Mark Francois MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  On new clause 5, we do not yet have the date for the second day on this Bill for Report and Third Reading, but it seems likely that it will be before the summer recess on 16 July. Taking the Minister at his word, and knowing where his heart lies on this issue, will he give the House an assurance that when we get that second day—whenever it is—and we table a similar amendment on Report, he will be able to come back to us with some progress, including with the Home Office?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Again, my right hon. Friend makes a very important point: allowing tri-service boards increases the potential pool, even of senior officers, who can serve. When we made that visit, the Minister was not able to be with us. That is no criticism; he is an MOD Minister, and he has a lot to think about—he has a great deal to think about at the moment—but he was not able to be there on that visit, so he did not hear it from the horse’s mouth. This issue was raised with us by practitioners in the service justice system.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not want to pre-empt what will no doubt be an erudite speech, but the key point is that there is a mechanism for doing this—we are halfway there. If service parents get a transfer order a few months in advance, then unless they can be certain that the receiving LEA will accept their EHCP, which they may have gone through a bureaucratic minefield to achieve—I am sure we all have individual examples from our constituencies—are they going to risk it? Will they stick or twist? Or will they leave the service and try to find somewhere local to live, but at least keep the precious EHCP? The nub of the matter is whether we can make it mandatory that the transfer takes place. Having made the point, I will rest, and wait for the contribution from the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey). Amendment 4 is similar in spirit to amendments 2 and 3, but relates to the national health service rather than to education. The essence of the amendment is that military personnel who are already on a waiting list for treatment in one NHS integrated care board area should not suffer any disadvantage relative to the civilian community if, again, they have to be transferred for operational or other service-related reasons. In plain English, they should not lose their place in the queue.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. We would all like to know when we are going to have it, but the reason we do not have it is simple. It is not that the staff work has not been completed—it has. It is not that the programmes have not been costed—they have. The fundamental problem is that while Ministers say they are working flat out and knocking themselves out on it, and are reduced to euphemisms about how hard they are working, it was actually done months ago. The problem is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer adamantly refuses to sign it, because if she signed it, she would have to say how she is going to pay for it. That is why MOD Ministers are completely hide-bound: the Prime Minister will not force the Chancellor to sign the equipment plan for the armed forces of the United Kingdom. The delay is becoming a farce. Indeed, we are now being widely criticised by our international partners, including, just the other day, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee. At Defence questions, the Secretary of State was adamant that the Prime Minister wanted the DIP published by the NATO summit. That raises two questions: which NATO summit, and which Prime Minister? Assuming he means the summit in Ankara on 7 to 8 July, this vital document will be delayed for yet another month. What is worse, last year there were £2.6 billion of in-year operational cuts to the defence budget, and this year there are £3.5 billion of in-year cuts. We will press new clause 2 to force a vote on a backstop plan to produce the DIP, to remind His Majesty’s Treasury that the first duty of government, above all others, is the defence of the realm. We cannot defend the realm with a lot of bluster and an equipment plan that does not exist.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  They told us as a Committee—I am looking round the House for nods of assent from others who were on the visit, and I am getting them—that it was a problem, and it was cramping the ability to hold court martials. All we were trying to do was justify the cost of the train ticket to the taxpayer and prove that we had listened to what we were told on the visit, so I do not quite take the Minister’s sanguine approach that there are plenty of officers to go round. I will not hammer the nail any further, but I respectfully ask him to look at this one more time, particularly after the contributions today.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is bearing out the point that there are real-world examples of this issue coming into play, and he has done the Committee a service by reiterating that. The Minister for Veterans and People kindly met me and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) last month to discuss whether the Government might be able to do more on this subject, and in fact the Minister for the Armed Forces referred to that meeting in his remarks a few minutes ago. During the meeting with the Minister for Veterans and People, we suggested—here is the leak—that, given the announcement in the King’s Speech that there would be a new Bill on the whole topic of special educational needs, one way of achieving the aim of the amendment might be to include such a provision in that Bill—in a DFE Bill, rather than an MOD Bill. That would still, at the end of the day, achieve the same desirable outcome. The Minister undertook to go away and look at the matter, including potentially in consultation with colleagues from the DFE. Having received her letter of yesterday, I have to say, more in sorrow than in anger, that I was extremely disappointed in its tone. It was a classic civil service boilerplate reply that bore little relation to the discussion that we had in the Minister’s office. I can only ask her to look at this again, perhaps in the context of the new DFE legislation, as I have just suggested.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is of course a former MOD Minister himself and represents a large number of service personnel. It is obvious from his intervention that he understands the issue very well. What he has just asked me is wholly in line with the spirit of our amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley unfortunately has a competing commitment this afternoon with the Justice Committee and the report on jury trial, which I hope the House accepts is a very important matter. He hopes to join us later in the debate when he has attended to that. Given his medical expertise, he pressed this point with the Minister for Veterans and People at the same meeting that I have referred to. Sadly, again, we received an equally uninspiring reply. For the record, given that the King’s Speech also presaged new legislation on NHS organisation, we sought to suggest that one way to proceed might be to include an amendment in that Bill rather than in this one. In other words, that medical issue could be put in a Bill introduced by Ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care. I reiterate our request, perhaps to the Government more broadly, to consider what we still regard to be a sensible proposal. I turn now to amendment 5 on court martial boards. One issue highlighted during our visit to see the service justice system was the challenge of finding sufficient officers to serve on court martial boards who are in no way connected with the defendant. That can become more of a challenge as defendants become more senior, as the pool of officers from which to draw narrows as one moves up the promotion pyramid. The essence of the amendment is to allow retired officers to be drawn upon to help comprise the membership of boards for court martial, and therefore to widen the potential pool of those who might be available to undertake this important military and, indeed, civic duty.