Kieran Mullan MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I will not; there is not time. While I do not seek to say that the Bill will be used in that way—to deliberately bring about an end to the lives of confused or elderly patients—my worry is about how it will insert itself into that battle in our country between the best and worst of our natures, in families, conversations and settings where people, as much as we do not like to believe it, actively, for selfish reasons, wish that their relatives were dead, and where those relatives know that their family wish that they were dead. I do not want a Bill, or a message from this Parliament, to go out to the wider country to say that not just Parliament but the mechanisms of the NHS—a wing of the state—will sometimes support and help them to end their lives. I remain deeply sympathetic to the scenarios and circumstances that people have described, and I can personally foresee a situation where I would want to make use of this Bill and feel that it would benefit me, but we should not legislate for what we might want. We have to legislate for what is in the broader interests of our constituents and our country, not least because, as many have articulated, the Bill has serious flaws. There is, in particular, the arbitrary decision to implement it in four years’ time, regardless of what might be happening with our palliative care services, which have, even recently, faced new and very real funding challenges. While I understand why people think the Bill would bring benefits for some people, and I acknowledge that it would, I think that the price we are asking some of the most vulnerable and in-need people in our society to pay, and the risk we are asking them to face, is simply too high.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the opportunity to give my personal views on this Bill, as colleagues in health have taken over responsibility for it. I have spent most of my life as someone who was highly sympathetic to the cause of assisted dying and imagined that I would support it if I ever was an MP, but that changed in 2018 when I read the Gosport War Memorial hospital independent panel report published in that year. The report should be more widely read, and I often wonder why it did not get the attention that it deserved. It found that between 1987 and 2001, more than 450 NHS patients had their lives prematurely shortened by healthcare staff. They were mainly elderly—the average age being 81—but some were as young as 61, and more than 70% of them had been admitted to hospital not needing palliative care or being at the end of their lives. The report describes what happened to some of them. One patient was admitted for respite care but deteriorated and became confused during his stay. Staff asked permission to give him diamorphine, but his daughter refused as he was not in pain. However, his wife later agreed, and he was started on diamorphine via syringe driver. He died the same day. A man admitted for dementia was started on a diamorphine syringe driver; staff asked his son for permission, and he gave it, but he felt that there was no explanation of what it meant to be given diamorphine. The dose was doubled, and his father died five days later. His son felt that the diamorphine had effectively killed him. Why did that happen? It happened because the staff in that hospital and on that ward had developed a culture of prioritising convenience in looking after patients over the value of their lives. It speaks to something that we often do not like to talk about and might feel guilty about: looking after people is not only challenging but can sometimes be deeply unpleasant. As a doctor, I have helped to look after people who, when someone approached them to give them care, would scratch or hit out at them. I have helped to look after patients who refuse to stay in bed even though it is in their best interests, and who continually wander the wards and need to be monitored all the time. Then there is something that perhaps seems benign but is sometimes very challenging: the patients who continually call out for help again and again and again, perhaps asking for a medicine or a meal that they have already been given, and refuse to be consoled. Most of the time, that brings out the best in our nature, as we would want—to be kind, caring and compassionate —but it can sometimes bring out the worst in our nature: our impatience, our intolerance and even our cruelty. While I have seen that happen in hospitals, I know that it goes on in private homes up and down the country every day.