Keir Starmer MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I am appalled that we inherited such a situation where tooth decay is the most common reason that children between five and nine are admitted to hospital—in every children’s hospital on the Conservatives’ watch. I was very shocked when I first heard that, at Alder Hey hospital up in the north-west. More children between the ages of five and nine are being admitted to have their teeth taken out because they are rotting than for any other operation. That was the Conservatives’ record, and they should just be ashamed of it. That is why I am determined to rebuild NHS dentistry. I can confirm that discussions are under way with the sector, including the British Dental Association, on fundamental reform of the dental contract to get my hon. Friend’s constituents the care that they need and deserve.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend who has been a long-standing campaigner on this important issue. The public are right to be furious about how the last Government allowed sewage to pour into our lakes, rivers and seas. Alongside tough new powers to combat pollution, this ban will put an end to plastic wet wipes that litter our beaches, clog up our sewers and harm wildlife.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I was very proud to attend COP last week, and the UK is leading on tackling climate change, delivering energy security, getting bills down and generating hundreds of jobs across the country. We are investing over £250 million to put rooftop solar on schools, hospitals and military sites across the country, and that will deliver £400 million of savings to renew our public services.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Morgan McSweeney, my team and I are absolutely focused on delivering for the country. Let me be clear: of course I have never authorised attacks on Cabinet members. I appointed them to their posts because they are the best people to carry out their jobs. The right hon. Lady asks about waiting lists—waiting lists are down under this Government. The number of GPs is up, and because we have scrapped NHS England we are investing on the frontline. That is what the Health Secretary is doing today: getting on with his job, and he is doing a very good job too.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  My thoughts are with Lilly and her family. The details that my hon. Friend raises are deeply concerning. I know that he has raised this with Health Ministers and I will ensure that he gets a swift response. He is a powerful advocate for change, and I share his determination that everyone with an eating disorder gets the care and support that they need.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for raising this very serious issue, which has been raised by others across these Benches on previous occasions. It is simply not right that customers and staff have been so badly let down. The Care Minister has convened representatives from across the industry to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. I want to reassure the hon. Member that we are working speedily to consider how to strengthen regulation of these pharmacies, and I will update the House as soon as I can.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely extend that tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), who I think was at the game and who has campaigned tirelessly in this place and beyond to help us get to the position today where we can introduce the Bill. I do pay tribute to him and I am very pleased to do so from this Dispatch Box, as we introduce this important legislation.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her work and campaigning on this issue over many years. She makes a powerful point about the independent panel. I first met Bishop James Jones 15-plus years ago now, and I genuinely think he was among the first to listen properly—knowing what listening means—to those who were giving evidence to his panel, which is why the report that he made was so well received and respected. We will certainly give consideration to whether panels like that can serve a useful purpose in future.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention, then I will come to my right hon. Friend.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady anticipates my next point, which I will make before taking an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). We have to recognise that in some scandals, such as the Post Office Horizon scandal, the boundaries between the public sector and the private sector are complicated. In answer to the hon. Lady’s question, clause 4 of this Bill applies the duty to some private bodies, particularly those delivering public functions and those with relevant health and safety responsibilities, as well as relevant public sector contractors—in the Post Office case, Fujitsu—for that very reason. We have to recognise that the boundaries are blurred, and we need to make sure that the duty extends appropriately.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will just make some progress and I will come to the hon. Member. On the question of parity, what happened and what happens in so many cases is that families either have to scrimp and try to find the money for legal representation, or they have none. And what are they met with—the Hillsborough families were met with this—at inquests and inquiries, the working people who have had to save for justice? They have been met, time and again, by armies of state-funded lawyers; the deep pockets of the state—taxpayer money—has been harnessed for the explicit purpose of fighting against justice. The Bill aims to correct that inequality so that justice and the state serve all, with a new duty on public authorities to engage lawyers at inquests and inquiries only where necessary and proportionate, and to ensure that their representatives behave with the sensitivity and respect that victims and their families deserve. The Bill will also ensure that no bereaved family has to face an inquest alone, with the largest expansion of legal aid in a decade granting access to free legal aid for all inquests where the state is an interested party, so that working people like Margaret and the Hillsborough families will never again be faced with such inequality on legal representation, or, as in many cases, simply left with none. I will take the intervention I promised.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Before I come to the Bill, I put on record in this House my own tribute to the police, to the first responders and in particular to the heroic actions of the driver and members of staff on board the Doncaster to London train, where such a vile and horrific attack took place this weekend. We all share in the revulsion at this shocking incident, but there is no doubt that their collective action—their brave action—saved countless lives. I know that the whole country is grateful for that. Thirty-six years ago, 97 men, women and children went to a Liverpool football match in Sheffield—it was an FA cup semi-final, an occasion of joy—and they never came home to their families. I invite the House just to reflect on that simple statement of fact and what that might feel like. Nearly 15 years ago, when I was the Director of Public Prosecutions, I met many of the Hillsborough families during the independent panel led by Bishop James Jones. I will never forget what they told me in their testimony—painful to tell, painful to hear. It included the testimony of Jenni Hicks, who told me how she and her husband drove their two teenage girls to the game that day. They had to drive back later with an empty back seat. Every single story, every single experience is painful to the core—unimaginable to the core. So before I come to the contents of the Bill, I want