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I think she may have been here just a few months ago when we had a debate about the history of the Gurkhas in British service. I echo everything she said about the bravest of the brave. I therefore look forward to her supporting the new clause in the Division Lobby this evening. The Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland have campaigned on this matter for a number of years. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon for taking up the cudgels so effectively on their behalf this afternoon. As he argued powerfully, Governments of both colours have indicated in the past that they were minded to make this change. Indeed, it is worth reiterating that this proposal was in both the Conservatives’ and Labour’s 2024 general election manifestos, but the change has yet to come to pass. Having re-examined the issue within His Majesty’s Opposition and consulted shadow departmental colleagues, I am pleased to tell the Committee that should my hon. Friend seek to press the new clause—and should you grant that request, Madam Chairman—we on the Opposition Front Bench will support it. We encourage all hon. Members to do so, too. There would be a cost to the process, but we believe that, in return for service to this country, the Ministry of Defence should absorb that cost in its wider budget. The annual cost would be a very modest outgoing, given the scale of the defence budget. In other words, the Department would bear the cost, not those who have served or their families. People should not be disadvantaged for having offered to serve this country in uniform. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon put the case very well, and I will not try the House’s patience by repeating it. Suffice it to say that I believe that there is a strong moral case for doing this, and I very much hope that the Government might be prepared to accept the amendment. If they are not, I hope that my hon. Friend will press his amendment to a vote, and in that case, I hope that the whole House will find it in their heart to support it. New clauses 1 and 6 relate to the European convention on human rights and its effect on armed forces personnel, including, potentially, reservists who might be mobilised under the auspices of the Bill. How did we get to a situation in which the convention has spread to the battlefield, not just in Europe, but globally? The history is significant here; it lies behind why we tabled the two new clauses. This all came about because of something called the al-Jedda case, which was heard before the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords a couple of years or so before the United Kingdom Supreme Court was created back in 2009. The al-Jedda case was about the treatment of a prisoner detained in Iraq during Operation Telic, and was brought by a now disgraced lawyer called Phil Shiner. His name will be known to anyone who has ever served in the British Army. For the record, Shiner was subsequently convicted of fraud and struck off as a practising solicitor. Phil Shiner instructed legal counsel to put forward his case to the House of Lords. The lead appellant in that case, before he became a Member of Parliament, was one Keir Starmer QC. The Minister for Veterans and People got into some trouble over that, because when we highlighted the matter in the Commons, she was adamant that he had not been working for Shiner. Unfortunately for the Minister, we had the court records from the House of Lords, which showed very clearly that Keir Starmer, as he then was, was the lead appellant appointed and instructed—that word is used in the records—by Phil Shiner’s law firm, Public Interest Lawyers. The Minister had the embarrassment of having to come to the Commons in February to correct the record and admit that our version of events, as explained to the Commons, was true. Phil Shiner was a persistent man, particularly when money was at stake, so several years after losing in the House of Lords, he took the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. To be clear, Keir Starmer was not acting in that action. Shiner won, so the Strasbourg Court ruled that the European convention on human rights would then apply to any theatre in which British armed forces personnel were serving. Through that judgment, an industry was effectively created, which Shiner then massively exploited. He brought literally hundreds of cases against current and past British armed forces personnel. Many of the cases were funded by British taxpayers through legal aid, and were completely and utterly fabricated for money. It was the use of the ECHR that allowed him to do that. In other debates in the Chamber, we have heard senior Ministers, including the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, say that there is no such thing as a vexatious prosecution. Self-evidently, there must be, because otherwise why was Shiner struck off and convicted of fraud by a court of law? There can be—in fact, there were—hundreds of vexatious prosecutions against British military personnel. It was, for the record, Johnny Mercer, a former Member of this House, when he served on the Defence Committee some years ago, who led a sub-Committee investigation into this issue. Its very powerful report helped to bring Shiner to book, no doubt saving the taxpayer a lot of money, and leading to Shiner’s career ending in disgrace. To come to the present day, what if there were a ceasefire in Ukraine? Let us posit a situation in which, under the auspices of the coalition of the willing, British service personnel were deployed to Ukraine. If, by some happenstance, they became involved in a firefight with Russian troops who had made an incursion across the line of ceasefire, who is to say that years—maybe decades—later, those personnel would not end up in a court of law for obeying what they believed to be perfectly legitimate orders, after some second-guessing by a human rights lawyer, perhaps with Russian assistance? In short, we cannot allow this Government’s obsession with human rights to put our armed forces at risk, either now, in the future or historically, and potentially force them to fight ruthless opponents with one arm tied behind their back. This issue will not go away, and at some point, the Government will be forced to address it, be it through the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill or some other mechanism. The purpose of these new clauses is to force them to address it today.