Ed Davey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Apr 2026 · Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend was right to ask that question yesterday, and I thought the Prime Minister’s response, which was that those types of meetings had not been recorded, was totally inadequate. Despite all the flattery, Trump has still caused enormous damage to our economy and to the livelihoods of the British people with his tariffs and his war with Iran. Trump still undermines NATO, makes threats against our country and our allies, and insults Britain’s armed forces. Just look at what Trump said last night: that Mandelson was a “really bad pick”. I will not dwell on the hypocrisy of those words from a man who was close friends with Epstein, who partied with him and has so far taken no responsibility for that—those words from a President who still has as his Commerce Secretary a neighbour of Epstein who visited Epstein’s island and who lied about his relationship with him. All that is for another debate. But Trump’s post, hypocritical as it is, does show the futility of trying to appease him. It shows how pointless it is to make a decision like who to appoint as US ambassador based on what Trump would like most. It does not work—it has not worked. I hope that on top of everything else, the Prime Minister and the Labour party will reflect on that point. The approach to Trump has failed. It is time to change course, to stand up to him, and to stand with our European and Commonwealth allies in defence of our national interest. This is a mess of the Government’s own making. It is a mess born out of a futile attempt to appease Donald Trump. It is a mess that just keeps getting worse with today’s revelation, uncovered by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), that the Prime Minister pushed for the appointment as ambassador of another Labour crony with ties to a sex offender. Those catastrophically bad judgments have created a mess that has distracted and consumed the Government and stopped them from focusing on what the British people actually need. The people out there do not want more Westminster drama; they are thinking about the hospital appointment that keeps being pushed back, the mortgage payments that just seem to keep going up, the loved ones who need care but are stuck on a waiting list, and the threats to our national security from an ever more dangerous world. Those are the things that keep people up at night, and they deserve a Prime Minister and a Government who are focused on them. Our party will never stop making that case. We will never stop holding the Government to account, not for the sake of political point scoring but on behalf of the British people, who deserve better than this. The last Conservative Government failed our country by getting stuck in a cycle of chaos and scandal and refusing to move on. The question for the Labour party is whether it will repeat that mistake or finally deliver the change that our country needs.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment · Hansard source

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  May I start by reflecting on something that I feel, along with many Members across the House and, certainly, our constituents? That is how utterly depressing it is that we are having to have this debate at all. Just a few years after we went through all this under Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, and less than two years after the British people voted them out of office for indulging in this sort of chaos and distraction, here we are again. Vladimir Putin is waging war on our continent. Donald Trump is waging war with Iran. We desperately need to strengthen our own national defences. Families and businesses are struggling against a cost of living crisis. Petrol prices have soared, and people are really worried about what Trump’s war will mean for their holidays this summer and their energy and food bills this winter. Our NHS is still in crisis. We all have constituents who are waiting weeks to see a GP, people who are dying on corridors in our hospitals, and loved ones who are not getting the care they need. We should be talking about them today. Theirs are the problems that the Government should be focused on every single day. That is what Labour promised, after all. In their manifesto, they said that the problems in our country are a “direct result of a governing party that, time and again, puts its own interests and obsessions above the issues that affect families.” They promised to change that, but here we are again. Instead of fixing the NHS and social care, instead of properly funding our defence, and instead of cutting prices at the pump, here we are, having to ask why the Prime Minister appointed the close friend of a notorious paedophile sex trafficker to one of the most important and sensitive jobs in his Government. Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein had been well reported and highlighted to the Prime Minister. He had already been forced to resign in disgrace twice from the previous Labour Government, and we now know that he was deemed a national security risk by the Government’s vetting agency. So we do, sadly, have to ask: why did the Prime Minister appoint Mandelson? Why did he announce the appointment before the national security vetting had been done, despite the then Cabinet Secretary Simon Case having told him that that should happen first? And why was he so determined to get Mandelson in post that he created, as Olly Robbins described it this morning, “an atmosphere of pressure” and a certain dismissiveness about the developed vetting process—a vetting process that the Prime Minister has since blamed for his mistakes? Even after all this, even after yesterday’s statement, the Prime Minister still has not told us why he appointed Mandelson. He admitted that appointing Mandelson was a mistake and has apologised for it. He has tried to make the rest about process and officials, but he still has not answered the fundamental question: why? I think we know a big part of the answer, do we not? It is Donald Trump. This all comes back to the way that the Prime Minister decided to approach his relationship with the President when he returned to office last year. Our party urged the Prime Minister to stand up to Trump, to stand together with our allies, and to approach him from a position of strength, not weakness. But he chose the opposite course. He decided to try to appease Trump, to flatter him, to stroke his ego, and to hope that he will be nice to us in return. Clearly, he thought that Peter Mandelson was the man for that job. So that is it: the decision to try to curry favour with Trump instead of standing up to him is the original sin that has landed the Prime Minister and his Government in the mess they are in today. Has it worked? Absolutely not.

