Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend give way?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  Yes—without interest. I agree with my right hon. Friend. I also agree about something else, which is that people do not realise that the really big global multinationals, for example Amazon, do not really make their profits on what they sell. They hold your data and that is what they really sell, subsequently. That is where they make their money and their profit. You derive no income from that data, but they make a lot of money off the back of it. To try to break that process down and make things more local, we have to start with what we have all been complicit in, which is the idea of getting something for nothing. It is not for nothing—there is a cost.

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  You wouldn’t get a car for 500 quid though, John!

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  I need not detain my right hon. Friend for long, but I very much supported the unions’ position on this, as I thought this was wrong at the time. Without straying into the issues of the bids, we should consider organisations such as CK from China. It now has links with and control over UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities, and Eversholt Rail. The network it has now is intriguing, which is hugely around the power and communications networks. All of those are now falling into the hands of conglomerates that have nothing to do with the UK, but that are linked to Governments of a different country. This is the big problem we face: it is not that we do not like big businesses; it is just that so often now they operate from outside our legal empowerment.

• 2 Jul 2025 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 outlawed foreign Government ownership of UK media organisations, setting a limit of 5% on that process. The Government have now moved that from 5% to 15%, which is considerably higher. However, there has been only a marginal debate in a Statutory Instrument Committee. My concern—it has only just been passed—is that that is a major change. It would have been fair if the Government had set about having a proper debate on it here in the Chamber of the House of Commons, because newspaper ownership is a very significant issue. The other place will potentially get a much larger debate, yet we are the elected House. I ask your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how we may raise the issue again?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism · Hansard source

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  I do have concerns about the last of the three organisations covered by the order, in relation to the application of the criminal law. There might be another way of doing it, but I support the Government’s position. However, this debate has cast into light the fact that we have taken no action to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Given all the elements that we are discussing today, this question sits like the elephant in the room: why are we not proscribing the IRGC? Why have we resisted doing that? That would have a huge impact on terrorism, or aspects of terrorism. Let us look at it carefully. The IRGC deliberately exports the Islamic revolution. It uses proxies and has been sponsoring terrorism—as has been demonstrated without dispute all over the world. It supports Hamas and Hezbollah and has supplied them with huge amounts of weapons. On whichever side of the arguments one sits, the fact is that this terrible killing would not have happened had that not been the case. The IRGC was heavily involved in that. It is sanctioned but not proscribed. Sanctioning does not give us enough powers to deal with its proxies and those who work for it. When in opposition, the Government campaigned to proscribe the IRGC. I remember quite happily working with various Members who were then on the Opposition Front Bench to do that. The Foreign Office endlessly says that we would lose all possibility of forming diplomatic relations or getting through to Iran, but how is that going? How has that gone over the past year? Not at all well. One cannot reason with these characters. A huge number of global attacks are rooted in IRGC money and training. It has high levels of activity in the UK, such as propaganda to try to build arrangements here, sometimes in plain view—there are even links on Facebook. It could be trapped, but it does it openly because nothing can be done to it at all. Of course, the IRGC supports Hezbollah, which is also proscribed. If we keep following this chain around and around, we come back to the IRGC. That should be the subject of the debate today. That should be the decision. That should be considered on the Floor of the House. The IRGC should be proscribed, because it is at the root of all terrorism that exists here and in the middle east. If we do not do that, it prompts the question of what we are doing here with these other three organisations.

• 24 Jun 2025 · China Audit · Hansard source

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  First of all, before we go to the political knockabout, let me say that I have spoken critically on this issue no matter who was in government; let us settle that before we go on. I want to give the Foreign Secretary a quick audit of exactly what should have been said. China threatens Taiwan, has invaded the South China seas and is having massive disputes with the Philippines. There is genocide, slave labour, organ harvesting and transnational repression. There have been attacks on Hong Kong dissidents here, and Hong Kong dissidents are constantly under threat. There have been cyber-attacks on the UK. China supports Myanmar’s repressive military regime and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also supports North Korea and Iran. It has trashed the Sino-British treaty on Hong Kong, arrested Jemmy Lai and placed sanctions on UK MPs, and it thieves all the intellectual property from private companies. What a record! And what would we balance against that? Some potential trade? This question has already been asked, in a way, but it is worth repeating. On the embassy decision, it was said clearly in the media that China would not apply again after the refusal from Tower Hamlets unless it received assurances from the UK Government. Can the Foreign Secretary tell me that China has not received any assurances? Or has it received private assurances from the Government that it will get what it wants, and will get this embassy?