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because it brings me nicely to my next point. In these scenarios we have to avoid any judgment or lecturing parents who are unable to do that, because there are many reasons why parents differ. It is not just about time or money; there is good research about the links between life outcomes and values and ideas in someone’s upbringing. There are all sorts of factors. It is difficult and things have changed so much. Several decades ago, most people were raising their children within walking distance of their wider kinship network. Most people saw their own parents at least every other day, and a wider network of people were involved in raising a child. That is much more physically difficult to achieve these days. We have had all the focus on social media and the challenges it presents. I will go on to thank the 1001 Critical Days Foundation later, but it has commissioned research into screen time for babies, showing the impact of excessive screen time even on babies, while our focus has been on older children. If we get this wrong, the consequences are for everyone to see. I am a shadow Justice Minister. Crime costs us between £170 billion and £250 billion a year. We know that if a child experiences four or more adverse childhood events, they are more than 20 times more likely to end up in custody at some point as an adult. All these things are interconnected. The question is: how do we help? I had the privilege of visiting Sidley family hub in my constituency relatively recently, and I spoke to the professionals there who meet and work with parents every day. I asked them, “What is the most important thing that you do?” The most important thing they say, consistently, to people from all backgrounds, was that it was okay to ask for help and to say, “I need help.” The most important thing they say, consistently, to people from all backgrounds, was that it was okay to ask for help and to say, “I need help.” It is about challenging the stigma, so that everyone feels it is all right to ask for help. We do not think we can necessarily do the plumbing, the gas or the electrics in our houses without help, and parenting is 10 times more complicated and difficult than any of those jobs. It is normal for people to think they might need some help at various points along the way. Returning to the Bill, there are a few reasons why I support it. The first is its focus on babies, because anything else we do further down the chain will not be as good as anything we do at the start. The sooner we do anything we can to help a parent be more effective, to help them understand the role and to support them, the more we get back from that investment. Our funding pyramid in this area is completely the wrong way round. Money builds up as we go further along the journey, but if that money was spent on day one and from conception onwards, we would get much more from it. The second reason I support the Bill is clause 1(2)(b), which talks specifically about supporting the relationship between a parent or carer and an infant. This is about relationships as much as it is about anything else, and it is great that the Bill states that so clearly. The third reason I support the Bill is the provision to report regularly. We all know that reporting does not necessarily create the impacts and change that we want, but it is a powerful tool for parliamentarians across parties to make it difficult for Governments to move an issue out of the spotlight, so I welcome that provision. I will also touch on the Bill’s terminology, and the fact that it talks about carers. I recently met a kinship carer in my constituency who was looking after her own grandchildren. Such people provide an enormous service to our society in so many different ways. I am talking not just about kinship carers, but adoptive parents and others. From a purely financial perspective, the money that would be spent on those children if they were in care of one form or another is astronomical. These people take that burden on, and it is natural and human to want to do that. I do not think we should be thinking about them doing it for money or paying them—people should want to look after their wider family network—but at the very least we should be spending money on making sure that it is as easy as possible for them to do that, so that if anybody ever said to them, “How was it being a kinship carer?” we would know that every single kinship carer would be a cheerleader and a champion for it. We want them to be able to say, “It was difficult, but I felt fantastically supported.” I do not think I have ever met anyone who says that about their experience of being a kinship carer.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

