Ellie Chowns MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I will use my contribution to do two things: first, to reiterate that international law and human rights are absolutely critical, and secondly, to reflect on the responsibilities that they impose on the UK and on our wider responsibilities as parliamentarians and citizens. International law and human rights frameworks are vital guiding principles. The terrorist atrocities of 7 October were a clear and obscene violation of those principles. Every single person responsible for those horrors must be held to account, and every life taken or damaged must never be forgotten. Equally, the collective punishment of the people of Gaza is also a clear and obscene violation of international law and breaches basic human rights. We see mass atrocities, displacement, deliberate starvation, the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, withholding access to water and medical supplies, and the targeting of journalists and aid convoys. We must call what has been happening in Gaza what it is: genocide. In the occupied west bank, we have seen the violent expansion of illegal settlements, ethnic cleansing, the execution of children, detention without trial, people forced to live under apartheid and settler terrorism. All of that has been happening for decades, but it is worse since 7 October, with Prime Minister Netanyahu emboldened by the current US President. Political leaders have largely fallen short when it comes to holding the Israeli Government to account for their human rights crimes and their flagrant disregard for international law, but policial leaders come and go. Meanwhile the international courts get on with their work upholding the standards and the UN resolutions that the world has collectively agreed. We need political leadership and we need it to be guided by international law and human rights frameworks, so it was hugely welcome to hear the Secretary of State last week recognise the 2024 ICJ conclusion that the occupation of Palestine is illegal, reiterate the illegality of expansionist settlements and take the vital first step of banning trade with and advertising of those illegal settlements. Their illegality is absolutely clear under international law. The UK has done the right thing in recognising the role of international law and human rights standards, and it is starting to act accordingly, but genuine respect for international law and human rights means we cannot pick and choose. Suspending the licences of some arms used by the IDF in Gaza and the licensing of other arms and exports that materially contribute to the occupation makes a difference, but the double lock that the Government have announced does not include components for the F-35 combat aircraft that, according to Campaign Against The Arms Trade, is the most substantive part of the UK’s arms trade with Israel. It cannot be beyond the wit of officialdom to find a way of tracing these parts, so that they are not used. The UK remains complicit in Israel’s genocidal war crimes until it ends its role in supporting Israeli forces. I urge the UK Government to be consistent in their commitment to the legal and human rights frameworks that underpin their recent decisions. I welcome the steps they have taken, but it is too little, too late and there is much more to be done. Secondly, I want to reflect on the wider responsibilities that we all have, especially as parliamentarians, in the context of rising hate crime and growing divisions in our communities. We each have a responsibility to show leadership, to stand against antisemitism, to stand against Islamophobia, not to conflate criticism of the Israeli Government with antisemitism and to call it out when we see others doing that, not to hold the Jewish people responsible for the actions of the Israeli authorities or the ideologies that drive them, and not to hold Palestinians responsible for the actions of Hamas. We have a responsibility to recognise the many ways in which those who advocate for Palestine are defamed, often as antisemitic, as a way of shutting down or silencing their advocacy, and to recognise the damage that that does by distracting from critical work identifying and confronting antisemitism, which is so crucial at a time when attacks on Jewish communities and Jewish spaces in this country and around the world are increasing. We have a responsibility to recognise anti-Palestinian racism and the multiple ways it manifests itself in our politics and society: a responsibility to stop putting people in boxes, to stop defining them as either allies or enemies with nothing in between, and a responsibility to resist the whipping up of hatred and the way in which nuance, understanding and compassion are being bludgeoned to extinction in public discourse. All of us need to show leadership in our dialogue, in our constituencies, communities and our own parties, and to demonstrate in our words and our deeds that there is no competition or contradiction between supporting and defending Palestinian human rights, and supporting and defending thriving Jewish communities here in our country. I am making these points in this debate because the response to what is happening in Palestine and Israel is being used by some political actors here in the UK to whip up antisemitism; by some to advance anti-migrant and anti-Muslim agendas; by some to justify chilling restrictions on civil liberties and our right to free speech and to peacefully protest; and by some to stoke division between minoritised communities. Leadership requires being alive to those realities and risks and recognising how they might prevent the emergence of shared visions of justice, democracy, human rights and religious and political pluralism. That underscores the importance of defending and upholding the international legal and human rights frameworks that we already have fully and wholeheartedly. Twenty-five years ago, I took up a job co-ordinating the UK arm of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. I was an atheist working for a Christian organisation with Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities in the lands of Israel and Palestine to build peace. The spirit of working across boundaries is the only thing that will get us to peace and justice.