Kit Malthouse MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) that this is a less than ideal situation. However, I know that the sponsor in the House of Lords is willing to entertain amendments being tabled in the Lords, which will come back to the House for conclusion. Before I conclude, I want to deal with a couple of other issues. The first point is about the notion of palliative care, which we discussed extensively on Second Reading. I am pleased that this legislation has stimulated a strong debate about palliative care. The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death. But we must be careful not to say that perfection is a precondition for those who are dying; perfection has to be an objective for those of us who will carry on living. We cannot delay and indulge the dying in their agony because we are not satisfied with the state of palliative care. We have to deal with the choice that those people are facing at the point of their death, and give them the choice that so many of them seek. The second point is about coercion. The Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), talked about love. One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end. As Warwick watched her dying and heard her begging her palliative nurse to end it all for her, he contemplated smothering her with a pillow. The only thing that stopped him was that he did not want her dying thought to be that her loving husband had brought her life to an end. That is the conflict of love that we pose to people by perpetuating this appalling status quo. We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today. As we said on Second Reading previously, a vote against this Bill is not a passive act. It is not something neutral; it is a vote for a status quo of misery, degradation and cruelty for so many. We know that the British people support this measure. We know that there are lots of territories around the world that we respect and admire that have assisted dying and have operated it for many years successfully. It is not beyond us to get our democracy operating as it should and to design something that will work for the British people. We cannot give dying people more time, but we can give them mercy and love. I urge Members to vote for the Bill today.

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

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  As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today. I sat in the Chamber at the other end of this building on a number of occasions when it was debating the Bill, and I saw more of the debate on television, and I watched with unfolding horror the game that was being played there—a game that was marked in homes across the country with dismay, misery and agony. I contemplated the Lords effectively putting up the pretence of scrutiny, but at the same time tabling 1,000 amendments—

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

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  I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for approval. We would much rather that had happened in the first place. This House now faces an invidious choice: if we amend and pass the Bill in this House, it will just be talked out again. I am afraid I have no faith that the small group that dedicated themselves to holding up the Bill to deny dying people what they seek, because of their own—

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

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  claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36). Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

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

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  I will not. The Lords tabled 1,000 amendments, many of which were cruel or absurd; they were effectively designed to be sand in the engine, and to slow up what should have been proper parliamentary process—a process that the dying deserve to see operate correctly. We have to be aware in this House that expectations are high, and the people who send us here should be able to rely on decisions made in this House proceeding into law. I am afraid that what is at stake today is our democracy. If this Bill falls today, one of the biggest losers will be the standing of this House and this institution as a whole.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Deputy Speaker’s Statement · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the House sit in private. Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163) and negatived.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I, too, applaud the Foreign Secretary for finally taking some assertive, confident steps to deter Israeli ambitions in the west bank, but I am perplexed as to why he is waiting nine months. The diggers may well have started in E1 by then. So, first, can he just explain in a little more detail why he is waiting so long? He has got a majority; let us get on with it. Secondly, has the Foreign Secretary made it clear to the Israeli Government that if this deterrent does not work, he is willing to take further steps and this is not the end of the story? Thirdly, I welcome his embrace, finally, of the strength of international law. Does he recognise that the security of Israel, Palestine and the United Kingdom stands in the impartial application of international law across the world? Will we see a pushback against American attacks upon the institutions that underpin international law? Finally, as part of the accountability that he has talked about, can we please have a UK-led investigation into the murder of our own citizens who worked for the World Central Kitchen? The Israeli Government have declined to conduct a criminal investigation, and officers of the IDF who were involved in that operation have been out in the media boasting that they would do it again.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  I have to confess to the Secretary of State that I am even more confused now than my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) was 40 minutes ago. Could the Secretary of State just be clear with my residents that the combined authority elections due next May are off, and the borough council elections are on, but the combined authority elections might be on if she gets her skates on and the borough council elections might be off? If the combined authority elections are off, when will they be on, and is the mayoral election in 2028 on or off? If it is off, what is going to happen to police governance?