  More

  One of the other challenges I heard about in the family hub I visited was that, in constituencies like mine, we have towns but also lots of villages that are perhaps very far away. I agree with people having to physically go somewhere, but this is an example of where funding for rural authorities needs to reflect the additional costs involved in providing all sorts of services, including family hubs.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

  More

  This might be an opportune moment for the House to pay tribute to Dolly Parton, who did an enormous amount of work across the world to encourage children of all ages to read.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for raising that point, because people stepping up in those circumstances is incredibly important. Those who have siblings will know the importance of siblings in helping each other out and supporting each other through life—I have experienced that. All these wider family networks do so much. If they were not doing it, the state would end up picking up the bill, and that would not be good for anybody, so I pay tribute to how this Bill recognises the wider set of people who are involved in raising children. I conclude by again thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West and the 1001 Critical Days Foundation. I also pay tribute, as many others have done, to the right hon. Dame Andrea Leadsom for her work over many years. Like the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis), I am an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on babies (pregnancy to age two), and I thank the Parent-Infant Foundation for the work it does as the APPG’s secretariat. This Bill is a great opportunity to channel so much of the work that we want to do as part of that APPG. I welcome this debate and the attention it has given to the most important task ahead of any society, which is to raise the next generation successfully.

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on his achievement in bringing this Bill forward. We all know how a varied job being in this place is, and he is testament to that: after all these decades, he gets to do something brand new. That encourages us all to keep doing new things in this place, however short or long our time is here. I support this Bill, because it is about one of, if not—I would argue—the most important issue that sits before any society: how to successfully raise the next generation. The manner of that challenge has changed enormously over the course of human history. Even just a few hundred years ago, the single biggest thing that a parent could do to successfully raise their child was to get them to adulthood, as 50% of all children died before reaching adulthood. In this country, the equivalent figure now is about 0.5%. Although the loss of every child is a tragedy, those figures show the big change in the challenge that parents face. In fact, as another way of illustrating the difference, suicide accounts for a quarter of all deaths of older teenagers in this country. More than anything, the challenge for parents now is to raise content, productive children who go on to lead fulfilled lives as part of a much more complicated society. My interest in this area is one of the main driving forces behind my wanting to get into politics. It dates back to my time as a medical student and some of the experiences of meeting patients. In particular, I remember a lady who came to see me the first time I was in placement at a GP practice, when I was a student. She had come to see the GP because she did not know how to get her children to go to bed on time. I remember thinking, “What an absolutely valid thing to want help with,” but I wondered what was going on in wider society that resulted in the GP being the only person she felt she could get help from. I also remember from my paediatrics placement a dynamic professor who sat us down and gave us a seminar about attachment theory. I was astounded to learn that, at age four, a child can be tested for whether they are attached to their caregivers; if they are not, that is enormous predictor of their future health outcomes. All the way at the other end of the spectrum, as an A&E and general hospital doctor looking after older patients, I often wondered where their children were and what had gone on their family to lead to there being no bond or attachment—they often spent many days in hospital without anyone coming to see them. In my work as a volunteer policeman, I have met young people on council estates where membership of gangs and crime were rife. Some young people had managed to overcome those challenges, and the thing that seemed to stand out as a protective factor was their parental and family environment. We have heard a lot today about the challenges and perspectives of parents. I am not a parent—I hope to be one day, but I am not at the moment—so I wanted to offer that perspective that we have all had as a child on the receiving end of what we are talking about today. I began to reflect on how different the people I met and the scenarios I came across were from my own experience. My parents are divorced, so mine was not a perfect image of what a family looks like, but I felt incredibly supported and loved, and I was taught enormously the importance of values and morals in a way that only a parent a can, sometimes even in opposition to the state. I had an ambition to study medicine, and at a parents evening my A-level chemistry teacher told me I was predicted to fail that A-level and had no chance of getting into medicine. It was my mum who was determined that I would overcome that challenge. It was my mum who coached me after work in the evenings to pass my 11-plus, to get into grammar school. All those things came from my parents, including my dad in different ways.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) on securing it and the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on his previous efforts. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for his long-standing work in this area. It was helpful that he set out in his contribution that the issue is not new and that similar attempts to use the law in such a manner go back quite some time. Free speech is not simply a “nice to have”—it is one of the foundations on which free society is built. It allows whistleblowers to come forward, victims of abuse and misconduct to tell their stories and be heard, and journalists and campaigners to hold the powerful to account. However, free speech is not real if it can be exercised only by those wealthy enough to defend it. When people are frightened into silence not because what they have said is false but because of the cost of being right is too high, something is fundamentally wrong. That is the danger posed by SLAPPs. At their worst, SLAPPs are not really about winning in court but about using the process itself as a punishment. They are designed to make the journey to court so expensive and exhausting that the journalist, campaigner, whistleblower