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  Numerous constituents of mine have had the same problems with the civil service pension scheme run by Capita. One example is Ruth, whose husband worked for the Ministry of Defence and died in service nearly a year ago. She has been waiting 11 months for a death-in-service payment and pension. Capita promised to have this resolved, with all bereavement cases done by the end of August. It broke that promise. This week, she is still waiting. This is utterly unacceptable. I welcome the Minister saying that there will be penalties for Capita, but does she not recognise that this is such a clear example that outsourcing does not work? Will she ensure that Capita is not given contracts like this ever again?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I will move on to my amendments, Madam Deputy Speaker. Amendment 15 seeks to ban all corporate donations. Donations from companies are banned in France and Canada, among many other countries. According to research conducted by CenTax, about a quarter of donor companies are so opaque that it is not possible to identify who controls them, and almost £1 in every £10 given by companies comes, indirectly, from people who could not make donations themselves. This is a loophole in our politics. The Bill already accepts that a company has no independent right to donate, as it depends on the individuals who own it being on the electoral register, so it makes sense to complete the step and ban corporate donations altogether. If the House is not willing to go as far as a ban, it can still strengthen the Bill by strengthening clause 60. I have also tabled new clause 30, which calls for “a review of how campaign expenditure limits could apply on an annual basis”. The new clause would deal with another huge loophole. We recognise that money skews politics; that is why there are spending limits during the short campaign; but we know that politics does not happen just in that short period before an election. Politics happens all the year round, especially now that the online world is such a big part of our politics. Long gone are the days when elections were fought only in those short weeks. Political campaigning happens throughout the year, not just on doorsteps but also online, and it is therefore imperative to place limits on annual campaign expenditure to prevent our politics from being skewed out of all proportion by big money. That is why I support new clause 70, tabled by the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), which would lower limits for campaign spending altogether. In her new clause 120, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) makes a clear case for a cap on all donations. Big money has been allowed to skew our politics for far too long. I would prefer the cap to be much lower, perhaps at £50,000 a year, and that view is supported by the majority of the British people, but any move in that direction would be an improvement. Moreover, some donations simply should not be allowed. I welcome new clause 22, tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon): there is no place for fossil fuels in a sustainable future, and no place for dirty fossil money in our politics. I also welcome the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), particularly new clause 43, which calls for “a repository of digital political advertising”. This is absolutely crucial: we have to guard against the use of AI to fuel disinformation. We have to take big money out of politics, take the poison of disinformation out of politics, and fix our political system once and for all.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I would like to speak to amendment 15 and new clause 30, tabled in my name, and to new clauses tabled by other colleagues from across the House. First of all, I welcome the new Minister to her place and I welcome the Bill. I always like to start where there is common ground. It is certainly true that there are steps forward in the Bill: the implementation of the Rycroft recommendations to tackle foreign influence in our politics; movements towards automatic voter registration; and dealing with crypto to some extent, although not enough. Those are all positive steps forward. I also warmly welcome the introduction of votes at 16, which is a long-standing Green party policy. But—there is a big but, I am afraid, Minister—the Bill could and really should do far, far more to clean up our politics. There are three big things that we need to do: get rid of the influence of dirty and big money in our politics; eliminate the poison of disinformation in our politics; and fix the fundamental structures of our politics that disenfranchise so many people. It is therefore frankly ridiculous that in a Bill about elections called the Representation of the People Bill we are not even allowed to discuss new clause 31 on a national commission on electoral reform. This is fundamentally important to our politics. The fundamental principle of democracy is that everybody’s vote must count equally. The Government, of course, do not need to legislate on a national commission on electoral reform. They could kickstart one anyway. I really hope that the Minister will take that back to the Prime Minister—who, after all, is supposedly a supporter of electoral reform—and strongly encourage him to put his action where his mouth is on this issue and demonstrate that, if he is serious about problem-solving, he needs to work to solve the problems in our democracy.