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  There has been a leak: the hon. Gentleman has clearly had access to my speech. He has put a lot of work into this issue, so perhaps I can meet him halfway with what I am about to say. In fairness, there are already DFE guidelines that can facilitate the portability of an EHCP from one local education authority to another. The crucial point, however, is that that is by voluntary agreement, and there is no guarantee that if service personnel are transferred at the behest of their commanders, the LEA into which they will move will accept the EHCP on transfer. The essence of amendment 2 is that it would ensure that that process does take place, rather than leaving it as a matter of discretion for the receiving LEA, which itself may be under considerable pressure to meet the demand for SEN support. Amendment 3, which relates to adoption and fostering, is similar in spirit. It would mean that service personnel who have begun the fostering and adoption process under one local education authority would not have to go again to the back of the queue, as it were, if they were to transfer to another. The spirit of both amendments is the same.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I fully acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s point about education being a devolved matter, which makes the SEN issue more complicated. He is quite correct about that, but does he acknowledge that amendment 2 allows for that and specifically refers to it? Secondly, there is no cross-border issue in England. If I agree with him that this would best be done via an education Bill, will he agree with me that in England there is no impediment whatsoever to making the transfer of EHCPs for service children mandatory?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to amendments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and new clauses 1, 2, 3 and 6, which appear in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I will say a little about each amendment and new clause in turn. I will also refer to new clause 5, which appears in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), and say at least a little about the multiplicity of Government amendments that have just been tabled, in particular Government amendment 54 on the proposed Crown immunity for the defence housing service. By your leave, Madam Chairman, I propose to speak to the amendments first and then to refer to the new clauses a little later in the debate so as not to try the patience of the Committee with an inordinately long speech. I hope that we have collectively done the House and, indeed, the armed forces a service in our scrutiny of the Bill so far. The Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, most of whose members are here, held seven oral evidence sessions on the Bill’s contents, as well as making a fact-finding visit to the Defence Serious Crime Command in Fareham and to defence housing sites at Emsworth near His Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth. As a Committee, we received 47 pieces of written evidence and heard from 42 witnesses. Having held the evidence sessions, we then went through a detailed process of line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill and produced our subsequent report to the House, which was published on 29 April. The Bill has already had quite a detailed amount of scrutiny; however, it is right that a measure of such importance is now in Committee on the Floor of the House. I reiterate my disappointment that Reform does not regard these proceedings as important. I am sure that the rest of us do; that is why we are here.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  It is extremely sad that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to conflate two completely different issues, and I suspect that anyone who actually served on Operation Telic would understand that. Having made that point, let me turn to the Opposition’s new clause 2, which would require the Secretary of State for Defence to lay a defence investment plan before Parliament within a month of the passage of this Act, if it had still not been published by then, which, for reasons I will come to in a minute, is not as fantastical as it might seem. For context, today is the one-year anniversary of the publication of the Government’s much-vaunted strategic defence review. There is a lot of good in the document, but one of the criticisms made at the time was that much of the programmatic detail on which new equipment the Government intended to purchase for our armed forces was omitted. For instance, the Government talked about buying “up to” 12 new nuclear attack submarines. That could mean two. All that detail was going to be provided in the defence investment plan, but one year on, it has still not been published. This has drawn serious criticism from right across the defence industry, and also from the authors of the SDR. Indeed, the lead author, Lord Robertson, a lifelong Labour man to his fingertips, has accused the Prime Minister of “corrosive complacency” because of the ongoing delay in saying how the Government will fund the strategic defence review and its attendant equipment requirements. When we were in government, we used to publish a 10-year plan for the purchase of military equipment, universally known as the equipment plan.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  As a matter of fact, that is not how I interpret what the NAO said—not at all.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Having addressed our amendments towards the opening of the debate, I will now speak to the new clauses. New clause 3 would create a veterans’ commissioner for England. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) made a good case for doing so during the Select Committee on the Bill, and did so again this afternoon. She received cross-party support—certainly in principle—from the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), who made an extremely thoughtful contribution. He also gave my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) some support for new clause 5, which I will come to in a moment. When I was debating the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill—now the Armed Forces Commissioner Act 2025—with the Minister some months ago, he gave a commitment that the veterans’ commissioners for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be mirrored by the appointment of a veterans’ commissioner for England. However, that has still not come to pass. Could he explain to the Committee where the Government now sit on this issue? When can we expect them to honour their pledge to create a veterans’ commissioner for England? Have they begun any interview process, to at least begin to identify a suitable candidate for the role? The Government gave their word on this. The Committee would be grateful for an update from the Minister on where the Government are with this matter. I turn to new clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon, which has the support of over 20 hon. Members. The essence of the new clause is that no fees should be charged to serving or previously serving members of the armed forces, or their family members, who are applying for indefinite leave to remain under the immigration rules appendix for His Majesty’s armed forces. In practical terms, the new clause would amend the Immigration Act 2014 so that when members of the armed forces apply for ILR, in return for their willingness to serve the Crown, the attendant fees would be waived. This is a particular issue for Gurkha families, and foreign and Commonwealth personnel who are serving, or have served, in the armed forces.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

