ill babies. Before the police investigation, numerous reviews looked at the Countess of Chester and found no evidence of criminal activity. The most salient was by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which found no criminal events, but did identify numerous shortcomings in medical care at the hospital. Cheshire police ignored that, and the jury was never informed of it. Dr Watts notes, as did the assistant chief constable, that the royal college report “raised significant concerns about systemic failings…Its exclusion from court…meant alternative explanations were suppressed.” Let us also remember that this was a neonatal unit with no neonatal specialist consultants, only general paediatricians. Furthermore, the trust had dismissed all the experienced advanced neonatal nurse practitioners to save money. There was a 20% staffing shortfall. Doctors did ward rounds twice a week, rather than twice a day. We can think of the fragility of these children, yet they only got seen twice a week. There were outbreaks of multiple antibiotic-resistant infections. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, MRSA and C. difficile bacteria were all detected in the hospital. Sewage was dripping from the ceilings. Doctors followed poor counter-infection processes. The mother of triplets who moved to Liverpool women’s hospital “noticed a different level of cleanliness compared to the Countess of Chester…There were clear hygiene protocols…we were told to wash our hands before entering the Unit and then again before entering the room”, which was not the case at the Countess of Chester. It is also notable that there were 12 stillbirths in hospital at the same time as the spike in neonatal deaths—stillbirths that Lucy Letby was nowhere near. That was also ignored by Cheshire police. Why did Cheshire police decide Letby was responsible? Initially, there was no intention to launch any criminal investigation, but on 15 May 2017, that all changed. After a single meeting with two consultants—Dr Stephen Brearey and Dr Ravi Jayaram—from the Countess of Chester, Letby was explicitly identified as the focus of suspicion. Dr Watts states that “in this meeting, the language of this very experienced, very senior detective” from the Cheshire police force “moved from a measured, rational professional tone to…inappropriately emotional.” He cites the senior Cheshire police detective as saying: “I can’t describe how powerful it was…I just felt for those professionals there….I think we all owe them.” Dr Watts observes that “within 24 hours” of that meeting, Operation Hummingbird—the name of the Letby operation—was “up and running”. Within three days, news of the investigation into a potential murder at the Countess of Chester was in the national press. This investigation was initiated by a single meeting with consultants who had themselves been involved in seriously inadequate care of babies. The consultants who pointed the finger at Letby were Dr Stephen Brearey, Dr John Gibbs, Dr Ravi Jayaram and another doctor, who was anonymised for the court’s own reasons. They had all demonstrated poor care. One had wrongly punctured a baby’s liver. That baby later died. One was found by a coroner to be responsible for the death of a child after a breathing tube was inserted into the oesophagus, rather than the trachea—in other words, into the gullet, rather than the windpipe. One pushed an endotracheal tube into a baby’s lung, leaving the other collapsed. That baby later died. One clearly misled the jury by claiming that he had “virtually caught” Letby doing nothing as a baby collapsed in front of her—evidence that his own emails disproved. Those doctors could very well have contributed to the spikes in deaths attributed to Letby. Dr Watts poses an important question: “Where was the decision not to treat the doctors as suspects, or the other nurses, or the cleaners?” Justice demands that the police look at everyone. It does not permit them to fixate on one individual and build a case solely around them. Dr Watts makes it plain that that is not just a moral requirement; it is the law. Section 23(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 requires “that where a criminal investigation is conducted all reasonable steps are taken for the purposes of the investigation and, in particular, all reasonable lines of inquiry are pursued”. Paragraph 3.5 of the code of practice under that Act states: “In conducting an investigation, the investigator should pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry, whether these point towards or away from the suspect.” The Cheshire police did not follow the letter of the law or best professional practice. Dr Watts states that CPS guidelines and police guidance on the investigation of death in healthcare settings “require that decisions in ‘Sensitive, Serious and Complex’ cases are referred to the CPS Serious Crime and Counter Terrorism Division.” Remember that Dr Watts is the country’s expert in this area. He says: “It appears self-evident that this case falls into all the relevant categories of Sensitivity, Seriousness and Complexity”, but the regional CPS unit, Merseyside and Cheshire, “made the charging decisions in this case.” The requirement is made plain in the current version of the CPS referrals, approvals and notifications guidance, which states in terms that “homicide allegations involving…four or more victims and…medical authorities” should be passed on to the special crime and counter-terrorism division, which is a unit in London that specialises in complicated cases. Plainly, the Cheshire police believed that there were a lot more than four victims, so this case should have automatically gone to the special crime and counter-terrorism division. The failure to refer the case meant that proper safeguards and specialist scrutiny by independent lawyers, who had not been closely associated with the investigating team, were never implemented. That is very important. It is notable that