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  It is 2022 all over again. Back then, when the Prime Minister was in opposition, and when it was Boris Johnson who was accused of misleading Parliament and scapegoating senior officials, the then Leader of the Opposition could not have been clearer; he said: “The public need to know that not all politicians are the same—that not all politicians put themselves above their country—and that honesty, integrity and accountability matter.” —[ Official Report , 25 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 298.] He promised “change”. He promised to “break this cycle and stop the chaos.” He promised a Government with “more focus on long-term strategy, not the short-term distractions that can animate Westminster.” I am afraid that the fact that he has even had to make a statement today shows how badly he has failed—how badly he has let down the millions of people across our country who are so desperate for change. The Prime Minister blames his officials. He says that he had “no idea”. He gives every impression of a Prime Minister in office, but not in power. The facts remain, even by his own account, that the Prime Minister appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States even after he had been warned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The Prime Minister announced the appointment before Mandelson had been vetted, despite the clear risk to national security of putting someone unsuitable in that role. One of his top officials, just three weeks into the job, clearly believed that the Prime Minister wanted Mandelson to be appointed regardless of what the vetting process turned up. The Prime Minister has relied on the vetting process to defend his decisions, so why did he ask so few questions personally about the vetting process? We all know the truth: the Prime Minister knew that appointing Mandelson was an enormous risk, but he decided that it was a risk worth taking—a catastrophic error of judgment. Now that has blown up in his face, the only decent thing to do is take responsibility. Back in 2022, the Prime Minister rightly accused Boris Johnson of expecting others to take the blame while he clung on. That was not acceptable then, and it is not acceptable now. I hope that the Prime Minister can at least tell the House this. We will be listening very carefully to his answer. Was he given advice by Simon Case, the then Cabinet Secretary, that the necessary security clearances should be acquired before he confirmed his choice for US ambassador? Did the Prime Minister follow that advice—yes or no? After years of chaos under the Conservatives, we needed a Government focused on the interests of the people—the cost of living crisis, the health and care crisis, and our national security. We needed a Government with honesty, integrity and accountability. Will the Prime Minister finally accept that the only way that he can help to deliver that is by resigning?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  President Trump is one of the most unpredictable people we have seen on the world stage, and I hope that he does not embarrass our monarch. Moving on, last year the Prime Minister claimed that he had done some special deal so that Brits would be able to “sail through” e-gates at EU airports, but that was not the experience of families returning from holiday this week. Long queues at borders and passport controls are the latest symbol of the Brexit disaster, but they are also a symbol of this Government’s failure to repair that damage. Will the Prime Minister apologise for misleading British travellers, and can he tell them when they will be able to “sail through” passport control?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I echo the Prime Minister’s words about the Southport inquiry, and also about the 37th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy. Our thoughts are with all the families affected and with the survivors, and I hope that the Prime Minister will deliver on the Hillsborough law. Today also marks the third anniversary of the start of the devastating civil war in Sudan, and I hope that the Prime Minister will recommit himself to real action in the face of the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe. In a phone call with Sky News last night, President Trump threatened to rip up his trade deal with the UK as a punishment for our not joining his idiotic war in Iran. This must be the last straw. Surely the Prime Minister cannot send our King to meet a man who treats our country like a Mafia boss running a protection racket.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I join him in what he said about the horrific attack in Southport. Our thoughts are with the families of Bebe, Elsie and Alice and with all those affected. “A whole civilisation will die tonight”— words I never thought I would hear from an American President. Though Donald Trump thankfully did not follow through this time, those words are a stark reminder of how reckless, immoral and completely outside the bounds of international law this President is. Regrettably, he is no friend of the United Kingdom. He is no leader of the free world. He is a dangerous and corrupt gangster, and that is how we must treat him. Will the Prime Minister advise the King to call off his state visit to Washington before it is too late? I really fear for what Trump might say or do while our King is forced to stand by his side. We cannot put His Majesty in that position. Trump’s latest cunning plan, to blockade the strait of Hormuz, will only escalate this crisis and jeopardise the precarious ceasefire. It is right that the UK is not joining him, and I welcome the Prime Minister convening a summit to offer an alternative to Trump’s. We must work with our reliable allies in Europe and the Commonwealth and our partners in the Gulf to bring this conflict to an end and keep open the strait of Hormuz. That is critical for tackling the cost of living crisis, which is getting worse and worse for people in the UK. Petrol prices are now up by more than 25p a litre and diesel up 49p since Trump started this war—cheered on, let us not forget, by the leader of the Conservative party and Reform. Does the Prime Minister recognise that families and businesses cannot wait months for the Government to step in and help? Will he use the windfalls that the Treasury is getting from higher fuel prices to cut the cost of living and keep the economy moving, with action to slash bus and rail fares, and to cut fuel duty by 10p today, bringing down the price at the pumps by 12p a litre?