or victim gives up before a judge ever considers the merits of the case. That chilling effect is not accidental—it is the point. Claims that go all the way to trial can cost an enormous amount in legal fees. Even a defendant who wins can be left with thousands of pounds of unrecovered legal bills. The threat being made is not always “We will win”; very often, it is “We can afford this for longer than you can.” Asymmetry is the weapon. We have seen that in some of the most high-profile cases involving British journalists and publishers. Catherine Belton and her publisher faced multiple legal actions after the publication of “Putin’s People”; Tom Burgis and HarperCollins faced litigation over “Kleptopia”; and Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat were pursued through the courts by Yevgeny Prigozhin. I pay tribute to those publishers and businesses who resisted that pressure and were willing to pay those legal bills that enabled those publications to survive, when we know others do not. These cases show how wealthy and powerful overseas actors, including Russian oligarchs, Kremlin-linked figures and large foreign corporations have been able to use or threaten to use English courts to put pressure on British journalists who are investigating corruption, kleptocracy and misconduct. That should concern every Member of this House. We have to have a situation in which journalists can continue to act without fear or favour. We want charities to be able to raise concerns about wrongdoing and survivors of abuse to speak publicly about what happened to them. I have spoken in the House before about how the UK is the most frequent international origin of legal threats against journalists, accounting for 31% of all such cases. There are lots of things that we can be proud of about our judicial system and its popularity around the world, but that should give us pause for thought. Around 30% of SLAPPs in 2023 were used to prevent reporting of sexual misconduct. We cannot think of that as an intangible threat to freedom of speech alone: it is being used to silence victims of some of the most personal violations imaginable. The shadow Justice Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), put it plainly in a previous debate on this subject: “SLAPPs have been deployed by those with deep pockets against company employees, non-governmental organisations, campaign activists, survivors of abuse and people from many walks of life.” —[ Official Report , 21 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 423.] He was right. This is experienced not only in Fleet Street, but by charity workers who have documented wrongdoing at care homes, by campaigners who have published evidence of environmental harm and by the victims of sexual violence. Let me be clear about the Conservatives’ position: we support the principle of regulating further to stop abusive SLAPP litigation. It is not right that wealthy individuals, foreign oligarchs or large corporations can use disproportionate spending power and the threat of financial ruin to silence legitimate public interest. Any legislation must be well drafted and carefully considered. People must still be able to defend their reputations in court. If a person is genuinely being defamed or false allegations have been made against them, they must have access to justice. I am sure we have all had our own experiences. During a previous election campaign, a so-called journalist decided that my record as a volunteer policeman was entirely fantastical and made up, and that I was a criminal, and I had to get a solicitor involved to get that taken down. I am sure that we have all had similar experiences. Clearly, at the moment the balance is wrong. The question is whether the courts should be used by those with the deepest pockets to intimidate critics, bury investigations and frighten others into silence. They should not. It is important, as many hon. Members have already done, to recognise the progress to date. The previous Conservative Government introduced the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 that provided the first statutory definition of a SLAPP and created a power to strike out abusive claims at an early stage in cases relating to economic crime. We recognise, as the motion notes, that those provisions were narrow, but they were a start. The previous Government also ran a call for evidence in 2022, covering the wider landscape of SLAPP abuse, and supported the private Member’s Bill from the then Member of Parliament for Caerphilly that would have extended those protections significantly. That Bill fell before the election and a new version of it was not proposed by the new Government. The current Government’s record on the issue has been underwhelming. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), described the abuse of courts by the rich and powerful as intolerable. In October 2024, the Justice Secretary promised legislation as soon as parliamentary time allowed, but it did not appear in the King’s Speech. We then learned that plans had been drafted and were ready to go, but they were reportedly shelved due to fear of the backlash from some lawyers. Some 111 peers, including eight former Cabinet Ministers, signed a cross-party letter in April demanding action. In its 2022 model law, the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition set out a possible clear legislative framework and has been waiting for a response ever since. The co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition described action on SLAPPs as “a relatively easy win”, not only for a Government, but for the protection of public interest speech and the overall health of our democratic society. I acknowledge the work done in the other place by Baroness Stowell of Beeston. For some time, the Lords have been an important advocate of legislation in this area. The point I make to the Government is simple. They do not need to start from scratch; they have years of cross-party debate, expert testimony and the lived experience of victims. They have campaigners, journalists, lawyers and Members from across both Houses calling for action. The building blocks are there, and the Government have accepted the principle. The previous Prime Minister has called SLAPPs intolerable. The Justice Secretary has said that legislation will be brought forward, but the King’s Speech has been and gone, so what is the Government’s plan? If the answer today is only warm words, I think the 111 peers who signed the cross-party letter, the editors of The Times , The Sun and The Guardian , the National Union of Journalists, the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition and every Member who has spoken in this debate are perhaps entitled to a little something more. People must be free to defend their reputations in court, but wealthy individuals and corporations must not be able to abuse that freedom and use disproportionate legal firepower to silence legitimate free speech.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