• 24 Jun 2025 · National Security Strategy · Hansard source

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  Before the most recent election, the Intelligence and Security Committee produced a very comprehensive report on China, making it very clear that it considers China to be one of our greatest threats. I am therefore astonished that, in the whole of today’s strategy, there are three paragraphs that deal with China, and that it raises one or two issues and then proceeds to take a different decision. It talks about there being a problem with human rights—which is genocide—and the cyber-security attacks on the UK, as well as China’s espionage, interference in our democracy, sanctioning of people like myself and undermining of our economic security, and its being guilty of transnational repression. China also ships arms to Myanmar, keeping that brutal regime in charge, at the same time as building the largest navy. To what degree do three paragraphs satisfy the idea that China should surely be in the list of threats?

• 24 Jun 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. While the Foreign Secretary is sitting here, I thought it relevant to record that we have just heard that the American Government have put in a second disapproval, for security reasons, to the granting of a Chinese embassy in the proposed location.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I understand that many others want to speak, so I am going make a bit of progress if she does not mind. The other important point, when we think about what our vote today is all about, is the behaviour of the professional bodies that have been consulted on this, which have come out for the most part very strongly opposed to this legislation.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady on that reading. The professional bodies are completely divided, and most have come out in opposition to the nature of this legislation. It is all very well for her to say that, and I appreciate her right to say it, and I hope she gets to speak later, but I just do not agree with it. As was said earlier in the debate, the whole issue of mental capacity is not dealt with properly in the structure of this Bill. The hon. Member for Spen Valley talked about this earlier, and she was absolutely right. Even the amendments that were proposed were not always accepted, and we are left now with some areas that will be deeply troubling. We simply cannot accept that the Lords must make these changes for us, for we have to make them first. That is the key. The one big important area here—I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour the Health Secretary on this—is that we talk a lot about choice in dying, but how is that choice informed if palliative care in the UK is simply not good enough? Again, the Mother of the House spoke about this, and there are so many people affected: the most vulnerable; the people furthest away from institutions; and the ones who understand least how to work the health service or their local authority, and who rely mostly on us to try and break through. They will be faced with this problem more than almost anybody else, because they look in fear on these institutions. I helped to set up a children’s hospice, which I think was the first in London. There have been many more since, but children’s hospices, as we know, are really badly treated by Government spending, pretty much no matter who is in power. They have less than anybody else. Haven House, which I helped to set up and raise money for, has given a very strong quote, which I think represents much of what most of those hospices have said: “We would fully agree that a change in the law would have very significant consequences for the delivery of palliative care services and would be challenging given the existing resource pressures that we face. The hospice sector is experiencing significant financial pressures and the exceptional palliative care services we provide are not financially sustainable. The introduction of assisted dying would create new and demanding requirements for palliative care services and hospices in particular. It is therefore vital, whether or not the current legislation is passed, that the government takes urgent action to resolve” this matter. That is the case today. We cannot just say, “Well, that’s not our problem. Palliative care can be changed.” The trouble is that we have been unable to make the necessary changes to palliative care because we take such parti pris positions. That is the problem we face. I will end with this. I will vote against the Bill, mostly because I believe it is fundamentally unworkable and will lead to huge problems. We have seen what has happened elsewhere internationally—Canada, Oregon and various other places—where legislation slides and slides again as more and more amendments have to be made because these things are not workable. To those who have any doubt, I simply say this. This is Third Reading; it is not Second Reading—it is not an “in principle” debate. We had that debate, and now we have to decide whether we should send this unworkable piece of legislation to another place, which is unelected, to make the decision for us because we cannot come to a conclusion. We cannot let this go through.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have not spoken so far in these debates, but I have listened and attended on pretty much all occasions. I am moved to speak today because I am concerned. This is the point that the hon. Member for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft) made, but what is this debate today about? This debate is not about the principle of what we believe in when it comes to assisted dying—whether we are opposed to it or in favour of it. We had that debate on Second Reading. As the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), made very clear—in what I must say was an excellent speech—and as others have too, today’s Third Reading debate is about what we are about to pass on to the House of Lords, which will become law. And the single question we have to ask ourselves is: is this genuinely workable now? The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who moved the motion, knows that I have a high regard for her—I have worked with her on other things—but I honestly have to say that I simply cannot see how we in this House can pass this piece of legislation through to the other House, in the vague hope that somehow it will do better than us and make changes such that it will become a workable piece of legislation, and that is because this is a private Member’s Bill. If a Government were to introduce a Bill like this, we would see a great deal more input and a huge amount more checking with all those bodies. For example, we were told on Second Reading that the safeguards and protections we were sending to Committee would somehow become the most robust and strongest in the world. In fact, in Committee they got weakened, not strengthened, and that is the problem in all this.