Lee Anderson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  I am happy to support the hon. Lady on Cody’s family’s campaign. Politicians highlight the bans on certain knives, such as zombie knives, and in all honesty, those bans are not a bad thing, as we need fewer weapons on our streets, but the most common weapon used in knife crime is a simple kitchen knife, which is used in more than half of all stabbings. If someone wants to cause someone harm or to intimidate, they do not need a zombie knife, a machete or a sword; they can just get a kitchen knife. Members will have heard about surrender bins or knife amnesties. This time last year, during the unrest, one knife bin was located outside a mosque in Small Heath in Birmingham. It was found to contain dozens of machetes, an axe, large knives and even an adapted knuckleduster knife, but how did we get to the point where we politely ask people to hand in their weapons at a local mosque? That is not policing or law enforcement; at best, it is wishful thinking or, at worst, it is total surrender to the problem. That brings me to stop and search. In the year ending March 2024, police officers in England and Wales conducted more than half a million searches. More than 70,000 people were arrested and 16,000 weapons seized. That is thousands of potential crimes prevented, including murders, assaults, robberies and serious sexual offences. That is impressive, and we should commend our brave police officers for acting in the line of duty. A lot of people might say that stop and search does not have an impact on overall crime rates and that it does not put people off carrying knives, but that is to miss the point. Stop and search is about not only deterrence, but detection. It gives police officers the power to remove dangerous weapons before they are used, and it takes dangerous people off our streets. In fact, in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), in London under Sadiq Khan’s leadership, there has been a reduction in stop and search of more than 23% in just one year, between 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, knife crime in London has increased by nearly 60% in just over three years—

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Ms McVey, for the way you handled the unruly situation early on with great dignity. I would like to give a special mention to Sir David Amess. The last time I spoke to Sir David was in this room, when he chaired a debate just over four years ago. I thank everybody for turning up today and for their contributions. I agreed with a lot of most of them. The Lib Dem spokesman spoke about the time when I supported the Conservative Government’s cuts to the police force. I gently remind him that I was not in the Conservative party at that time—he might want to take that away. I am a little bit encouraged by what the Minister had to say. I thank Adam Brooks and Norman Brennan, who are in the Public Gallery today. They set up an online petition to bring this debate to Parliament and asked me to sign it. I said, “No, I’m not signing it—I’m going to apply for a debate in Westminster Hall.” If the Lib Dem spokesman wants to speak to a retired police officer and a gentleman whose family was affected brutally by knife crime, he is welcome to do so after this debate. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of knife crime.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Ms McVey. It is not the first time that the hon. Member has been thrown out of a room on this estate. We must use powers lawfully, and our police cannot be hindered. We cannot allow a fear of red tape, or baseless accusations of institutional racism or unconscious bias to stop police officers doing their job. Serving police officers and former police officers reached out to me ahead of this debate, and they all said the same thing: we need to reform policing priorities from top to bottom, we must protect police officers and increase stop and search, without apology and without hesitation. In the same way, the message coming from our courts must be clear: if you are caught with a knife, you go to jail. When someone puts a knife in their pocket and walks out of their front door, they have made a choice and there must be consequences to it. Today the maximum sentence for possession of a knife is four years. For second knife offences, adults are supposed to face a mandatory six months’ jail sentence, but that in reality looks completely different. In 2023, only 28% of people caught with a knife went to prison, down from 33% in 2018. Dangerous men are walking away with little more than a slap on their wrist or a community sentence. The rate of offenders who receive just a caution has dropped a lot over the past 30 years, and we know that the average custodial sentence has crept up to just over seven months for possession of a knife, and almost 15 months for threatening offences. That might sound like progress, but those sentences are far too short. Community sentences are still being handed out to most youth offenders, and it is no wonder that young lads are becoming more brazen, carrying knives in broad daylight, and making TikTok videos with their machetes. They do that because they know that our justice system is a soft touch. There are lots of reasons why a boy might decide to pick up a knife. Some believe it is for protection, but we should never have got to a point in our society where someone feels the need to carry a knife to be protected. That said, I must highlight that adult men are the primary offenders, and they are responsible for over 80% of all knife crime offences. These are not just isolated incidents among youngsters, and that is no wonder when grown men are getting off too. Just a couple of weeks ago we all saw a man avoid prison despite attacking someone with a knife. The person was burning a Quran, and in this instance the court basically said, “It’s okay to take justice into your own hands. If you attack and threaten someone with a knife for causing you offence, he will be the one who is convicted, and you won’t have to go to prison.” At the same time, people are getting locked up for Facebook posts or offensive tweets. It is madness. Communities across the country are fed up with our weak and flimsy justice system. They have had enough; they want action, not words. Over the summer I submitted several written questions to the Home Office about illegal migrants crossing the English channel in small boats, and I asked how many of them have been found carrying drugs and weapons on their arrival in the UK. I got a response from the then Minister, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle). She told me that the migrants were searched upon arrival and that: “Some small weapons—for example, knives—have occasionally been seized as a result of those searches over the past seven years,”. “Some small weapons”—what kind of pathetic, weak answer is that? People in this country want to know how many people, and how many knives have been found. How many of those men are still here, and how many are still being put up in taxpayer-funded hotels? The Minister owes it to our concerned constituents to tell us what is happening to men who arrive on our shores carrying knives. We have enough of a home-grown knife problem already; we do not want to import more. While I am on this point, I want the Minister to tell us how many illegal immigrants have committed knife offences in our country over the past few years. Individuals might have had a knife taken off them when they got to this country, but it is not that difficult to get another knife. That information should be made publicly available. I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that I am sick of politicians speaking at vigils, lighting candles and sharing their sympathies with the families and loved ones of another person murdered on our streets, only to come back to this place and avoid taking decisive action. We need police officers who take violent criminals off our streets, courts that administer real justice for victims and a Government not afraid to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to knife crime. How else are our constituents going to feel safe? Our message needs to be plain and simple: “If you pick up a knife, you will feel the full force of the law and go to prison.” I have one ask on behalf of the law-abiding British public: anyone caught carrying a dangerous weapon should receive an automatic custodial sentence. I am not talking about Swiss army knives, penknives, small knives or tools used for fishing or arts and crafts, nor about men coming back from a shift at the local factory, plumbers, electricians or carpenters. I am talking about the type of knife carried by people who have no reason to carry such weapons in a public place.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Net Zero: Evidence-based Policy · Hansard source