  More

  That is fantastic rhetoric, but the reality of the funding formula is that it does exactly that—it creates hierarchies, inefficiencies and unfairness in the funding. Given that so many Members have raised it in the debate, will the Minister pledge to look again at the funding formula and how it negatively impacts on so many of our communities?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for throwing the spotlight on the challenges that many of our communities face. More than 20% of Bexhill’s neighbourhoods are among the most deprived in England. Many of the speeches this morning have focused on what central Government can do, but I will use this opportunity to recognise and thank the organisations that do amazing work in my community to tackle the challenges we face, right here, right now. For example, funded by the previous Government’s levelling-up fund, Heart of Sidley has shown what can be achieved through years of grassroots work, local partnership and community leadership, developing a vision for a brand new community hub at the heart of Sidley. I thank Tanya and her team, the chair, Jay Carroll, and all the volunteers involved in that project. The Pelham is helping to tackle the causes and consequences of social isolation and poor mental and physical health through youth work, counselling and volunteering. It is also home to the suicide prevention-focused running group RunningSpace, founded by Jacky Youldon, who has direct experience of how exercise helped her. The Bexhill Family Collective provides a local nursery service, Dragonflies, as well as a community pantry, and outdoor learning and gardening activities for families. Bexhill Caring Community has for decades provided affordable and vital support to older, housebound and lonely residents. Freedom Church in Sidley provides a community marketplace, which redistributes food that would otherwise go to waste to households that are struggling. Many others, including Bexhill Foodbank Advice Service, Warming Up The Homeless, and Bexhill and Rother Homelessness Unity Group, are all doing their best to tackle the challenges in the community, and they provide hope, advice and support to so many people. The Government have a role and I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West about the funding formula and the challenges it has created. Of course, as a coastal community with a lot of hospitality businesses, the damaging jobs tax and the increase in business rates have made things difficult. However, in Bexhill we are looking ahead to our £20 million town deal, which was awarded by the previous Government. I know that residents are excited about what we can achieve with that money, because Bexhill, at its heart, is a community of positive people who want to get things done and want to improve their lot in life. We will do everything we can with that money to support them in doing so.

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

  More

  No. I would challenge any MP — [Interruption.] Not yet, not yet. No matter how supportive of this legislation, with far-reaching—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] No, I will finish this moment. With far-reaching consequences— [ Interruption. ]

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

  More

  I would challenge any MP, no matter how supportive of this legislation—which has such far-reaching consequences for the operation of the Government—to say that its progress, particularly over the last 24 hours, is anything like careful and considered.

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

  More

  If the Government were so concerned about this Bill passing, they should have organised it. We have just listened to a raft of amendments to the Bill being nodded through in this House, with absolutely no scrutiny. [ Interruption. ]

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

  More

  As I have said, this could have been a Bill that we supported without reservation, but I am afraid that we maintain reservations about it, entirely as a result of its mismanagement by the Prime Minister. I want to conclude by saying that none of this takes anything at all away from the families. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members do not want to hear this. It does not take anything away from the Members who have done so much to bring this legislation forward, but what is clear is that the Bill is the legacy of the campaigners and MPs—nobody else is responsible for our being here. I welcome their campaigning over many years and thank them for it.

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

  More

  A Government who have, inadvertently, repeatedly misled us on this Bill now want us to take them on trust. I heard personally and directly from Ministers and officials repeatedly that independent safeguards were needed, and now, apparently, they are not. Supposedly, over the weekend, those concerns have evaporated, and that is totally unacceptable. We are suddenly setting aside in a matter of days what the security services have told us for 18 months, in consistent, sober, professional warnings, which coincides perfectly with the Prime Minister coming here to give his final speech on this matter. Are we really going to suggest that that genuine professional opinion has changed overnight? I do not think that it has.