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  May I begin by saying that we Conservative Members stand four-square with the Government on their response to Romania? It is a NATO ally, and it deserves our support. While overall trends in recruitment and retention may have stabilised, there is still a serious problem of personnel leaving the special forces. We know from the personal accounts of former Special Air Service commanders that this is due in no small part to the Government’s facilitation of lawfare against their comrades who served in Northern Ireland. To aid retention, what is the Secretary of State’s personal response to the three special forces regimental associations that publicly warned him in late April that “The egregious mistreatment of veterans and the ongoing infringement of their rights has to end”?

• 1 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State said he did not recognise “my” description. It is not mine. It is in a statement of 22 April from the three special forces regimental associations. Those are not my words; they are theirs. I will ask him again. If we are to persuade people to continue serving their King and country in uniform in very high-threat situations, we need to address these legitimate concerns. For months now, the Government have been promising to table amendments to their benighted troubles Bill to provide additional protections for veterans, but as with the defence investment plan, we are still waiting for Godot. When exactly will those long-promised amendments be published, and by which Minister?

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, the Minister’s excuse for not guaranteeing that the documents will be available by 18 June is that he would need to secure parliamentary time. This is news to some of us, who have been here a while and understand that the Government effectively control the timetable of Parliament. Indeed, every Thursday when the House is sitting they make a business statement to tell us what is coming up in the next two weeks. Mr Speaker, are you aware of anything in the Standing Orders or Erskine May that would prevent the Government from making a business statement on Thursday, naming a day for publication after the Whitsun recess?

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  Do Labour MPs not realise that it is because of high-handed behaviour like this that they suffered such a drubbing on 7 May? The Minister has said that the documents will be published after we return from Whit on 1 June, but he has repeatedly refused to answer whether or not they will be published by the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. Let me ask him yet again: can he guarantee to the House and the constituents we represent that this large batch of documents will be published in advance of the Makerfield by-election on 18 June—yes or no?