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. To do that, we need to think long-term. We do not do well enough in this country at thinking long-term, or beyond the next election cycle. We need to think of the next generation. What sort of world do we want to bequeath to them? What sort of country do we want to bequeath to them, and how will we build the country that is suitable for the climate that will be here in a few decades’ time? As has been pointed out, this is the coolest it will be in our lifetimes: the climate will only become more extreme, with more extreme heat and more extreme floods. We need to change our ways as a country. Experts have been telling us this for a long time. The Committee on Climate Change has pointed out that we are not doing anywhere near enough to meet the adaptation challenge facing us. I call on the Government to grasp the nettle. This is investment in building a better future—it is a win-win investment. Building houses that are suitable for the weather conditions that we will be facing is much cheaper than having to retrofit them afterwards. If we use materials and building methods that enable us to cool buildings naturally, we can create urban areas that are not such huge heat islands as they currently are. By building in such a way, including with lots of tree planting in urban areas, we can cool temperatures locally using natural methods. We have a real opportunity here, and we should grasp it with both hands. Tackling the adaptation and the resilience challenge is not about just sticking our finger in the dyke or using a sticking plaster approach, such as patchwork retrofitting air-con in every building that is struggling with the heat; it is an opportunity to imagine and to build a better country for the future. There are things the Government can do right now. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer) introduced a private Member’s Bill yesterday to establish a maximum workplace temperature. We have a minimum workplace temperature, but we clearly need a maximum one. Minister, is this something that the Government will support? I hope they will. As we have seen, there is international precedent and huge levels of support across the country We also need to recognise that we must build the long-term resilience that we require. As a country, we do not yet have an adaptation plan that is fit for purpose, or the co-ordination that is needed. I raised that issue with the Minister a few days ago in a debate on national security and resilience and was told that Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for resilience in farming, and that the Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for resilience in health. I raised this in Health questions this morning, but the issues we face are not solved just by retrofitting our hospitals. We have to enable everybody in the country to stay healthy in the extremes of heat that we are increasingly seeing so that they do not have to go into hospital in the first place. This is a cross-Government requirement and priority, so will the Government put in place adaptation plans that the Climate Change Committee will itself declare are fit for purpose? Finally, we must put the brakes on the problem at the same time. It is not an either/or between mitigation and adaptation; we still have more to do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the emissions that are causing climate breakdown, so that we save ourselves from the worst possible effects of runaway climate change. I call on the Government to go further and faster on real climate action, not least by holding the line on Jackdaw and Rosebank. We cannot on the one hand struggle with facing the consequences of climate change, such as extreme heat, and on the other hand continue to take more fossil fuels out of the ground and burn them. We need consistent Government policy across the piece. I hope the Government will provide that.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Death of Ann Widdecombe · Hansard source

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  On behalf of the Green party, I would like to say how shocked, saddened and horrified I am by Ann Widdecombe’s horrific death—her brutal murder—and my sincere condolences go to her friends and family and all who knew her and loved her, including colleagues in this House. I welcome the points that the Home Secretary has made about reviewing security arrangements for those in public life, including former MPs and those outside this House. I very much agree with her about the responsibility that we all have, across this House and beyond, to avoid speculation, so that the police can hold their vital investigation and bring the culprit to justice. She has recognised the calls that have been made from across this House today for further action to tackle the proliferation of polarisation and hatred online. May I press her to set a timescale for taking that further action, to protect not only the safety and security of all those in public life, but the fundamentals of our democracy?

• 8 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Our politics needs fixing fast. The broken, outdated first-past-the-post system has clearly failed to deliver stable government. We urgently need to rebuild trust in our democracy and ensure that everybody’s vote counts equally. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) that proportional representation is an idea whose time has come? Does he also agree with me and Members across the House that that time is now, before the next general election?

• 6 Jul 2026 · Foreign Interference in UK Politics · Hansard source

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  I welcome that the Government have accepted all of the Rycroft review’s recommendations, but as Rycroft himself noted, his terms of reference did not enable him to look at all sources of distortion in our democracy. It does not just come from abroad. In a democracy, every voter’s voice should count equally, but it is clear that billionaires are buying influence. Why will the Minister not set a cap on all donations, so that we can eliminate the corrosive and corrupting influence of big money in our politics?