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

  More

  I thank the right hon. Lady for raising that point. It was on that basis that I sought sincerely to engage properly with the Bill, and the Ministers and officials who met me repeatedly would be able to attest to that. That cannot be sustained when a Government bring forward legislation with 24 hours’ notice of important matters of national security. The Government say that they have now resolved the central tension that led to the Bill being pulled. After months of negotiations, the central claim made by their Ministers that it needed particular safeguards for the agencies working in national security has now disappeared—apparently no longer needed. A Government who have wilfully misled us repeatedly on this Bill now want us to set aside— [Interruption.]

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

  More

  If the Prime Minister wanted to truly live up to that promise, he would not have introduced legislation with less than 24 hours’ notice on an issue of national security. As the House has alluded to, I would have wanted the opportunity to make this moment a purely positive one, but I am afraid that the Prime Minister has made it impossible for me to fulfil my duties to the House. To give less than 24 hours’ notice for consideration of a Bill before its Third Reading is simply unacceptable. The House, those families, this Bill deserve greater respect than that. There is simply no excuse for the series of mistakes made by the Prime Minister’s Government that have led us here—led us to a place where those of us who engaged in good faith, as I did, cannot possibly be expected to have any trust left on a Bill that has trust at its heart. The Prime Minister announced this Bill at his party conference in 2024. The media were briefed and told that the Bill and how it would operate had the full support of campaigning families and their legal advisers. They were so supportive, in fact, that they had released statements to that effect—and we now know that that was not true: they had already explained their misgivings. Then, after the introduction of the Bill, a Minister told me directly that the families were entirely happy with how the Bill was being legislated. And that also was not true.

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

  More

  Let me begin, as I have throughout the passage of this Bill, by placing at the forefront my admiration for the campaigners—the families and friends of the 97 who lost their lives in the Hillsborough tragedy. On 15 April 1989 their lives were changed forever. Nothing could be done to bring back their loved ones after they were gone. Anyone who has lost someone close to them suddenly like that knows the experience of their world changing in an instant, when at one point the person they care deeply about is there, and suddenly, in the next moment, they are not. Afterwards, everything—everything else—is different. While those deaths could not be undone, what could have changed and what could have been different was the truth about what happened to their loved ones being told to them, and it was not—not just as an act of omission, but as part of a deliberate cover-up by the police and others to protect themselves from the consequences of their failings. What might have been solely a tragic experience of grief that would of course never leave them, with a gap in their lives where their loved ones were supposed to be, was in addition turned into decades of torment as they fought so hard for that truth that was kept from them. The Bill is born of that fight and of that torment, and it is a tribute to their determination. That is why, when I faced the Prime Minister across the Dispatch Box eight months ago, I made clear the good-faith desire of the Opposition to engage constructively with the Government on this Bill. I have sought to live up to that throughout its passage, not just for the Hillsborough families, but for the many others let down by the state and its institutions—the postmasters, the infected blood scandal victims, and those lost in the Grenfell Tower fire and other tragedies and scandals, as Members across the House have highlighted throughout the passage of this Bill. I feel still the keen interest of the families as we reach Third Reading, but it is our job—mine, the Opposition’s and all MPs’—to both hold in one hand, sincerely and clearly, the experiences of all those people who have suffered so greatly and, on the other, our duty and responsibility to legislate carefully and in a considered way. I am deeply disappointed that this Prime Minister and this Government have made that task much, much more difficult than it needed to be. [ Interruption. ] I would challenge any MP— [Interruption.] Any MP, no matter— [Interruption.] I would challenge—