• 14 May 2026 · Supreme Court Dillon Judgment · Hansard source

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  As is traditional, I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, in that—as he said himself—the judgment in the Dillon case is a complex one. We on the Conservative Benches certainly agree. I suspect that this judgment will be pored over and, indeed, argued over at considerable length, not least in the other place should Labour’s benighted troubles Bill ever make it there. I will just make a point about immunity, and the concept that lay behind the Conservatives’ Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. I was serving on the Select Committee on Defence under my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)—an excellent Chairman—when, in 2017, we produced an extremely detailed report on this complex issue. In fairness, I think the Secretary of State has read that report. What was proposed by the Select Committee is akin to what the legacy Act turned out to be, and that in turn was based on the South African truth and reconciliation commission. We never legislated for absolute immunity for anybody; we legislated for conditional immunity, so that if someone who was involved in a troubles-related fatality came forward to give evidence to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery—I will return to the commission in a moment—the commission could judge whether they had fully co-operated with it, such as by revealing the burial place of one of the so-called disappeared. If the commission believed that that individual had genuinely co-operated in good faith, they would be granted immunity. If not—if the commission felt that that person was lying, dissembling or trying to hide something—the commission could recommend that a prosecution still go ahead. Contrary to the Government’s position, the legacy Act and ICRIR, which the Act established, only ever allowed for conditional immunity. It is important to put that on the record this morning. I have three specific questions for the Secretary of State about his statement. First, will he say a bit more about the relationship between the Dillon judgment and the Windsor framework? He touched on it, but can he expand? Secondly, as he knows, many of the cases brought against veterans were funded by legal aid in Northern Ireland. He referred very briefly to the implications for legal aid, but can he say something more about that? Thirdly, we heard at business questions a few minutes ago that the Armed Forces Bill will be returning to the House in Committee on 2 June. I was quite involved with that Bill. Under its programme motion, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill has two days for Committee and remaining stages. When do the Government plan to bring it back to the Floor of the House? Perhaps he could answer that specifically. I am sad to say that Labour has been cynical today. I humbly remind the Secretary of State that when we debated and voted on the related remedial order back on 21 January, almost a third of the Labour parliamentary party abstained, famously including the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns). As we all know, he is otherwise occupied today. Even the current Prime Minister abstained. He blew the whistle and sent his troops over the top to vote for this benighted legislation that he did not have the courage to vote for himself. That brings me to encapsulating exactly what is going on today. While this Government prepare to tear themselves to pieces over a mixture of post-electoral fear and vaulting ambition, what is the Labour party’s absolute priority this morning? It is to advance legislation to facilitate the prosecution of brave Northern Ireland veterans, many of whom gave their lives to uphold the rule of law in Northern Ireland—in essence, to defend all of this around us today. That sums up the Labour party. It has clearly chosen today as a not-so-good day to bury bad news. The very bad news is that despite all its protestations to the contrary, Labour would rather help Sinn Féin chase those who fought for their country. The public will see this for what it is: not a complex legal treatise, but a disgrace.

• 14 May 2026 · Supreme Court Dillon Judgment · Hansard source

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  If it believes they have co-operated—that is the nuance.

• 13 May 2026 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the Prime Minister give way?

• 13 May 2026 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister will know that in the recent Supreme Court Dillon judgment the Court ruled that the Conservatives’ Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 overwhelmingly was not incompatible with the Human Rights Act—he knows that. He referenced the awful events in Golders Green, rightfully, and he defended the police officers against attacks and the leader of the Green party, rightfully, and said that they had to take split-second decisions. If Northern Ireland veterans had to take split-second decisions to uphold the rule of law in Northern Ireland, what is the difference?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but is it not true that the post of UK ambassador to Washington would be held by someone who would therefore have access to extremely sensitive intelligence, potentially including nuclear co-operation? Surely the fact that Mandelson had been found to have been working for a Russian company post the invasion of Ukraine should have completely barred him from the appointment, on that ground alone.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  May I take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend and Lord Nash on a hard-fought but important campaign? We now have a commitment in principle from the Government that they will ban the use of social media by under-16s, which will be welcomed across the country by concerned parents. Can she reassure me and the House that all that fighting was worth it?