• 1 Sept 2026 · West Bank: Illegal Settlements · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State recognise that the situation that we find ourselves in, in the west bank and Palestine more widely, represents an almost complete failure of British foreign policy in this regard? As a British citizen, one of the most distressing aspects of this conflict, aside from the death, destruction and savagery, has been the sight of British Ministers being sent out to mouth platitudinous condemnations like goldfish, and promise action, only being dragged to take pathetic ineffectual steps by pressure from their own Back Benchers. My question is this: is anything going to change?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I know, but I ask the Minister not to patronise us all by standing up at the end of the debate and pretending that this is all too complicated, which I am afraid is what his ministerial colleagues have said to us before. We know that the argument against a ban is not a legal one; that has been proven time and again. Indeed, we have supported resolutions at the UN and used our position on the Security Council to say that it is not a legal issue. I am left with the only other option, which is that the decision must be political with a capital “P”. I am afraid that is the most appalling thing to contemplate. Either we fear consequences from other countries, such as the United States or whoever it might be, or we believe it is in our national interest to recognise that Palestinian self-determination and Palestinian lives are disposable in the face of that political decision. Even worse, it may be that we just do not care. It may be that at the higher echelons of political command, whether it is in No. 10 or the Foreign Office, they really just do not care. They think, “If we squint a bit, make some statements from the Front Bench and have a couple of sanctions here and there, in the end, the caravan will move on, and nobody will care.” I am afraid that until Ministers realise that this is not some kind of complicated chess game across the world, but a matter of our security, our interests and our morality, we will not make any progress.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  Strangely enough, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is probably the first time in our political careers that we have agreed. He puts his finger on the point that I am trying to make. This dispute involves our own security. We do not have to be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel to take that view, just pro-British, which everybody in this House should be, first and foremost. That involves being pro-international law, pro-peace and pro-justice; the dispute goes to the heart of that. He put his finger on the point that I was coming to. Nobody is buying the idea that the argument is practical, Minister.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  By when?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), and it is always a pleasure to hear the gentle Yorkshire accent of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) raised in fierce defence of peace, justice and international law. Colleagues, let us make no mistake: while this country does need to rebuild its physical defences, in the end our defence lies in international law and the set of rules that we created after the second world war to decide how countries should peaceably settle their disputes. At the heart of the problem of international law at the moment sits the plight of the Palestinians, and if they sit at the heart of the problem, so do we. This debate is so important today because it is not just about the Palestinians; it is also about we Britons, the world we live in and the way we want the world to operate when it is in dispute. As has been illustrated in the debate so far, nobody in this Chamber believes that the way the Palestinians have to live at the moment is acceptable. Nobody who has stood in the middle of Hebron and seen Palestinians living in cages or watched them being dragged from their homes, their olive trees uprooted, run over with cars and detained without charge; nobody who has seen the guns, the checkpoints, the walls, the UN signs saying where people can and cannot go or the enormous so-called settlements—that makes them seem somehow quaint, like “Little House on the Prairie”, but they are fortresses, forcibly invading and stealing other people’s land; and more recently, nobody who has watched these psychopathic settlers, though they are more like terrorists, roaming across the west bank, terrorising innocent Palestinian families on a daily basis and setting ablaze entire villages, can think that this is acceptable. Yet our country still sells them bulldozers, buys their goods and sells them financial services, and by those means, we financially support and help sustain this appalling situation, while hiding behind the fig leaf of complexity. Therein lies a mystery that, I must confess, I have not been able to understand over the last couple of years. A third of the Labour party has put its name to a letter calling for a ban on trade with the settlements, yet the Government still do not move on this. Other countries across the world are instituting, or have instituted, bans. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said, the complexity argument falls away when we look at Crimea. A ban is not too complex for Spain, Ireland or other countries. Presumably, it was not too complicated for the civil servants who drafted the ban on trade with Crimea, or any of the other trade bans we have used, with effect, over the years. As the Trade Minister will know, for other reasons to do with trade, we have insisted on the labelling of goods. We have even gently warned businesses off goods from settlements. We heard stentorian words in the last statement—“Take care in trading; there may be legal risk”—but the Government have done everything except the obvious, which is to just ban that trade. The question I am left asking is: why? Why the reluctance? Why the hesitation? Nobody is buying the complexity argument; we do not buy it in any other circumstance of trade. If we want to ban modern slavery, or goods produced by forced labour, we oblige businesses that are importing to prove that they have not acquired goods produced in that way.