• 25 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  If Trump’s war pushes up energy bills by £500, the Chancellor’s very narrow plans simply will not cut it. While I do not fall for the crocodile tears of the leader of the Conservatives, who cheered on this illegal war without a thought for the impact on people’s energy bills, and while the Government are right to reject the idea of repeating Liz Truss’s blank cheque approach, the Government cannot ignore the millions of families who do not receive benefits and who already face a cost of living crisis. Can the Prime Minister at least guarantee to all those families and pensioners that he will not let their energy bills go up by £500 this year?

• 25 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about Monday’s despicable attacks on the Jewish community? Antisemitism has no place in our society. Given the potential links with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, I hope that the Government will move faster to proscribe the group as terrorists. As a former Secretary of State for Energy who granted licences for oil and gas exploration, may I make a judgment on this argument? The Prime Minister is actually right, and the Leader of the Opposition is wrong— [Interruption.] The law is clear, and I believe in the rule of law. Just before President Trump posted about his supposed negotiations with Iran on Monday, traders made hundreds of millions of dollars of extra bets on oil futures. This looks like Donald Trump giving his mates inside information so they can make themselves richer, while his illegal war in Iran makes everyone else poorer. It looks like corruption of the very worst kind. Does the Prime Minister share my fear that Trump is making his war decisions on the basis of what enriches him and his friends, rather than what makes peace in the middle east?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I am surprised by that response. The French can do it—does the Prime Minister really think Britain cannot? Moving on, a New World investigation into GB News has found hundreds of shocking breaches of the rules of impartiality and accuracy, yet Ofcom has repeatedly refused to take action. Andrew Neil says: “Just as Fox basically became the channel of Donald Trump, it’s clear they have turned GB News into the Reform channel”. We cannot let GB News propaganda turn our great country into its version of Trump’s America. Either the Government rules are not fit for purpose or Ofcom is not properly enforcing them—which is it?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I join the Prime Minister in offering my condolences to the family and friends of the two young people who have been killed by the meningitis bug in Kent and all those affected by this horrifying outbreak. Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent is critical for the defence of our nation and the whole of Europe, but the current Trident missiles will reach the end of their lives in the 2040s. We have to make a choice now: lease new missiles from the United States, accepting whatever terms the President gives us, or build our own here in the United Kingdom. The Conservatives and Reform say that we have to rely on President Trump and the United States because we could not possibly do it ourselves. Does the Prime Minister agree with them?

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

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  I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is a stain on our nation that we are even having to go through this. It is right that we keep Epstein’s victims, survivors and families at the front of our mind. Today marks the first day of Britain’s own Epstein files. For a close friend of Epstein to have been made Britain’s ambassador to the United States is a shameful part of this affair; that is the Prime Minister’s responsibility. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister is not here to answer for that, and for his catastrophic failure of judgment with respect to Mandelson. Peter Mandelson’s close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and the fact that it continued long after long after Epstein’s conviction for child sex trafficking, had been reported by both Channel 4’s “Dispatches” in 2019 and the Financial Times in 2023. Has the Prime Minister told the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister personally how those reports made him feel, and why he still felt it was right to appoint Mandelson anyway? Mandelson’s £75,000 payout is an insult to Epstein’s victims—if he had a shred of decency left he would donate it to charity—but the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister’s explanation of why the Government made that payout simply will not wash. With a very limited number of documents being released today, the wait goes on for the rest of Britain’s Epstein files. That includes the documents relating to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor required by the Liberal Democrats’ Humble Address, which was passed a fortnight ago. I very much hope that the Government will get those documents out as quickly as possible. It has taken five weeks from the Mandelson Humble Address to publication today. Will the Chief Secretary guarantee that the first Andrew papers will be published within the same timeframe, and by 31 March at the latest?