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  May I gently remind the Energy Secretary that it is his job to answer questions from MPs on behalf of their constituents? I will ask the same question that I asked him last time: if the UK became net zero tomorrow, by how much would it reduce the Earth’s temperature?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Manchester Terrorism Attack · Hansard source

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  While the Prime Minister is swanning around Egypt, shamelessly trying to claim credit for the Gaza-Israel peace deal, we have the Mayor of London stating that the chant “From the river to the sea” is not antisemitic. I think it is antisemitic. Does the Home Secretary agree with me or with the Mayor of London?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  3. What steps she is taking to help prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel illegally.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I have it on good authority that the people smugglers in northern Europe are absolutely delighted with Labour’s new Front-Bench team, and especially with the promotion of the hon. Member for Dover and Deal (Mike Tapp), because they know we will get more of the same from this Labour Government. The boats will keep coming, the boats will get bigger and the people smugglers will make more money. What difference is this Home Secretary going to make that the last Home Secretary could not?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  Every time the Home Secretary announces a new policy on illegal migration, illegal migration goes up, so I think a period of silence would be most welcome from her. Does she agree that the only way to stop the pull factor is to detain, deport and never allow illegal migrants to claim asylum in this country?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery · Hansard source

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  What a pathetic turnout today from the party of the workers: just four Labour MPs have turned up to speak out on behalf of the Prax Lindsey workers. What I want to know from the Minister is if it is true that a foreign company has already been lined up to asset-strip and decommission this site—yes or no?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Brierley Park medical centre applied for funding from the primary care utilisation and modernisation fund earlier this year. It has been successful, but it has not yet had the money, and the money must be spent by the end of the year. Will the Secretary of State please tell my medical centre when it will receive this vital funding?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last week I visited the Outwood academy school in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, which has gone from double special measures to “good” in just three years under the leadership of the Outwood Grange Academies Trust. Will the Secretary of State please say a big thank you to the trust, and the staff, for helping to turn the school around and giving the children in my town the education that they deserve?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Asylum Hotels: Migrant Criminal Activity · Hansard source

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  Illegal migrants crossing the channel are 24 times more likely to end up in British jails than British-born citizens, yet this Government allow thousands of unvetted males to enter this country who will commit horrific crimes like rape and murder, and there are some potential terrorists among them too. Does the Minister agree that it is time to forget the silly legislation that Labour MPs are bleating on about and to detain these people and deport them? We do not want to see any of these silly tags put on their ankles; just detain and deport them straight away.