when officers in the special crime and counter-terrorism division were involved earlier this year after the Cheshire police had put 11 additional charges to them, they turned them down flat. The special crime and counter-terrorism division stated that “the evidential test was not met in any of those cases.” After failing to refer the case to the correct CPS unit, Cheshire police then failed to listen to explicit guidance from the National Crime Agency. Again, Dr Watts points out: “On 26 May 2017, an email record indicates that the NCA…advised” Cheshire police “to appoint a panel of relevant experts; they clearly defined the disciplines and provided a comprehensive list. They were: Forensic & Neonatal Pathologists, Forensic Toxicologist and/or Clinical Pharmacologist, a Nurse with experience of special baby units, a medical expert with experience of the working practices on a special unit for neonates, an Obstetrician, and experts to review the medical statistics.” The advice was national best practice, but Cheshire police ignored it. On 28 June 2017, the NCA advisers followed up with a list of potential experts who could fill those posts. Cheshire police blatantly ignored that, too. Instead of drawing up a multidisciplinary panel, Dr Watts states, “Operation Hummingbird…built its entire medical case around one expert.” That so-called expert was Dr Dewi Evans. The warning signs were there before the trial started. Dr Watts believes that “Cheshire police were clutching at straws to find an expert, then very quickly and uncritically took a lifeline offered by Evans”. Evans ran a business providing “expert medical advice” in court cases for a high fee. We can identify at least £80,000 paid to him for the Letby case, but the rest is concealed, and the true total is likely many times higher. Evans stated: “This was my extra money, which helped keep my daughter in horses and my son in cars.” That was his motivation. He approached the NCA after reading about the case and called it “my kind of case”. Dr Watts points out that the “‘back door’ approach by an alleged expert who is clearly looking for work…should have sounded warning bells for the” senior investigating officer “and the investigating team”. Having practised as an expert witness for decades, Evans boasted he had “never lost” a case. That is not the mindset of a neutral expert; it is the language of someone who tailors his evidence to suit the prosecution’s case. This was clearly demonstrated when another very senior judge took the extraordinary step of writing to the presiding judge in the Letby case, alerting him to Evans’s failings in a previous case. I think the House should understand quite how unusual it is for a judge to take that step. Lord Justice Jackson described Evans’s evidence as “worthless”, stating that he “makes no effort to provide a balanced opinion”, and his “approach amounts to a breach of proper professional conduct”. I think that, later on, he also called it tendentious—terrifying when a single opinion will condemn a young woman to life in prison. When Cheshire police asked Evans if it should follow NCA guidance and seek other expert witnesses, he said: “I do not think it’s necessary to consider additional expert opinion at this stage.” He wouldn’t, of course. Evans was appointed as both the police adviser and the expert witness in the trial. Stuart Clifton states: “It was illogical to allow Evans to both advise and be the principal prosecution witness as there is a clear conflict of interest.” If this was not warning enough to Cheshire police, it should have set alarm bells ringing when Evans declared, after just 10 minutes of reviewing the case notes, that he suspected there was “foul play”. Dr Watts states: “Evans was not independently selected but came forward himself” and “validators used to assess his opinions were themselves selected without adequate independence…by Evans himself”. What is more, Stuart Clifton said that it was “completely illogical to allow other experts…to view the findings of Evans, since experts are expected to give evidence of their” findings “and not be corrupted by others”. Another prosecution expert, Professor Hindmarsh, was dismissed from his post as an honorary consultant at Great Ormond Street hospital before—just before—he gave evidence at the trial. During the trial, while he was giving evidence, he faced a General Medical Council investigation for failures of expertise and posing a risk to his patients: an expert witness chastised for a failure of expertise. The jury knew nothing of that. Another prosecution expert, Dr Bohin, reviewed Evans’s work. She faced numerous complaints from her patients’ families and was later criticised for ignoring a key symptom in one of her patients. These are the supposed experts that Cheshire police and the CPS chose, rather than a panel of independent experts from all relevant disciplines, as the NCA had advised. Three times Cheshire police’s due diligence failed—if, indeed, they attempted it at all. Crucial to the case against Letby was the infamous shift table presented as evidence that she was on duty for all the incidents when babies collapsed or died. Over a period of 13 months, there were 17 deaths—far more than the “normal” expected three or four deaths. Stuart Clifton states: “Missing from the chart used at trial are deaths which occurred whilst Letby was not on duty or those where adverse events took place whilst off duty”. Cheshire police, which compiled the table, chose to highlight only the shifts during which Letby was present, disregarding similar events when she was not. The seven deaths charged as murders were, in effect, selected because she happened to be on duty. As Stuart Clifton bluntly puts it: “Evans cherry picked the cases to match Letby’s shifts and Police used this in their chart to reflect her presence at those events highlighted by Evans. One has to wonder just how he settled on those children where Letby was present.” Any qualified statistician