• 11 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her powerful and courageous speech in the debate on jury trials yesterday—I really hope the Prime Minister was listening. Thirty years ago this week, a man carried four handguns into Dunblane primary school and murdered a teacher and 16 children. I was deeply moved by the BBC documentary about it last night and by the courage of the parents who campaigned for a ban on handguns to keep other children safe, including Mick North, who lost his five-year-old daughter, Sophie, on that dark day. Mr North has rightly called on the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) to renounce his description of the handgun ban as “ludicrous”—something the hon. Member still refuses to do. Mr North has also called for a review of firearms legislation to close any loopholes. Does the Prime Minister agree?

• 11 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his reply, and I hope the Government will close any loopholes. This week, families across the country have seen petrol prices rise at the pump, mortgage rates go up and fixed energy deals get more expensive, all because of a war they did not start and do not support. The Leader of the Opposition has been competing with the hon. Member for Clacton to be Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader, and the Prime Minister was right to reject their costly warmongering. Last week, I asked him to guarantee that energy bills will not rise by hundreds of pounds in July. He did not answer, so let me try again: will he give people that energy bill guarantee now?

• 4 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks on Sarah Everard and the need to do far more to tackle violence against women and girls? May I also associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks on Iran? As we rightly debate how to make tax exiles pay their fair share, it is absolutely right that the Government do everything they can to get all British citizens to safety. Experts are warning that families could see their energy bills rise by £500 a year as a result of Trump’s illegal war, but millions of families and pensioners are already struggling to keep their heads above water, thanks to years of a cost of living crisis. When Putin invaded Ukraine, the Prime Minister and I campaigned for months to get the Conservatives to act on energy bills. This time, will the Prime Minister save families that anxiety and give a cast-iron guarantee today that he will not let energy bills rise by £500 this year?

• 4 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his reply, but I hope he will act if energy bills do go up by £500. Donald Trump’s war on Iran has not only brought more chaos across the middle east, but increased the threat to our national security here at home. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has previously plotted several failed terrorist attacks in the UK, targeting Iranian journalists, British Jews and Members of this House. It is now more desperate and dangerous than ever. We have called for the IRGC to be proscribed as terrorists for years. The last Government failed to do it, and so have this one. Will the Prime Minister table emergency legislation to better protect our country from Iranian terrorists, and will he do it this week?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for my security briefing. Once again, President Trump has launched a unilateral and unlawful act. Ayatollah Khamenei was a brutal dictator and a monstrous war criminal. He supported Hamas and the 7 October atrocities, and he massacred thousands of his own people for daring to protest against decades of repression. I shed no tears for him. Instead, I think of all the innocent Iranian civilians who have lost their lives. I think of the US service personnel killed in action, our allies and partners in the region who are being outrageously targeted by Iran, and our British bases which have already faced attack. They did not choose this war; Donald Trump did, and he will bear responsibility for it. We have seen before what happens when an American President launches an illegal war with no idea how or when it is going to end, and we fear for what comes next. In discussions with the White House, has the Prime Minister demanded to find out Trump’s plan for what comes next? Does the Prime Minister understand that when he fails to stand up to Trump, especially when he breaks international law, it makes our country less safe? How will the Prime Minister be sure that defensive operations from UK bases will not become offensive? In rightly protecting our allies in the region, can we be assured by the Prime Minister that he will not follow Trump’s lead down a slippery slope into a protracted conflict? Finally, we rightly expect our brave armed forces to protect British citizens around the world in crises like this, but that includes tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed-up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes here. As we protect them, does the Prime Minister agree that it is only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us do?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I think we all agree that police investigations should take priority, but that does not rule out a public inquiry, and it certainly does not rule out releasing the flight logs, which I think really should be released. On a different note, it has been revealed that a trustee of William Blake House, a care home for adults with profound disabilities, embezzled £1 million. There are very few homes in the country that offer this sort of care, and now it faces closure. As a father of a disabled son, I can tell the Prime Minister that this situation is one of my worst nightmares, and it is one of the worst nightmares of many parents with disabled adult children. The families of the residents have put forward a rescue plan to take over William Blake House and run it themselves. It will require His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to resolve the debt issue and the Charity Commission to appoint an independent board, so will the Prime Minister meet the families and back their plan?