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

  More

  Let us say that in a year from now, all this stuff has not worked and the Home Secretary has committed to doing whatever it takes. Does “whatever it takes” include withdrawing from the ECHR?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank Members for their contributions and the more than 700,000 people who signed the petition, including more than 1,000 in my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. This is a very real issue in my part of East Sussex. The Government forced on us the Crowborough asylum camp, just over the border in the constituency of Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), but very close to my own. We met the Minister just last week, alongside local residents and councillors, and heard at first hand about groups of young men gathering in this small rural town to drink on the streets, smuggling alcohol back into the detention centre and working illegally, and all the distress that that is causing. I am not surprised that the Government targeted Wealden for a camp, considering that it is run by Lib Dems and Greens, with their refugee asylum safe haven policy. At the heart of this debate is a question of control: whether the state and the people on whose behalf it operates have control of our borders or not. For the nation state to have meaning, a country must be able to remove people from within its borders who have no right to be there—whether to send them to offshore processing or detention, or to deport them entirely—and at scale. I welcome the opportunity to set out the overwhelming rational and moral argument for ending small boat crossings and the illegal people-smuggling trade, which is at the forefront of the petition. Whatever opponents of strong border controls say, and however much they attempt to demonise and caricature those of us who want to see control returned, I know not only that is this what the vast majority of the British public want, but that it is the right thing to do. We have to be clear-eyed about the status quo. Right now, not only is our asylum policy effectively determined by people’s ability to pay to get here, but the trade itself is putting money directly into the pockets of criminal gangs that are also involved in other crimes, such as drug dealing and violence. Whether someone makes the crossing is not a measure of their need, their comparative level of desperation or fear, or their vulnerability. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Small boat crossings favour the able-bodied, those with sufficient money to pay for the journey and those closest to Europe. They are not based on anything that Parliament or the Government have decided, nor are they a reflection of humanitarian crises. We know for a fact that every single person making the crossing from France—because they are coming from France—is not fleeing directly from a war-torn country where they are at risk of persecution. Decent, caring and compassionate constituents of mine say to me all the time, “They are safe; they’re in France.” People may have a preference—a desire—to be here instead of in France, but that is not what the asylum system was set up for. That is not what the laws and protections were intended to enshrine and make sacrosanct. However much defenders of those laws and regulations choose to ignore that, the British public can see through it. The first retort to those criticisms of the status quo is to say, “Well, that’s our fault. That’s our responsibility for forcing them to cross the channel”—as the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), said. But proponents of that argument entirely fail to play through the consequences of the safe and legal routes that they advocate for. I will do so now, in the hope that people might actually consider the matter. If we set up places whereby people can apply in third countries easily, what would happen? First, those places would themselves become a focal point for potentially large numbers of people seeking asylum, as there are quite literally millions of people living under conditions that would qualify them to seek asylum here in the UK. However much people pretend otherwise, we clearly would have to refuse some of those applications. Of course, the Green party advocates open borders and no restrictions, so maybe it would not refuse any, but let us assume we would not take everybody who applied by a safe and legal route. What would happen then? Would those people simply turn around and say, “Oh well, I tried to get in. I tried to use the safe and legal route; I’ll leave it there”? Of course they would not. Those people would then turn to exactly the same people-smuggling gangs and illegal crossings, and we would be right back to square one, only then they would be coming on top of the ones granted asylum through safe and legal routes. Even the most humanitarian-minded person would have to accept that there would be limits. If there are limits, we have to say no, and for “no” to mean anything, it has to be enforceable, or the whole thing collapses. Those opposed to deportation for those coming here illegally have no answer to that moral and logical question, so what must we do? We must make it absolutely clear that if someone comes here illegally, they do not get to stay—no ifs, ands or buts. Everything else, in terms of control and having a system that works, is underpinned by that. If we do not have meaningful control—because taking years to deport people will achieve nothing—then all the rest of the policies collapse. To stand any chance of actually delivering that, we have to come out of the European Court of Human Rights. Anyone who has studied the expansion of the powers of that Court cannot reasonably argue that it is fulfilling the same function intended for it. Some may argue that they are happy with that and welcome it, but it impossible to say that it is operating as envisioned by its creators. Let us take one example: article 3 of the European convention on human rights, which gives the right to be protected from “torture or…inhuman or degrading treatment”. That right was constructed in the wake of world