to begin this debate with a simple acknowledgment, long overdue, that the British state failed the families and victims of Hillsborough to an almost inhuman level. But those victims and their families—their strength, their courage, their refusal to give up; and their determination, no matter what was thrown at them, to fight for people they will never know or meet, to make sure that they never go through something like this again—they are the reason why we stand here today with this Bill, they are the reason why it will be known as the Hillsborough law, and they are the reason why we say clearly again what should have been said immediately: that their loved ones were unlawfully killed and that they never bore any responsibility for what happened in Sheffield that day, and we say it from this Dispatch Box today because the entire country knows what happened next. We often call Hillsborough a tragedy, but it is more than a tragedy, because the disaster was not down to chance—it was not an accident; it was an injustice. And then further injustice was piled on top when the state subjected those families to enduring, from the police, lies and smears against their loved ones, while the central state, the Government, aided and abetted them for years and years and years. It was a cover-up by the very institutions that are supposed to protect and to serve, and it is nothing less than a stain on the modern history of this country. And yet, can we truly say that Hillsborough was an isolated example? No, because there are also the Horizon scandal, Grenfell Tower, infected blood, the grooming gangs, Windrush, and more besides. We should also be blunt about the fact that there is a pattern common to all these scandals: time and again, the British state struggles to recognise injustice because of who the victims are—because they are working class, because they are black, because they are women and girls. That is the injustice that this Bill seeks to correct, and I hope that it commands the support of the whole House.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  No, they will not be able to, but that is not a deficiency of this Bill; it is a long-standing constitutional rule. This will be about offences moving forward. But I will just make the point—because I do think it is important—that these measures will apply across the United Kingdom, and I would like to place on record my thanks to the devolved Governments for their collaboration on this. I can also announce that the Government intend to bring forward an amendment to extend this duty to local authority investigations in England, which will make sure that when an inquiry or investigation is set up by a local authority—for example, the Kerslake inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombings—there can also be that duty of co-operation and candour in the search for the truth.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Obviously, a lot of thought has been given to the particular issue of the security and intelligence services. The Bill is clear that the duty applies, but has a different way of applying it. I think that gets the balance right, and obviously there are various national and public interests to protect in so doing.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for raising that. This Bill is obviously intended to deal with all the situations in which there needs to be a duty of candour, with consequences if that is not adhered to.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that intervention. Of course we must acknowledge the role that the media and others played in this—it was a cover-up at so many levels. As for an oversight mechanism, I do not think that the Bill is the place for it, but I do agree with the proposition that when there are inquiries, there needs to be a better way of ensuring that they are followed through.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  To reassure my hon. Friend, the House, the families and all others affected by such scandals, these are clauses in a Bill that will soon be sections in a piece of legislation, but they are more than that: they change the nature of the relationship between the state and its duties to its people. That is so important. Yes, this Bill is the legal architecture, but something much bigger than this has to be put in place.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I really think that, with the Hillsborough families here in the House with us—

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will take one more intervention and then I will press on.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The Bill includes legal provisions to ensure that this can never happen again as a matter of law, but I have been clear—I have said this to the families on a number of occasions—that it is also the culture that has to change. The Bill is the architecture, but the culture of the state has to change.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also think that we owe the families a better debate than this descending into party political point scoring. I hope we can continue the debate in that way. This Bill will tackle that injustice so that when tragedy strikes and the state is called to account, in inquiries, inquests and other investigations, public officials—from police officers to the highest offices in the land—will be subject to that duty. That means that an injustice like this can never again hide in some dark corner of the state. Failure to comply—failure, therefore, to act with candour, transparency and frankness—will now carry criminal penalties, including being sent to prison.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I looked the families in the eye and made that promise, and I meant it. I say it again from this Dispatch Box: this Bill will not be watered down. This is such an important re-orchestrating of the relationship between the state and its citizens. It will not be watered down. I am very pleased to be able to affirm that from this Dispatch Box.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress, but I will take further interventions later. Let me now turn to the Bill itself, and first of all to the duty of candour. There are three parts to this, and the first is a new statutory duty of candour. At the Hillsborough independent panel, Bishop James Jones found that over 100 statements made by junior police officers had been deliberately altered to remove evidence unfavourable to South Yorkshire police—100 statements had been deliberately altered. I do not think there is anyone in this House who could possibly disagree that we must never let anything like that happen again. It is a disgrace, and the Bill before the House will tackle it.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  This does apply to non-statutory inquiries, so my hon. Friend’s point is covered in the Bill. I will press on. The second part of the duty of candour is a professional duty of candour for all public servants, because the Nolan principles of public service—honesty, integrity, accountability, selflessness, objectivity, openness and leadership—are not some kind of optional extra, but the very essence of public service itself. Every public authority will now be legally required to adopt a code of ethical conduct based on those principles, and to set out consequences for staff who do not comply, including disciplinary sanctions up to and including gross misconduct.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can confirm that. I want to emphasise the point again, because it is so significant, that out of the most unbelievable suffering, these families—these victims—have pushed for a change that took far too long, but that will now benefit and safeguard people whom they will never meet and never know. I find that kind of campaigning humbling, and we thank them for it.