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I join the Prime Minister in congratulating Team GB on our most successful winter Olympics ever. I also join him in solidarity with our Ukrainian allies and friends after four years of them resisting Vladimir Putin’s war machine. The former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has raised deeply shocking concerns that Jeffrey Epstein may have used British airports, and even RAF bases, to traffic young women and girls in and out of our country. This is appalling. The Prime Minister knows that I agree with Gordon Brown that there needs to be a full public inquiry into all this. If he does not agree with Gordon Brown, will he at the very least commit to releasing the flight logs and related documents—or will he wait for the House to force the Government to do that?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I think he probably speaks for the whole House. Indeed, the intention of this debate is to bring this House together. The changes that we think are necessary would protect the royal family and strengthen the monarchy, which in some places has been criticised. That is important, and it is why we need these reforms. The motion focuses on the start of this—on the appointment of the former Prince Andrew to this role back in 2001. We have seen reporting that says that the King, then the Prince of Wales, expressed his concerns about that appointment. More alarmingly, we have read that Peter Mandelson wrote to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as his former Trade Secretary, pushing for Andrew’s appointment—one friend of Epstein lobbying for a job for another friend of Epstein, and a job that might help Epstein enrich himself. We clearly need to get to the bottom of that appointment and the role that Mandelson played in it, and only the papers demanded by this motion will allow us to do that. We need them published as soon as possible, without delay. There are many questions about Andrew’s conduct in the role, which is now subject to a criminal investigation. As you said, Mr Speaker, we clearly do not want to jeopardise that investigation through anything we say today. We must let the police get on with their work, especially for Epstein’s victims, survivors and their families, who deserve to see justice done at last. However, I would highlight one example of the way that Jeffrey Epstein sought to use Andrew’s role as a trade envoy to enrich himself.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, which shows not only that we need to focus on the scandals we have heard about, but that even greater questions are raised if the trade envoy was actually speaking against British commercial interests. I hope that not just in this debate, but in other debates, and in Select Committees and elsewhere, we will get to the bottom of that issue. As I was saying, I would like to highlight one example of how Jeffrey Epstein sought to use Andrew’s role as trade envoy to enrich himself. Channel 4 uncovered emails in the Epstein files in which Epstein was trying to meet the Libyan dictator Gaddafi in the dying months of the Gaddafi regime, to help him find somewhere to “put his money”—something that the Minister raised at the time. In other words, Epstein looked at the deadly crisis in Libya and saw a chance to make some money, and he thought his friend Andrew could help. This is what he said in one of the emails: “I wondered if Pa should make the intro”. A few weeks later, Andrew wrote back, “Libya fixed.” Although the Epstein-Gaddafi meeting does not appear to have happened, this shows clearly what these relationships were all about for Epstein: increasing his own wealth and power. The idea that the role of special trade envoy for our United Kingdom may have been used to help him do that—to help a vile paedophile sex trafficker enrich himself—is truly sickening. Again, I pay tribute to the Minister, who tried to raise this at the time, like his colleague, the late Paul Flynn. It shows again why we need to change the rules of this House that govern Ministers and the debate here.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that intervention. We must build a culture of transparency and accountability; I think that is essential. I hope that we as a House will look at ending the archaic “negative privilege” rules that Paul Flynn spoke about, and remove the bandages from our mouths. Today, we are free of those bandages, when it comes to Andrew. Our motion focuses on finally getting out the truth about his role as a special representative for trade and investment.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows that I apologised for making that comment, having taken a brief from someone else. I really wish that I had not uttered those words, because I am thinking about the victims, and I have praised the Minister for the role that he took. I hope he will acknowledge that two months after that debate Andrew left the role, and it was right that he did. I was not privy to those discussions, but the Government did get rid of him.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the Government to lay before this House all papers relating to the creation of the role of Special Representative for Trade and Investment and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment to that role, including but not confined to any documents held by UK Trade and Investment, British Trade International (BTI) and its successors, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Office containing or relating to advice from, or provided to, the Group Chief Executive of BTI, Peter Mandelson, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister regarding the suitability of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for the appointment, due diligence and vetting conducted in relation to the appointment, and minutes of meetings and electronic communications regarding the due diligence and vetting. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your statement ahead of this debate. The appalling crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his associates have rightly stunned the whole world. The scale of Epstein’s operation was shocking—selling human beings for sex, turning hundreds of young women and girls into victims and survivors—and those women are at the front of our mind today as we finally seek transparency, truth and accountability. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shamed our country and the royal family, but for too long, Members of Parliament were barred from even raising criticisms of him, let alone properly scrutinising his role as trade envoy, because of the outdated tradition that mentions of any member of the royal family in this House must, in the words of the previous Speaker, be “very rare, very sparing and very respectful”. —[ Official Report , 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 35.] I encountered this at first hand back in 2011, when I was asked to respond to an Adjournment debate on behalf of Lord Green, who was then the Minister for Trade and Investment. The debate was led by the late Paul Flynn, but even he—an ardent and outspoken republican, as I am sure many of us remember, was not allowed to raise any actual concerns about Andrew himself. Paul called it “negative privilege”, and that is what it was. He said his mouth was “bandaged by archaic rules”, and that had very real and damaging consequences. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place, because I know he was also constrained by those rules when he raised similar issues. In that debate, Epstein’s name was not mentioned once, and there was no chance to debate the substance. Standing in for the responsible Minister, I set out the Government’s position, as it had been for a decade, in support of the prince’s role as trade envoy. Looking back and knowing what we all know now, I am horrified by it. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the survivors and their families to hear Andrew praised like that, as they did so often all around the world, so I apologise to them, and I am determined to change things. I was struck by the words of Amanda Roberts, Virginia Giuffre’s sister-in-law, after Andrew was arrested last week. She said this could be a stain on the royal family for the rest of our history, or “it could be a moment where they, and we, decide that this is the time when cultural change happens.” As a staunch supporter of His Royal Highness the King and the royal family, I believe we must help to bring about that cultural change now.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for both the hon. Gentleman’s Freudian slip and his suggestion that we need to speed up action in this area. Let me begin to conclude. In many ways, this is the first truly global scandal, from the White House and silicon valley to Oslo and Paris. But it is also a deeply British scandal, reaching right to the top of the British establishment. Can there be many people more symbolic of the rot that eats away at the British establishment than the former Duke of York and special trade envoy, and the former Business Secretary, First Secretary of State and ambassador to the United States? Their association with Epstein and their actions on his behalf, while trusted with the privilege of public office, are a stain on our country. Today, we must begin to clean away that stain with the disinfectant of transparency. Whether it is the President of the United States and his Commerce Secretary, Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or Epstein himself, their victims and survivors have seen those responsible evade accountability and escape justice for far too long. I hope—I desperately hope—that is ending now, and I hope the House will approve this motion.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I declare an interest as my son, John, has an EHCP, which is critical to his education and to our whole family’s wellbeing. That is why we, like so many families, have been dreading today. We all know that the crisis in SEND must end—the fights, the exhaustion, the underfunding and the private profiteering all must change. It is why the Conservatives’ failure to apologise for the crisis really angered me and will have infuriated families across the country. However, as we fix the crisis, children’s rights must not be stripped away. As we consider the Secretary of State’s proposals seriously, we will continue to listen to and champion all the families whose lives could be impacted profoundly. I have three questions for the Secretary of State. First, early intervention is critical to improving children’s lives and making the whole system affordable, and I worry that these modest changes will not shift the dial. Will the Secretary of State consider investing in universal screening and then active support for the child and their family earlier on? My second question concerns the plans for EHCPs. Speaking for my family and for many others like mine, it is hard to believe that the range and complexity of needs and disability can be captured in a small number of predefined EHCP packages. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that her changes will mean that the voices of parents—the real experts on their children—will at long last be heard when decisions are made? Finally, on changes to the pupil premium, which was devised, championed and introduced by our party, will the Secretary of State give a clear commitment that no individual child, wherever they live, will see their pupil premium funding reduced? Will she instead boost the pupil premium to put right the cuts and betrayals of the Conservative party?