Kieran Mullan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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.

• 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 · 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.]