war two, in which, as well as being murdered, Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and other minorities were subject to the most horrendous treatment imaginable: medical experimentation, starvation, death-inducing slave labour. How is that article 3 right now interpreted? It is now used by potential deportees to successfully oppose their deportation if the standard of healthcare in the country they would be returned to is not sufficient to meet their medical needs—the same standard of healthcare that is all that is available to millions of their fellow citizens in the countries that we would seek to deport them to. When did a right to be protected from torture or inhumane or degrading treatment become a right to access a particular standard of healthcare? We know that the convention has now gone as far as to be applied to questions of whether a particular Government is doing enough to tackle climate change. That is why even some of our most senior and respected jurists, such as former UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption, are clear about the need to leave. I recommend anyone sincerely interested in this topic to listen to his 2019 BBC Reith lectures on it. He explains clearly how human rights laws are increasingly used in place of the practice of politics, democracy and elections. They have increasingly become questions of balancing. They always were, of course, but the balancing has become finer and more nuanced, and at their heart, those questions are societal and political, not legal. We should ask how it has come to this situation. It has come about because, at its core, in its willingness to expand its remit and take expansionist interpretations of the law, the European Court of Human Rights is fundamentally misconceived. The law does not exist in isolation. In the nation state, there is an interplay between the courts and judges, the parliaments, the executives, and the people. They balance each other out. Courts are, of course, operationally independent, but if they act intolerably, and if they consistently and gravely make rulings out of keeping with the views of the public they serve, Parliament can step in, as the body accountable to the public. However much in very many ways we want our courts to be independent, it is vital that in the end, ultimately, they are not independent of the people. This delicate interplay secures legitimacy for each actor in the system, and there is no such interplay in the European Court. That is how it has found itself so clearly removed from the expectations and views of the millions of people of the member states it seeks to advocate for. We can see, over many years, member states seeking to oppose the Court’s expansionist rulings; it has ignored them to its own detriment. We also see other countries—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—that are able to manage fair and balanced rules of law with rights for individuals without the need to be part of any supranational body. Anyone who argues against these ideas must be careful what they wish for, because the patience and generosity of the majority of the public is at its thinnest, if not exhausted entirely. If we do not respond to that, others with views that we are more widely unhappy with will take control, and the Government who have failed to secure it will be as much to blame as anybody else. As our current Prime Minister completes two years of his premiership, I hope that Members can reflect honestly. The promises of the Government to take control of our borders and to smash the gangs have undoubtedly been a failure. They gave the impression that tweaks could be made to significantly alter the number of crossings, but that has proven simply not to be the case, and they now have very little time left. The only country with a proven track record is Australia, and it implemented a policy of not allowing people to stay. Tweaking will not help. One in, one out with France will not help. The sooner the Government realise that, the better for the taxpayer, the better for those who want to be compassionate but do not want to be exploited, and the better for the crime agencies fighting the people-smuggling gangs. Virtue signalling will not achieve anything. Doing whatever it takes to actually regain control of our borders is the only thing that will, and the Government must get on and deliver it.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

  More

  But we do not deport all rapists and paedophiles, because some of them make successful ECHR claims and get to stay in the country. Again, unless the Government are willing to tackle that, they will not get to do the things that the Minister has so much rhetoric about.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

  More

  Does the Minister really think that Canada or Australia do not get to deport people? Those countries are not in the ECHR, but they have deportation agreements with third countries, so in no way is it a necessity to be in the ECHR to have deportation agreements.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

  More

  I do not know whether hon. Members know this, but just for the record, we took more people than we sent back under the Dublin agreement. It did not act as any deterrent, because a person was more likely to get to the UK on the basis of the Dublin agreement than they were to be sent away.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I want to begin by thanking Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), for securing a meeting with the Minister, local MPs, councillors and residents of Crowborough, where the Minister heard for himself reports of illegal working, groups of young men drinking on the street and the smuggling of alcohol on to the site. If the Government are to force this camp on people, the very least they can do is ensure that people there play by the rules. Can the Minister introduce breath testing and make it clear to anyone drinking on the site that if they are found to fail those tests, their asylum claim will be immediately thrown out?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

  More

  Will she give way on that point?