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  These bikes often accelerate fast, and only someone who is used to riding something that can move quickly on two wheels can do that. If not, they will go off the back. In a car, they would be restrained by the seat, but that is not the case on a bike or motorcycle. Knowing that does take some instruction—being ready, leaning into it and all the rest of it. My main point is that that is a good illustration of how we are being a bit too casual about these modes of transport, and too many young kids do not understand that they should have some training. For their sake, we should do more on this issue.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am all in favour of public campaigns and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be a very good idea for people to know that what they were buying was illegal. I suspect many of them already do so. That notwithstanding, if such a campaign could be backed up by a penalty for selling illegal bikes in shops, that would be a far better way of dealing with it. Right now, lots of kids do not know that the bikes are illegal, and they go and take these things and they can pay for them, and that is where the danger comes from. We are shutting the door too late. These kids have gone on to the roads, they have created an accident and they have killed themselves. That is too late for us. What we need to do is get ahead of this and try to figure it out completely. The final bit of this issue is the fact that people can change the monitors inside the boxes, even on the legal bikes, and lots of them do so. We see them going down the road at 30 mph, which is incredibly dangerous. I am a motorcyclist, I have to say, but Members should not go looking for the leather jacket; I left it at home.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clause 5, which stands in my name and is supported by hon. Friends in different political positions across the House. But, before I do so, I want to congratulate the Government—that is unusual from the Opposition, but I will do so anyway. I think that the Minister will know what I am about to say. The cuckooing amendment, which was moved in the last Parliament—the previous Government and she, in particular, were in discussions on that—has been passported through, as it were, so that cuckooing will be a criminal offence. That will hugely help those who have their houses taken over—the vulnerable and the elderly—and, where crimes are committed from those houses, the police will have a reason to go in without explicit knowledge of the crime being committed other than the cuckooing. To that extent, I thank the Government for making that a law. Hopefully it will go through without too much problem in the other place. I and many others appreciate that enormously. New clause 5 is consequential to an amendment to an earlier Bill on reckless and dangerous cycling, because there were no offences that were relevant to that and people were being killed and injured as a result of cyclists’ bad behaviour on the roads. One person in particular who campaigned for that amendment was Matt Briggs, and he was the reason that I brought that amendment forward. The Government accepted that amendment and it is now bound into legislation. However, there was an issue at the time about the danger of e-bikes. We know from talking to the police that e-bikes are now becoming responsible for some of the worst crimes on the streets, involving antisocial and threatening behaviour. They are silent and they can creep up on people rather quickly, and a lot of things that were being snatched by people on motorised scooters are now being snatched using e-bikes.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I bow before my right hon. Friend’s greater knowledge in these matters, having headed up the Department. I simply say that for this particular purpose, I agree with her. I am urging the Government to take this matter away and look at it in the other place. Although I will not press my amendment, because legal bikes are incorporated in the earlier cycling amendment that I put forward and the Government accepted, we need more work on illegal bikes and e-scooters. My worry, as I have said again and again, is that people can buy these things without any qualification whatsoever, whereas if I as a motorcyclist buy a bike, I have to be able to demonstrate that I am qualified to ride it away from the shop. People are not required to do so with e-bikes and e-scooters, so there is a peculiarity. Everywhere else in our legislation, we follow through. This one has dropped through the grid, and I therefore urge the Minister and the Department to look closely at the matter and see whether we can define that better in the other place and ensure that shops are unable to sell those bikes. I will not press this new clause because I think we are at the right place so far with the Government.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Not a toolmaker?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Don’t get excited—it’s not that great! Motorcyclists have to be tested even more than car drivers. There are balancing tests and they have to know everything like that. This is absolutely critical, because it is a slightly more dangerous mode of transport—more exciting, yes, but more dangerous. Someone cannot buy a motorcycle in a shop and take it away unless they are able to show their licence and that they are qualified to ride that bike, and that really requires instruction, but people can buy e-bikes—these electric vehicles—without any sort of licence. It seems bizarre that that should be allowed. Even though we want people not to use petrol, diesel and all the rest of it because of the environment, this goes beyond that.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I hope the Government will respond to that. However, she will forgive me if I focus on the essence of new clause 5, which is e-bikes. The definition of a legal e-bike is one that uses pedals and also uses electricity to assist the cyclist. All the other ones are illegal. This brings me to the problem that, if this measure is going to go through into law, as it will, will the Government press the police to start arresting and prosecuting not only the people who deliberately use e-bikes for nefarious purposes but more importantly, those who just cycle dangerously on footpaths? E-bikes are now more dangerous than bicycles in the sense that they are e-bicycles and therefore get up to higher speeds. Even though the speeds are supposed to be governed, they are still higher than most cyclists will get up to in the normal act of pedalling their way to work.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me. I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Political Prisoners · Hansard source