• 14 Jul 2025 · State of Climate and Nature · Hansard source

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  The statement from the Energy Secretary sounded like a desperate attempt to save his own job, but he is right that the British people need protecting: they need protecting from the Energy Secretary, because businesses that I visit say every single week that his madcap ideas are killing growth, business and jobs. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he can answer one simple question, which he has already refused to answer: by how much would the Earth’s temperature be reduced if the UK became net zero tomorrow?

• 14 Jul 2025 · UK-France Migration: Co-operation · Hansard source

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  I have never heard such pathetic drivel in all my life as I have from the Home Secretary and her Back Benchers. It is not the people smugglers bringing illegal migrants over the channel but the French warships who transport them halfway and give them to British border security, who bring them to our shores, put them in buses and take them to hotels. The real people smugglers are the French and British authorities. Does the Home Secretary agree that the British Border Force should take these illegal migrants straight back to France?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During PMQs, my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) asked what I thought was quite a reasonable question. I knew what the question was going to be, but during PMQs, I could not hear a single word—like other Members in the Chamber, I am sure—because the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed), who is behind me, and others never shut up all the way through it. We in Reform UK do not subscribe to that sort of dog-whistle politics. Will you please advise us, Mr Speaker, of how to stop this behaviour in the future?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Hostile State Threats · Hansard source

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  We know that terrorists and potential terrorists are coming on small boats across the English channel, so why is Border Force picking these people up and bringing them to the UK?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  It is amazing, staggering, that Labour MPs can come here today and welcome an inquiry, yet when they were given the chance, they all voted against one. These girls—the victims of the Pakistani grooming gangs—were kidnapped, abused, drugged and raped, and when they reached out for help, everybody ignored them. It is little wonder that they have no faith in the system. But they can regain faith if the Home Secretary agrees with me and appoints Maggie Oliver as chair of the inquiry.

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  Before I start, I declare an interest in this debate as a member of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, which, for the purpose of this debate, I will refer to as the BCSSS. Before I go on, I want to say a special thanks to the BCSSS Facebook campaign group, which has been a great source of support and advice. The group represents more than 2,500 scheme members, and I am sure many will be watching this debate right now. All the arguments for a fairer deal for BCSSS members have been heard before, so I want to take this opportunity to speak as an ex-coalminer, and as the only member of the BCSSS, I think, in this Parliament—and yes, I have a financial interest in this, but I feel that I am qualified to speak up on behalf of members of the BCSSS. I know that he hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), another ex-coalminer, is present; I am sure he will support many of the things I have to say. I am the last generation of coalminers in my family. I followed my dad, my granddad, my great-grandads and my great-great-grandads into the pits in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In fact, I cannot think of any male family member before me who did not spend some time underground. I worked at four different pits. Miners will usually say that the best pit they worked at was their first pit, and my first pit was Sutton colliery in Ashfield, north Nottinghamshire. I started there about a year after the miners’ strike in the 1980s. It was a great pit, but this was a pit where, sadly, just a few decades earlier, five men had been killed in an explosion. I went on to do my coalface training at Creswell colliery in Derbyshire, where in 1950, yet another disaster had occurred: 80 boys and men lost their lives in an underground fire. We have had countless disasters, horrific accidents and nasty things going on, but still men and boys went down the pit—the black hole—to do a shift, digging coal out to fuel our nation. It is hard to describe what it is like to work underground; there is nothing like it. It is dark and dangerous. It can be red hot in some places, yet freezing cold in others. There are no toilets, as the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington can tell us. We just had to dig a hole and then cover it up. It is hard to explain what it is like crawling up and down a coalface, which is 29 inches high and 250 yards long, with a shearing machine spitting out coal, dust, heat and oil. It was a horrible feeling. It is hard to explain what it is like to carry a steel ring on your shoulder—a girder—with your mate, on uneven ground and in dusty conditions. It is hard to explain what it is like to bandage up a workmate who has just been trapped, has had a big chunk ripped out of him and has lost a few fingers and half a foot. He has to be put on a stretcher and carried out to the pit bottom. On one occasion, that was seven miles of the pit—seven miles underground. That is from here to the edge of London. But that is what we did—we did that for a living, day in, day out. We didn’t moan. Towards the end of my mining career—the last three years of it—I worked as a deputy underground. I was responsible for the health and safety of the men in my district. When I became a deputy, I was transferred from the mineworkers’ pension scheme to the BCSSS. I did not have any say in it; they just put me in it. That is what they did. While we continued working—digging the coal to fuel the nation and keep the lights on—all we asked for was a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. The pits are long gone now, but there are still thousands of ex-miners and their widows in the coalfield communities—

