Ian Byrne MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank all hon. Members from both sides of the House for attending on a one-line Whip, which shows the strength of feeling. Their presence proves that the unresolved problems that have emerged for many in Liverpool West Derby represent a national scandal requiring a national response. In my constituency alone, 35 people have contacted me with serious concerns about the administration of their civil service pension. I speak for them, and for civil servants, pensioners and bereaved families across the country being badly let down. They have served the public, paid into their pensions and planned their retirements in good faith.

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

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  A point well made. James Burke works for the Department for Work and Pensions in the Child Maintenance Service. James entered partial retirement, reducing his working week salary by about 20%, with his pension intended to replace the lost income and provide a lump sum. Neither has arrived. With his mortgage due for repayment on 30 July, his borrowing increased and his provider told him it could not offer a new product. James made nine calls to the helpline, sometimes waiting around two hours. He was promised resolution, then told payment was imminent before being informed that no timescale could be provided.

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

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  I agree completely with my hon. Friend. I will not be taking any more interventions, because people have put in to speak. Another of my constituents, Karen Morrow, took early retirement at the end of June. She will not receive a state pension for another two years. The civil service pension she earned was supposed to supplement her income. After two years of delay and inaction, she was told that her documents would be uploaded by 4 August and she might receive her pension by the end of that month. August came and went, and Karen received nothing. She has chased every single week. On her latest call, she waited three hours to be told only her that her case would be escalated—with no payment, no explanation and no reliable timescale. Karen has been left without an income since the end of June. The circumstances of the constituents’ cases I raise may differ in nature, but the pattern is the same: they earn their pension, yet carry the debt, uncertainty and stress created by a failing system. These are not minor administrative errors; they are major failures with serious human consequences. It is not just my constituents and many others around the country waiting for their pensions who have been failed by Capita; it is Capita’s own staff as well. Workers employed by Capita, including many in my city, have reported to the Public and Commercial Services Union that they are suffering due to the company’s failure to deliver on the contract. They struggle physically and mentally as a result of inadequate staffing levels, insufficient training, poor processes, inappropriate IT systems and constantly changing demands. More than half of Capita’s workers who took part in a PCS survey said that they experience stress every day or most days, with a quarter responding that they are frequently extremely stressed. One PCS member described their day-to-day experience: “every day is draining and it’s always a massive relief when my working day is over.” Many are resigning because working conditions have become intolerable. More than 75% told PCS that they are considering leaving their roles. Is there any wonder we are in this mess? We know that Capita has failed in its duty to run the civil service pension scheme, but clearly it is also failing its own staff. The Government’s actions confirm the scale of the crisis. In February, Ministers said that they were working to bring most aspects of the service back to expected levels by June. That deadline was missed. In July, after sending two separate letters to the Cabinet Office in December and March, the Government confirmed, in response to a written parliamentary question of mine, that Capita had failed to restore standard contractual service. Ministers rightly withheld the £9.9 million, deployed independent auditors, appointed a remedial adviser at Capita’s expense and recovered the cost of Government surge teams. Last Friday, Karl Flinders from Computer Weekly , having covered the scandal over the last year, reported that the Cabinet Office is establishing a team with direct access to Capita’s systems to independently validate its data. That is welcome, but is it not extraordinary that the Government have relied on Capita’s own management information in the first place? The contractor under scrutiny has been supplying the figures by which its performance is judged. How can Capita possibly be held to account in the way that it clearly needs to be? Despite those repeated interventions by the Government, on 7 September more than 1,000 bereavement cases were still more than 100 days old, alongside 308 death-in-service cases and 288 payment cases. Around 900 retirement quotations also remained from the backlog that Capita committed to clear. Bereavement, death-in-service and retirement are not cases on a spreadsheet; these are human stories—people facing some of the most difficult moments in their lives. The sequence is clear: a deadline was set, missed and followed by emergency measures, yet hundreds remain trapped in the backlog. Progress is welcome, but progress is not resolution. The question is no longer whether there has been a serious failure—that is absolutely beyond dispute. The question is when will civil servants, pensioners and bereaved families finally see the end of it? I have raised this repeatedly with Ministers; sought Cabinet Office engagements with the PCS general secretary, Fran Heathcote; supported parliamentary motions; and tabled questions on the backlog, compensation, sanctions and bringing the service back in-house. I secured this debate because constituents are still coming to me in absolute distress. This brings us to the fundamental question of outsourcing. We are told that outsourcing delivers efficiency and transfers risk, but when Capita failed, civil servants cleared the backlog, employers provided hardship funds and Government-appointed auditors and MPs became an escalation route, so where exactly was the risk transferred? Administration was outsourced; responsibility was not. A private company holds the contract while the public sector picks up the pieces, and all the while our constituents carry the consequences. This is the failed ideology of outsourcing laid bare: born under Thatcher, followed by successive Governments of all colours in the name of efficiency while delivering absolutely the opposite and putting the burden on ordinary people. Whether it is Fujitsu in the case of the Post Office Horizon scandal, or even our failing water industry, how many more examples must we bring before this House before the political establishment finally accepts that this experiment has completely failed? Today I ask the Minister for three clear commitments: recovery, compensation and accountability. First, on recovery, will the Minister set out a firm dated timetable for returning the scheme to normal service? That must include clearing overdue cases and urgently prioritising those without income and those with serious welfare, bereavement and ill-health cases. As part of that, the Government must also commit to publishing the number and age of outstanding cases until that has been achieved. The parliamentary caseloads that MPs have received on this issue should also be highlighted. Secondly, there is compensation. When failure creates debt, higher borrowing costs, mortgage problems or reliance on hardship support, people should not face another battle to regain the position they would have been in had the service worked as it should have. Will the Minister provide a clear, simple and accessible route to compensation for financial loss? Thirdly, there is accountability. The Government have announced a public interest test under which contracts worth more than £1 million will be assessed for in-house viability before renewal. If ever a service justified considering whether public provision would be more resilient, reliable and accountable, surely this is it. After months of failure under the administration of Capita and every indication that problems will persist, surely we have our answer. Will the Minister commit to bringing the administration of the civil service pension scheme back in-house, to put it back in the service of the people it exists to support? This is not an attack on the staff working hard to clear the backlog; it is about the system and the political choices that have put us in this position. David should be able to reduce his hours to care for his elderly parents, James should not fear losing his home, Karen should not be left without an income and spending hours chasing her pension, and the other 32 constituents who contacted me should not need their Member of Parliament simply to access the pension service they were promised and have earned. Civil servants have served our country and our communities; they have paid into their pensions and planned their futures in good faith. They have kept their side of the bargain; it is time for the Government and the system for which they are responsible to keep theirs. I ask the Minister for three things: recovery, compensation and accountability. The administration may have been outsourced, but responsibility cannot be outsourced with it. It is time for the system to do its part for our civil servants.

