Keir Starmer MP: speeches 2025

1393 published records · newest first.

Speeches

20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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We will develop the plan on the youth experience scheme with our partners. We have instructed our teams to move on all fronts as quickly as we can.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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The principles are: bills down and jobs up, and that is exactly what this deal delivers.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter, as it is of great importance to her constituents and to many others. Our creative sector is incredible. Whether people voted leave or remain, I honestly do not think that anybody really wanted or intended that our creatives should have difficulties getting on with their trade, and we will work at pace to try to resolve that.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I do not think the Conservatives are just against all things European, because they say they are against the India deal as well. That is a deal they tried for eight long years to negotiate. It is deeply embarrassing for them to say that that was what they were trying to negotiate and now they are against it. They are against the deal with the US, which they said they wanted to negotiate, which saves thousands upon thousands of jobs. Go to Jaguar Land Rover and tell those workers that you are going to reverse the deal, and look at the expressions on their faces. It is further evidence of the decline of the Tory party, away from free trade. I never thought I would see that, but we are seeing that now under this Leader of the Opposition. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about arbitration clauses: they are there in every trade deal that has ever been struck.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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Yes, absolutely. Getting that gateway open is hugely important for Scottish defence and security businesses. Those businesses are world leading, and so it would be a welcome opportunity for them.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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It is the same as the Windsor framework, which the right hon. Gentleman’s party negotiated. This is an important point: it is an independent arbitration process. There is the same process for pretty well every trade deal that is struck, not just by us and other countries but by most other countries. In this particular case, if the independent arbitration needs reference on a point of law, it is referred to the ECJ, which then refers it back to the independent arbitrator to make a decision. That is how it operates.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I have set out how the costs will be approached, but what we are not going to do is make those budgetary payments that other EU members make. We will look at proportionate payments into schemes, as is currently the case in relation to Horizon, which was negotiated by the previous Government. But the cost of the Tories to the country has been absolutely incalculable.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I remind the right hon. Lady that nothing that was negotiated on fishing by the previous Government has been given away; quite the contrary. On costs—I gave a full answer earlier—we are not paying into the EU budget in the way that EU members do, and that is why this unprecedented access is so important. In relation to schemes and programmes, yes, we will make a proportionate contribution, on the same basis, with the same principles, that the Conservative party—the then Government—negotiated the current arrangements on Horizon and research and development. It is hard to see why, having negotiated those arrangements, it is now suddenly against them.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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The arrangements are the same as those currently in place, and they are reciprocal, which is really important. What will be of huge benefit to the hon. Member’s constituents will be the reduction in red tape and bureaucracy for them when selling stock to the EU market, which is where a huge percentage—over 70%—of it goes to. That will come without the red tape, which drives up their costs.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not descend into silly language, like the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), but this is an important point. He and I get on, and I do not think—
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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We are discussing and engaging on that issue, which, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, is important.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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On the right hon. Gentleman’s question about this deal being a first step, it is intended that this is the beginning of a process to complete what we have already agreed. We also intend to have annual summits so that we can take our co-operation and co-ordination further, step by step, and we will do that while keeping to the red lines in our manifesto. On the question of a customs union, the problem with the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal—as I know he knows—is that we have just struck deals with India and the US. If we now undo that good work, we undo all the benefits of those two deals. For JLR and other car manufacturers, this is the here and now of their jobs at the moment. That is why we had our red lines and kept to those red lines, and I am not prepared to rip up the benefits that we have negotiated in those deals.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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It does so in two ways. It makes permanent the energy chapter in the current deal, and it goes beyond that to allow us to co-operate and co-ordinate more closely on energy; we have the ability for connection already, but we can now take better advantage of it.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I endorse my hon. Friend’s comments, and we will go at pace to move on the commitments we made yesterday.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I agree wholeheartedly. It has to benefit all our young people, whether through work, travel or study, and we will make sure that it does. We want to provide young people with this important opportunity and help them to take advantage of it.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I think last week I was overly rude and I apologise. I do respect the right hon. Member, and she makes a serious point. We are now outside the EU. We had red lines in our manifesto on the single market. We have kept to those red lines and delivered a very good deal.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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We are already aligned. We are in alignment; we are just not getting the benefit of it. This deal gives us the benefit, which will be counted in business, jobs and bills. In relation to an independent arbiter, under this agreement there is independent arbitration where there are disputes.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend puts her finger on it. Under the Tories’ deal, there was huge bureaucracy, huge red tape, huge cost to businesses. The reason businesses have come out to support this deal in huge numbers is because they know it will make life better for them, improve their business opportunities, and drive our economy forward.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman. On SPS, we have taken that step—the red tape goes—but we do want to reduce trade barriers wherever we can, both with the EU and with anywhere else, frankly. At a time when we are moving into a new era on trade and the economy—we certainly are—we need to reduce trade barriers across the country for the reasons we set out.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend. We will move at pace on all fronts. It is important that young people have those opportunities.
20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the red tape having such an impact on our small businesses. That is why I am pleased that we have made progress. We now need to make further progress as quickly as we can to ensure that businesses thrive in the markets in which they want to trade.
14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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May I extend my thoughts to Victor and the awful circumstances that the hon. Lady describes, which must be extremely challenging. We do have to reform the system because it is not working—I think there is general agreement about that—but the principles must be clear: we protect and secure those in need of protection and security; we help those who can work into work; and we believe that those who can work should work. We have to reform the current system to make it better, because what we have does not work.
14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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Yes, the belief that she talks rubbish. Mr Speaker— [ Interruption. ] Mr Speaker, I want to lead a country where we pull together and walk into the future as neighbours and as communities, not as strangers. The loss of control of migration by the last Government put all that at risk, and that is why we are fixing the system based on principles of control, selection and fairness.
14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend; he has been a dedicated campaigner on this issue for a very long time. As he knows, 14 years of mismanagement by the Conservative party left councils on their knees, with a total failure to improve and update how councils are funded. Through £69 billion of funding this year and the upcoming multi-year settlement—the first in over a decade—we will give councils far greater certainty and stability. Our detailed funding review will create a fairer system to make sure that his constituents see strong, affordable local services.
14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising this issue, which must be of concern. I am not across the details at this stage, but I will make sure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to get to the bottom of the issue.

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