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  I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing. However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should. I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the United States Government’s national security concerns regarding the proposed Chinese embassy development at Royal Mint Court.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

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  The US Government, and today the Dutch Parliament, have expressed concerns about sensitive cables under Royal Mint Court. Beijing has a recent history of cutting cables and confirmed infrastructure hacks, including embedding malware capable of disabling all that infrastructure. Surprisingly, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology said on television yesterday that this issue is “in the planning process” and could be managed. Will the Minister correct the record? The planning inquiry has concluded, and no changes at all can be made to the Chinese planning application. I remind the Minister that the application contains nothing about cabling. Indeed, the Chinese have rejected only two requests by the inquiry—requests to which he referred; they were made by the Government, in the letter from the Foreign and Home Secretaries. That is despite Ministers regularly saying that the letter should “give those concerned comfort.” Rerouting the cables would, we know, cost millions, if the Government are even thinking about that, so I ask the Minister: why did the Government strongly deny, rather than tell this House about, the presence of the cables until the White House actually confirmed it? Chinese state media have reported that the UK has given assurances to the Chinese that the UK would allow the development, no matter what. Indeed, The Guardian newspaper reported in 2023 that the Chinese would not apply again unless they were given governmental assurances. Can the Minister confirm, or even deny, any of this? Speaking as one of those in the Chamber who have been sanctioned by China, I see this as Project Kowtow. There has been one denial after another, and one betrayal after another. No wonder our allies believe that this Chinese mega-embassy is becoming a walk of shame for the Government.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The politics of U-turns are not always bad; this is a welcome U-turn by the Government as people will benefit. It would have been helpful for the Minister to have said, “We made a mistake, but we are going to put it right”, but that is by the by. However, I have had many letters and communications, as I am sure have many other hon. Members from across the House, about a group of people who are still suffering: something like 750,000 pensioners who are eligible for pension credit, and therefore theoretically for the winter fuel payment, applied for the winter fuel payment but have not received a single penny for last winter. Whatever other changes are made, will the Minister commit to putting that situation right, so that those pensioners will receive the money that they should have had during the winter?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy · Hansard source

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  Thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker—that has given me a few more minutes. The ARAP scheme was introduced to provide a lifesaving path to safety for Afghan nationals who directly supported the UK’s mission in Afghanistan. At its core, it is a moral and strategic obligation. These individuals risked their lives working for UK forces, and I believe the UK must duly protect them. The Government were right at the time to introduce the scheme, and it is important to acknowledge that it has achieved something. However, in practice, I believe the scheme has fallen dramatically short both morally and logistically. Many eligible Afghans are still stranded under Taliban rule and fearing for their lives, which highlights the failures in the scheme’s execution.