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

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  These civil servants are entitled to expect accurate information, pensions paid when they are due and accountability when things go wrong. With the permission of my constituents, I want to place on the record three West Derby cases. Dave Barlow has spent around 18 months trying to obtain up-to-date pension information. He tells me that he has not received an annual benefit statement for several years. Dave, who is reducing his working week partly to care for his elderly parents, is due to begin partial retirement on 6 October, yet he still does not have the information needed to plan his finances. He was given no guarantee that his pension would be ready, no timescale for his statement and, incredibly, was told by Capita to approach his employer for hardship support if necessary. Think about that—a civil servant may have to seek hardship support because the private company paid to administer his pension has totally failed to do its job.

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

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  That excellent point is well made, and I will raise it in my speech.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Revocation of Honours · Hansard source

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  9. What steps her Department is taking to revoke the honours of disgraced individuals.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Revocation of Honours · Hansard source

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  In December last year, the Independent Office for Police Conduct found that Sir Norman Bettison, the chief inspector for South Yorkshire police at the time of the Hillsborough disaster, would have had a case to answer for gross misconduct had he still been a serving officer today. This related to his role in the Hillsborough cover-up, his deliberate dishonesty in the aftermath of the disaster, and his lying about his involvement during his application for the post of chief constable of Merseyside police in 1998. Yesterday I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask whether the Forfeiture Committee has taken December’s finding into account. Can my hon. Friend confirm that that finding is being considered by the Committee? If not, will he make representations that it should be?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I fully agree; I have signed the hon. Gentleman’s amendments and we have been in many Committees speaking on this issue. New clause 108 provides a proportionate and evidence-based mechanism to address this issue. The new clause does not name or target any individual company. It would establish a clear and principled test, rooted in international law and internationally accepted standards, that every contractor must meet. If a company such as Palantir cannot meet that test, it should never hold contracts in our NHS or with Government Departments. I have repeatedly urged the Government to trigger the 2027 break clause in Palantir’s contract to operate the federated data platform. I make that call again tonight. It is only through a measure such as new clause 108 that we can ensure that companies such as Palantir cannot operate in our public services again. It should be accepted, but the principle behind it should not end with the NHS. It should apply across every Government Department, led by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office’s report on social value and procurement, published last month, was welcome, but it contained a glaring omission: a clear ethical foundation. My clause would provide that crucial and much-needed safeguard, ensuring a legislative framework that prevents companies with records like Palantir’s from securing public contracts in the future. Last week, I visited the Vatican and spoke with officials about how the United Kingdom could lead the world in the ethical use of artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. Tonight, my Government have a real opportunity to put a marker down and demonstrate that Britain intends to be at the forefront of that global movement. I look forward to helping them achieve that if they adopt my new clause. Let us make it clear that scrutiny, transparency and respect for human rights are not optional extras in public procurement, but conditions of entry for any company seeking to serve NHS workers and patients. That is what new clause 108 calls for, and that is the change that will be welcomed in Liverpool West Derby, across our country and, indeed, in the halls of the Vatican. I look forward to the Government’s response.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to my new clause 108, because the public rightly expect any company entrusted to operate within our national health service to meet basic standards of ethical conduct, both inside and outside the NHS. In my experience as parliamentary lead on the Hillsborough law, I regularly met members of the public who were shocked that a duty of candour that would compel public officials to tell the truth to the people they served did not already exist. I believe that many of my constituents will be equally shocked that the basic principles of ethical accountability are not already enshrined in Government procurement policy, but they are not. New clause 108 is not radical. It is a straightforward safeguard requiring the Secretary of State to review the NHS procurement framework and ensure that companies with proven involvement in violations of international law or breaches of internationally accepted standards of business conduct cannot be offered public contracts. Those standards include the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and the OECD guidelines on multinational enterprises. What exactly is there to disagree with? They ask the bare minimum of businesses: that do not contribute to harm, that they carry out proper human rights