could have pointed that out to Cheshire police. In fact, one did. In April 2018, a police officer approached one of the country’s leading statisticians, Professor Jane Hutton, asking her to put a figure on the likelihood of a nurse being on duty during “all the deaths/collapses” in the unit. It is almost a rerun of the Sally Clark argument. Cheshire police had signed a consultancy agreement with Professor Hutton. Professor Hutton warned them that its whole approach was wrong. The police then told her: “The prosecutor...has instructed us not to pursue this avenue any further.” She challenges them and the prosecutor tells them to sack it. That falls in direct contravention of part 3.3 of the “Code for Crown Prosecutors”, which states: “Prosecutors cannot direct the police or other investigators.” Dr Watts added: “This occurrence is particularly egregious...it is...not appropriate for the CPS to deter the police from acquiring evidence that may be relevant and available.” Dr Watts goes on to say that the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 “is binding upon the CPS to the same extent as the police, for the CPS to Instruct the police to ignore potentially relevant evidence would clearly be a breach of the CPIA”. But neither the defence nor the jury were told of Professor Hutton’s explicit warnings to the police. That is unsurprising really, because it obliterated the prosecution’s statistical argument—the foundation of their entire case. Professor Hutton believes the statistical errors are “similar to those in the Sally Clark case but worse.” I wrote to the chief constable about how those bogus statistics had been compiled. He refused to answer any of the questions I had raised and said he would “not be providing any further detail or engaging in ongoing correspondence”. So much for transparency and welcoming challenge. That refusal to answer questions from a Member of Parliament sits uneasily alongside his department’s extraordinary public relations campaign, which at the very least invaded the privacy rights of Letby’s parents.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Lucy Letby Case: Conduct of Cheshire Police · Hansard source

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  I am conscious that I have denied the Minister much time to respond—that was because I do not think she has much scope for a response—but I want to place one thought with her. One reason why we are having the debate is because Members of Parliament cannot make applications to the IOPC; only victims can do so. I think that is a flaw in the law. My argument today is that we have not followed the guidelines, and the best way to deal with that is through an expert mechanism such as the IOPC. When she goes away today, will she take with her the thought that we might fine-tune the law on that point?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Lucy Letby Case: Conduct of Cheshire Police · Hansard source

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  In 1998, Cheshire police arrested Sally Clark and charged her with the murder of her two baby sons. In 1999, she was convicted of their murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. That conviction and sentence was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2003 and recognised as a gross miscarriage of justice, and Sally Clark was set free, albeit after three years in prison. However, her life had been destroyed, and just four years later she died from alcohol poisoning—the grief had driven her to drink, and it killed her. The destruction of an innocent person’s life was caused by the police, the prosecution and the court swallowing bogus statistical assertions by an alleged expert in her trial. That expert eventually resigned in disgrace, although that did not save Sally Clark. One would think that after that case, Cheshire police and the Crown Prosecution Service would have been very careful to avoid this happening again, and to abide by all the rules and guidelines designed precisely to prevent further terrible miscarriages of justice. Let us test exactly that premise. We are uniquely assisted in the process by the fact that the behaviour of the police and prosecution has been reviewed by two separate police officers, both extremely experienced in precisely this sort of case. The first is Dr Steve Watts, a former assistant chief constable who wrote the national police guidelines on the investigation of deaths in healthcare settings, and the second is former detective superintendent Stuart Clifton—the officer in charge of the investigation that led to the conviction of Beverley Allitt, one of the most prolific child murderers in healthcare history—who was actually commissioned by The Sun newspaper to confirm Letby’s guilt. Indeed, both policemen believed that Letby was guilty—that is, until they examined the hard facts, and both now believe that the Letby case is a serious miscarriage of justice.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After the financial crash in 2009, a banker called Tom Hayes was wrongly sent to prison. Last July the Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and in January it instructed the Government to pay him just shy of £300,000. He has still not been paid—not because the Government dispute the sum, but because they cannot agree among themselves which Department should make the payment. He cannot get an answer about what will happen, and I cannot get an answer—I do not even know which Minister to approach because of the wrangling inside the Government. I wrote to the Lord Chancellor, and his Department told me that I will not get an answer until at least the middle of next month. How can I establish which Department is responsible so that this House can get a proper answer on how this injustice will be resolved?