John Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes a valid point. While I attack the rehabilitationist dogma, I do of course believe that we should try to save souls, and the best way of doing that is to address people’s fundamental problems, as many Members across the Committee have said in the course of this debate. That might be about ensuring that people have adequate learning, or it might be about the acquisition of a particular skill. The hon. Lady will know from her rich experience in these matters that if someone can get a job when they leave prison, they are much less likely to reoffend. When someone in those circumstances is unable to get a job, it is usually a result of the fact that they do not have core skills, in terms of basic competencies, or specialist skills. Where those can be provided through learning in prison, that undoubtedly has beneficial results—I have seen that myself in prison, where I have met both the people who run such services and the people receiving them. The hon. Lady is therefore right. However, I am really speaking about something more fundamental than that, which is a willingness to recognise —as the hon. Lady did, by the way, in her brief intervention —that punishment matters. The reticence or unwillingness to declare that as openly as I have, or the attempt to ignore or avoid it, is at odds with the instincts of the vast majority of our constituents. It is, perhaps, a product of a society that has lost its moral compass, where right and wrong have been eroded through a kind of moral relativism. Perhaps it is because of some quasi-Freudian need to explain crime in more complex terms than it may warrant—for it is simply a question of someone wanting something they cannot get and using force, violence or some other means to get it.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is an old friend, and I appreciate his attempt to improve the Bill. The new clauses that he supports are interesting and have merit. Will he acknowledge, though, that it is not just probation services that will be put under extra pressure by this Bill, but that the police will be too? Will he invite the Minister, when he sums up, to talk about the extra resources he can make available to Lincolnshire police and other authorities, as well as to the Probation Service, to implement the provisions of the Bill that he has brought to the Committee?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  We hear a lot about rehabilitation from Labour Members, and we hear a lot about recidivism. The most likely spur for recidivism is letting people out who will continue to do harm. We will be told by the Government that those people are being let out on licence, so will my right hon. Friend invite the Minister to predict how many people will be recalled while they are on licence? The Justice Secretary has already described that number as being too high, but will it rise as a result of these measures?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  We now move to the wind-ups. We have plenty of time, not that that is an invitation for speeches of an undue length. Members should keep it poignant but pithy. In that spirit, I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Will Forster.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I call the Minister, and ask him to allow a moment or two for the mover to sum up at the end.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This is the first time I have seen the Leader of the House at the Dispatch Box in his new role, and I welcome him. He mentioned religious freedom. That freedom must not be allowed to conceal the malevolence of Sharia courts, which operate in places across our constituencies—there are around 85. Indeed, we are described as the western capital of Sharia law. Although they have no legitimate lawful authority, those courts are reinforcing all kinds of horrors, including discrimination against women and non-believers, polygamy and other such things. It is time that there is a debate on this issue in the House, for we need to shine a light on that malevolence. There can be only one law in this country: the law that applies to each of us and all of us.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  If it were not so sinister, it would be quaint to hear the Secretary of State say that it is international, novel and modern, and therefore it must be good. Try telling that to Jaguar Land Rover workers, M&S customers, or postmasters and postmistresses. Will the right hon. Lady recognise what I recognised when I was the Home Office Minister responsible for national cyber-security: when one concentrates data and makes it interconnected and interoperable, one also concentrates risk, and the risk is that people lives will be damaged and possibly even destroyed?

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  Thank you very much to everyone for being so disciplined with their speeches. We have had an excellent debate so far. Let us hope that continues. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I call the shadow Minister.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I call Tom Morrison. Pithy please, Tom.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I call Jeevun Sandher. I will call the Liberal Democrat spokesman at 10.28 am.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I call Lizzi Collinge. There are two after you, Lizzi, so bear that in mind.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I am delighted that the Minister has broken his vow of silence. I call Rachel Blake to sum up.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I remind Members that they need to bob to catch my eye—I can see they are already doing that. Let us try to get everyone in by limiting the length of speeches. I will not set a limit; I will leave that to Members’ discretion. I call Liz Saville Roberts.

• 16 Sept 2025 · International Day of Democracy · Hansard source

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  I am going to call people for the wind-ups just before 10.30 am. You can see what time it is, so let us try to get everyone in—be powerful and pithy, please.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects: Suffolk Coast · Hansard source

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  I call the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State—no, I am underselling him. I call the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects: Suffolk Coast · Hansard source

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  I will call Jenny Riddell-Carpenter to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. Other Members should be aware that they can contribute only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. Sadly, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up the debate, because we have only half an hour.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The truth that dare not speak its name, at least on the other side of the Chamber, is that the public know what many on this side know too: that many more people should be imprisoned for much, much longer. Successive Governments have failed to grasp that nettle, because they have given in to what the Justice Secretary, who, by the way, is a personal friend of mine— [Interruption.] He is desperate to avoid that description. They have given in to what the Justice Secretary amplified today, namely the foolish idea that crime is an illness to be treated rather than a malevolent choice to be punished. We need a retributive justice system that recognises what the public recognise: that people like the thug whom my right hon. Friend described need to be punished, and punished severely.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way; he is always courteous in the Chamber. Let us be clear: is the Bill a result of too few prison places —I acknowledge, by the way, that successive Governments have built too few prisons—or is it driven by a certain ideology? Is it about rehabilitation, which I describe as the treatmentist approach to crime? There is a confused message emanating from this Chamber. On the one hand we are told that it is a matter of convenience, because we do not have the places, but on the other hand we are told it is a matter of principle, because we do not believe in prison. Where does the hon. Member stand on that?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I did not know that the hon. Gentleman had done that, so may I congratulate him on that? What he says is absolutely right and will, I think, be widely welcomed across the House. However, I must press him on one point. Does he, like me, believe that such people, once caught and convicted, should spend much longer in prison? Does he agree that they should be incarcerated because punishment is the right thing for people who have done wicked things, spoiled lives, and hurt families, hurt women and hurt children?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the former Attorney General for giving way. He is right to say that the matter could have been—and still could be, as I think he will also want to confirm—brought to our Committee. If, even at this late juncture, an overture were made to our Committee—clearly, it would have to be discussed at Committee—it would be perfectly possible for the Government to set out in those terms the advice they received that legitimises the position that they have taken.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Perhaps I can invite my hon. Friend to be helpful to the Minister. He clearly holds him in some regard, and he is right that he has got himself into something of a mess. By far the best way for the Government to proceed from hereon would be to make much more available either to this House or, as the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) suggested, to the Intelligence and Security Committee. That would clarify the terms of this trade—why it happened and the assessments that were made that led up to it—in a way that the House would be able to either legitimise what the Minister claims or refute it. A lack of transparency is half the Minister’s problem.