due diligence and that are transparent about how they handle the data of the people they serve. Yet we currently have a company operating at the heart of our NHS infrastructure, through the federated data platform, that fails to meet that basic standard. I am talking about the US tech firm Palantir. Palantir has consistently refused to publish a formal human rights impact assessment for its software used in Israel’s assault on Gaza, in violent ICE detentions in America, and in its use of NHS staff and patient data. Such a lack of transparency is not a technicality but a serious failure to meet the standards in the UN and OECD guidelines. I first raised concerns about Palantir’s NHS contract in a letter to the then health Secretary in August 2023, and these concerns have been echoed by many, many others. I am pleased that Parliament has started to push back, with calls from numerous Committees for Palantir to be dropped. I also fully support new clause 34, tabled by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley). Patients trust the NHS with the most sensitive information they possess.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Back in 2015, I had the number 96 tattooed on my wrist. It was not simply a tattoo; it was a promise. It was a promise that whenever life became difficult, I would never forget one simple truth: I was one of the lucky ones. I walked away from Hillsborough, but 96 did not. Today we remember the 97. That number on my wrist and the people it represents has become my compass. Every time I look at it, I think of those who never came home. I think of their families and of survivors like my dad, who was seriously injured. I think of every campaigner who has spent decades refusing to accept the lies, refusing to surrender to injustice and refusing to allow the truth to be buried. They have shaped my life far more than they will ever know. I owe them more than I could ever repay. In the years after Hillsborough, one question followed me everywhere. It is a question every survivor knows—every survivor of Grenfell knows it; every survivor of a public disaster knows it. It arrives uninvited in the silence of the early hours of the morning: “Why did I get to walk away when others didn’t?” For years, that question haunted me. What responsibility do you carry when your survival comes at such a terrible cost to others? What do you owe those who never got the chance to live the life you have lived? I began to find my answers long before I entered this place. In 2009, after finishing an early shift at my printing factory, I went with my dad and my mates—people who had stood beside me at Hillsborough—to the 20th anniversary memorial service at Anfield. We stood shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people. We remembered. Then came the chant that echoed around the stadium: “Justice. Justice. Justice.” Not because it was a slogan, but because it was all we had left. For two decades we had been lied to, families had been ignored, survivors had been smeared. Those who should have protected ordinary people protected themselves instead, and this House—with honourable exceptions—too often looked the other way. That is a stain on our democracy that I will never forget. But that cry for justice could no longer be ignored. It forced this place and the country to confront the truth and, ultimately, it led to the Hillsborough independent panel. At last, the truth broke through. It confirmed what the people of Liverpool had always known: the supporters were innocent. The lies were exposed, the cover-up was exposed, and the culture of unaccountable power was exposed. The families, the survivors and the people of Liverpool will never forgive those who deliberately vilified innocent people and orchestrated that cover-up. They will never forget what Rupert Murdoch, Kelvin MacKenzie, The Sun , Norman Bettison and South Yorkshire police did not only to the victims and survivors, but to an entire city. The wounds they inflicted went far beyond any newspaper headline; they damaged lives, reputations and trust in our institutions. That is why I will continue to campaign for Leveson part 2 and for Bettison to be stripped of his knighthood. The new inquests in 2016 finally recognised what should have been stated from the very beginning: the victims of Hillsborough were unlawfully killed. Those words mattered because the truth matters. But truth without accountability is never enough. Truth without justice leaves a wound only partially healed. The families deserved justice. The survivors deserved justice. We never got it for Hillsborough. Then, Bishop James Jones gave us not just a report, but a warning that should echo through every public institution in Britain: “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”. Those six words alone should be studied by every public authority in this country, every Minister, every chief constable, every permanent secretary and every senior public official, because if we do not learn those lessons, we will carry on repeating them. Few reports have ever described the British establishment with such devastating accuracy. When power is unaccountable, truth becomes negotiable, justice becomes optional and ordinary people are sacrificed. The Hillsborough law was born from that understanding. Its purpose is simple: never again should a grieving family have to fight the state simply to discover the truth. In 2021 I was asked by my friend, now my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), to carry the baton for a Hillsborough law in Parliament and to bring the voices of the families and survivors into Parliament, to make sure no family ever again goes through what the Hillsborough families and survivors went through. There are moments in politics that define why we are here—why we have been given this privilege. This was mine. I never saw this as my campaign. It always belonged to the families; I was simply trusted to carry their voices into this House.