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. Last week, in the Government’s attack on jury trials, the Prime Minister’s own Back Benchers said that the plans were“unworkable, unjust, unpopular and unnecessary”, —[ Official Report , 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 213.] “wrong in principle and wrong in practice”, —[ Official Report , 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 265.] and“oppressive, authoritarian and, quite honestly…reactionary.” —[ Official Report , 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 241.] Some 3,000 of the Prime Minister’s fellow lawyers say that juries have not caused this crisis. Earlier in his career, the Prime Minister himself said that scrapping juries “enables wrongful convictions”. The Institute for Government says that the Government are massively overestimating the savings that they will make from the plans. Let us be clear: the Prime Minister’s Back Benchers oppose it, his professional colleagues oppose it, and, in a previous life, he opposed it, so why is he forcing through a policy that is unjust in principle, unworkable in practice and opposed by everyone?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  Last week, the Government withheld the questions the Prime Minister put to Peter Mandelson and his responses, apparently at the request of the Metropolitan police. This is perhaps the most important documentation we could see and, as Madam Deputy Speaker confirmed, “Erskine May” confirms that: “In criminal matters, proceedings are active when a charge has been brought”. That is the balance between justice and democracy. Given that Mr Mandelson has not been charged, this matter does not fall under the sub judice rule, and he might not be charged for a year or more, if ever. There appears to be no other statutory bar to the Government releasing information: the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 does not apply; the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply; and the Contempt of Court Act 1981 does not apply because section 5 of that Act excludes public debate of matters of public interest. Given the lack of statutory bars preventing the Government from acting, will the right hon. Gentleman release that documentation?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals · Hansard source

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  I am going to take the unusual step of thanking two journalists—Lisa O’Carroll of The Guardian , and whoever writes for the BBC website—because they wrote about all this last week. That is relevant, because I have three constituents who would not have known about this, had it not been for the media coverage, and this is a really serious matter for some of them. One is in their 90s, and has had a number of strokes. Their daughter’s passport ran out last month and she, as a dual national, felt that she could not return to see her own parent. That is a family disaster for them. I take the view that one of the absolute constitutional rights of British citizenship is the right to return to your own country and not to be intimidated out of doing so. I do not particularly demand a reply from the Minister today—I have written to the Home Secretary—but will he consider allowing a simple grace period of six months. So that people can get across this, and do not have their family life disrupted?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Troubles-era Violence: IRA Accountability · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In view of the inadequate response that I received from the Secretary of State on Question 7, I give notice that I intend to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Troubles-era Violence: IRA Accountability · Hansard source

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  Some 2,058 people died at the hands of republican paramilitaries during the troubles—2,058—but despite that fact, only 19 IRA members are currently in prison. The Secretary of State laughably claims there was no amnesty under the Good Friday agreement, and he gives us only the few he has just mentioned. Can he tell the House how many prosecutions of IRA members he expects to arise under his troubles Bill, and how many families of people murdered by the IRA will find out what happened to their relatives?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Troubles-era Violence: IRA Accountability · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking to help ensure adequate accountability for troubles-era violence for members of the IRA.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Today’s Opposition day debate will focus on Mandelson and his relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. However, it will not cover his relationship with another alleged paedophile, murderer, gangster, specialist in bribery and corruption, and Putin favourite: Oleg Deripaska. That relationship may be just as bad as the one he had with Epstein. As European trade commissioner, Mandelson made decisions favouring Deripaska’s company by $200 million a year. Mandelson avoided proper investigation by lying about the timing of his relationship with Deripaska. How can we find out what investigations were carried out before Gordon Brown and his Government appointed Mandelson as a Minister? Do you agree that this House needs to see that information, and if so, how can we obtain it?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On Wednesday 21 January, before my contribution to the debate on the Northern Ireland remedial order, I omitted to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. That was an oversight, as it includes a declaration of a major contribution from Sir Michael Gooley in support of the campaign to protect military veterans from lawfare, for which I am the custodian. That was a mistake on my part, for which I obviously apologise to the House.