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  Yes, I like to be constructive. The hon. Member for Mansfield has not been so constructive; he has used the debate to try to score political points. I am using the debate to try to get justice for the members of the BCSSS. The trustees were disappointed by the previous Conservative Government, and they are a little bit disappointed with the current Labour Government, who they feel have dragged their heals in dealing with the BCSSS. They have dealt with the mineworkers’ pension scheme much quicker. We are all ex-mineworkers, and we should be treated fairly. I know the trustees have met the Minister today. I have spoken to the chief integrated funding adviser and the feedback is that it was a positive meeting, and the Minister once again appeared receptive to the requests put forward by the trustees but stopped short of saying she fully supports those requests. There is a very simple solution to all this. Just give us our money back—it is our money—and let us discuss the future surplus sharing agreements. We ex-miners should not be a cash cow for the Treasury. I could go into all the facts and figures in this debate, but it is simple. It is about giving back to the mining community what it is owed. Not only did the miners of the past help create the Labour party, but they gave their money to the cause through their union donations. It is time to pay back the miners; there should be no excuse. Let us imagine two brothers in their 70s who spent 40 years each down the pit. One is in the MPS and the other in the BCSSS. They worked side by side underground. The brother in the MPS has just had a 50% uplift in his pension thanks to this Labour Government, but the one in the BCSSS has had nothing. That cannot be right; it is not fair. I hear people in this bubble in Westminster say that young people would not go down the pit these days, but you are all wrong—every single one of you. In the coalfield communities, mining, hard graft and a sense of working-class pride are in our DNA. When the time comes for mining communities to step forward and go back underground, the descendants of our brave miners will do their duty. That time will come, mark my words. In the meantime, it is time for this place to deliver justice for the miners. I would like to hear the Minister state from that Dispatch Box that she fully supports the trustees’ two main requests and that she agrees that the whole of the investment reserve fund, and not just part of it, should be shared out. There was a saying when I worked underground and all the pits were shutting. It was: “Have we heard owt, duck?” That is what ex-miners are saying right now to their pit mates, so I say to the Minister, who I know has been speaking to the Treasury and the trustees: have you heard owt, duck?

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. As always, he makes a fantastic contribution and I agree with every single word that he has just said. The Labour party was founded on the backs of coalminers, and I think it is time for the current Labour Government to repay those miners. They should remember that the miners paid their union subs; they helped to bankroll the Labour party. Let us be honest, the Labour party has supplied some good ex-mining MPs to this House. There is one sat there tonight. There was one who used to sit over there. I do not agree with their politics, but they are great MPs. Let us remind ourselves that about 4,000 or 5,000 women are part of the BCSSS. We could not have done our job underground if it were not for those women, who did a great job. Then there are the widows of the ex-miners who would love to see a few extra quid in their bank account each month when fuel bills are going through the roof. About 2,000 members of the BCSSS die every year, and there are less than 40,000 members still in the scheme.

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  Yes, I will come on to the women who worked in our industry a bit later, but the hon. Lady is absolutely correct. All we ask for now that the pits have gone—we still have the communities—is a fair day’s pay from our own pot of money. That pot of money is the £2.3 billion investment reserve fund. That is our money. We paid it in. All we are asking is for the Government to give it back to us.

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  The Minister has been good today, actually, at the Dispatch Box, so I thank her for that. A lot of positive things have come out of this Adjournment debate. I have one question: is the scheme running at a surplus and if so, by how much?

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member had studied Hansard and paid a little more attention to Parliament during the past five years, he would know about the representations I made. In fact, I had my own Adjournment debate on the MPS. I met the former Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discuss the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the miners’ asks, so it is a bit unfair of the hon. Member to try to score points in a very serious debate. I would have hoped that he would come here to support me in this debate, instead of trying to score political points. I do not think it is a good look, and I am sure that the BCSSS members in Mansfield and across Ashfield will not be very happy with his contribution.

• 11 Jun 2025 · British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member shows a little patience, he will hear me move on to that later. The previous Labour manifesto stated that the reserve funds of both the MPS and the BCSSS would be released to members, yet the BCSSS was omitted from Labour’s manifesto in 2024. Maybe the Minister can explain why that was. She may be aware—obviously the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) is not aware of this—that during the last Parliament, I continually pressed the Government for a fairer deal on the MPS, and I was knocked back at every single opportunity. Credit where credit is due, this Labour Government have stuck by their word, and the members of the mineworkers’ pension scheme are a lot better off under this Labour Government due to the extra money in their pay packet.