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  To follow on from the previous question, the Home Secretary has strongly supported digital facial ID and artificial intelligence. As her colleague, the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), has said, both of those technologies show significant error rates, particularly when it comes to racial minorities. Innocent people fear this, particularly after the Post Office scandal, which showed that courts believe computers rather than people, resulting in miscarriages of justice. I have three questions for the Home Secretary. First, what does she regard an acceptable error rate for these technologies? Secondly, does she support the provision of compensation for people who are misidentified by such technology? Thirdly, she has talked about regulations; will she put all of these reforms on a statutory basis, based on primary legislation that passes through this House?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Forgive me but I will not, as I want to get to the end of this. As we know, Gerry Adams is already preparing legal action, challenging the decision to prevent him and others from being compensated for being interned during the troubles. The surviving IRA terrorists and their families will benefit from what we are doing today. There will be some civil claims brought against IRA killers—the Secretary of State mentioned some of them—but they will be rather special circumstances. Omagh is one of those; I could explain why, but we do not have the time. There will be a few of those, but very few compared with thousands of deaths, tortures and murders. That is largely because Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell accepted, as part of the Good Friday agreement, not to allow decommissioned weapons to be studied for forensic purposes. They also precluded recovered bodies from being examined for forensic purposes. The families of people who have been murdered, where the body has been recovered, are not even allowed to use the bullets in them to see who killed them. That is how this justice works. And, of course, there will be no witnesses to the IRA crimes. The IRA themselves will not give witness, and I am afraid that anybody else will be taking their life in their hands. I will finish by saying this: today’s remedial order will allow the IRA to further its campaign of rewriting the history of the troubles, portraying our brave soldiers as state-sponsored killers, and falsely representing themselves as victims and heroes, neither of which is true.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend’s comments tie in directly to those from the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna). In the Omagh bombing, the bomb was constructed in Ireland, the detonator was made—at a factory, in effect—in Ireland, the car came from Ireland, they disappeared back into Ireland afterwards, and there is a suggestion that the Irish special branch knew a great deal about it before it actually happened; there is a very good reason why the Irish Government do not want to have an inquiry into their part in the matter.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  I encourage everybody to read it. I am not saying that people should take my word for it; I am saying that they should read this report, because we can see the tension in the Committee. Of course, as the Secretary of State said, there are a number of real innocent victims who are seeking some sort of succour or recourse, which he is aiming to help. But he started by talking about the huge number of people who were killed by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. I warrant that when this order goes through, there will be a massive differential between those who were killed by paramilitaries and those who are asking for information.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  The point that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) made relates directly back to the Human Rights Act, which is the law in this country.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  That is part of what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) was describing earlier about trying to rewrite history. This goes right to the core of what the Secretary of State has already done. We know that he has promised Mairead Kelly that there will be a coroner’s inquest for Loughgall. Why? Because her brother, Patrick Kelly, was killed at Loughgall. He was a victim, except he had killed at least five other people previously, including two UDR officers. He and his gang of eight were attempting to blow up—well, they were not attempting; they did blow up the police station, with soldiers and policemen inside. It was a 400 lb bomb, and they had heavy weapons, G36s—my hon. and gallant Friend will recognise them—to shoot through the walls and kill policemen. If we want to see the rewriting of history, Kelly’s family have already attempted to rewrite history, claiming that at Loughgall he “went out to blow up, not to kill”, despite his long and bloody track record proving otherwise. He obviously designed a bomb that only hits bricks, not people. I do not aim to make light of this, because it is incredibly serious. As with the 120 cases already mentioned, Kelly’s family have already brought legal action against the Ministry of Defence. They are not the only ones, so let us look at other IRA terrorist “victims” who have brought civil cases. In 2011, Aidan McKeever, the getaway driver at the Clonoe incident in 1992, in which four IRA terrorists were killed, was awarded £75,000 for injuries sustained when fleeing the scene. He is not a victim; he is a terrorist, and he got £75,000. The IRA tried to pretend that it was a killing operation, but the SAS, or the soldiers on the scene—whoever they were—actually gave him first aid to save his life because he had been shot and injured, yet he gets £75,000 from the state. In 2023, the family of Stan Carberry tried to sue the Ministry of Defence for his death in 1972. Carberry, an IRA volunteer, was killed after a soldier returned fire at the vehicle that he was shooting from.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Would my hon. Friend give way on that point?