Melanie Ward MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what the Conservative policy was in relation to fuel duty at the last election? By my recollection, it was that fuel duty would have been higher under the Conservatives than it is now under this Labour Government.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  I wanted to respond to the point that the hon. Gentleman made a moment ago. He said something to the effect that the people who would benefit from our Government lifting the two-child benefit cap were not grafters. Does he not agree that the people who will benefit from the two-child benefit cap being lifted are children who were living in poverty, and that the majority of the households that those children live in are, in fact, in work? They are grafters.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  I could come back to the hon. Gentleman on all the ways in which my constituents are getting really poor value for money in Scotland, such as the cuts to police numbers in Fife and excessively long waiting lists in the NHS that are not falling, as they are under a Labour Government in England. The hon. Gentleman talks about heating oil. He will be aware—in fact, I think he referenced it—of the additional £4.6 million for the Scottish Government that the Prime Minister announced on Monday to support people in rural areas and vulnerable households dealing with the increases in the price of heating oil caused by the war in the middle east. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us when the Scottish Government will make that funding available to his constituents and my constituents?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  That was a little bit unnecessary. The hon. Gentleman is talking about raising taxes, and I just wonder whether he would acknowledge that the SNP Scottish Government actually have higher taxes in place than the Government in England.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) agree that investing in clean, green, home-grown energy is the way to ensure that we have energy security for our country in the future?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  The Government are right not to be drawn into this war and that it needs to end, including with a negotiated agreement. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s comments about the situation in Lebanon, where I used to live and work as an aid worker. Does she share my serious concern at the conduct of the Israeli military, with at least 28 attacks on hospitals and health facilities in Lebanon so far and threats of forced displacement? The tactics used in Gaza were criminal and must not be exported with impunity.

• 16 Mar 2026 · Heating Oil Support · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the UK Government have provided the Scottish Government with £4.6 million to ensure that the most vulnerable households in parts of my constituency, like Auchtertool and Kingseat, are shielded against the increases in the price of heating oil caused by war in the middle east. Does he agree that it is up to the Scottish Government to act very rapidly to ensure that the most vulnerable households in my constituency get the support that they need?

• 12 Mar 2026 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer) on her first speech, and welcome her to this place. I do not know whether she has noticed, but the Palace of Westminster is in need of some maintenance, so it is entirely possible that both her plastering and plumbing skills will come in useful in the very near future. I rise to speak in my first International Women’s Day debate. I have followed these debates since before I was elected, so it is a true privilege to take part today. I have to say, if the composition of the Chamber were like this more often—by which I mean the number of men and women relative to each other—we might have different kinds of debates. Today, we celebrate women in our communities, across the country and throughout our world. We celebrate extraordinary women who achieve incredible things for the good of humanity. In that context, it is a great but sad honour to sit opposite the coat of arms of my late dear friend Jo Cox, with whom I served on the board of the Labour Women’s Network. I think of her every time I come to this place and see her coat of arms. We miss her and her contributions dearly. I have previously mentioned Jennie Lee, a proud Fifer who grew up in Cowdenbeath in my constituency and served two spells as a Labour MP. As well as having been the first ever UK Minister for the Arts, and the creator of the Open University, it is less known that Jennie served in the Ministry of Aircraft Production during world war two, keeping aircraft factories running during the blitz. She was called on to do so because of her no-nonsense attitude and ability to get things done. I take inspiration from that. I am proud to follow Jennie as the 595th woman—among many thousands of men—elected to this Parliament, together with an unprecedented number of women MPs. Our Labour Government have important plans to advance women’s equality, from halving violence against women and girls to transforming women’s experiences of maternity care—a subject I discussed with the right hon. Baroness Amos just this week. Beyond the women who are recognised for extraordinary achievements, we must be clear that the unseen work that women across the world do every day does not receive the recognition it deserves. According to the UN, women and girls do 16,000,000,000 hours of unpaid care work every single day. Their work is the very glue of families, communities and economies—countries could not function without it—yet it remains largely invisible, undervalued and unequally distributed. Today, I want to sound a warning. We know that violent struggles are being fought for global power, but around the world, and increasingly at home, the struggle for power is being expressed as a struggle for control over women and our bodies. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) and I have written about that together this week. There are many shocking examples of the battle to control women’s bodies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare) mentioned, the oppressive regime in Iran has been desperate to prevent women from dressing in the way they want to, despite the incredibly brave protestations of amazing women there in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death. As the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) said so eloquently, in Afghanistan, the Taliban have tested the limits of whether the world will stop them enforcing gender apartheid, by forcing women out of schools and workplaces and into the home. They looked for, and found, the answer they wanted: that the world does not care enough to stop them. In Sudan, which is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, rape and sexual violence is routinely used as a weapon of war. At the recent Munich security conference, which I attended, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke powerfully about her visit to Sudanese refugee camps and the horrific accounts that she heard there, including of the systematic rape of girls as young as eight. I am proud to be a former chair of The Circle, the global feminist organisation founded by Annie Lennox. Only this morning it shared with me data showing that sexual violence in conflicts worldwide has increased by 25% in the last year. In conversations about a shift in the global order, there is an increasing subtext of the need to control women’s bodies. We see that in some of the attacks on the legitimacy and funding of the United Nations. I worked with the UN in my previous work. Let us make no mistake: the UN would benefit from many reforms, but starving its institutions of funding to do work that no one else will do, for people no one else will help, is a grave error. That work includes providing contraception to women in war zones and refugee camps, so that they have some basic control over their bodies in situations where they have control over almost nothing else. In the context of domestic cuts to our own aid budget—a source of concern to many of us—we must do everything possible to preserve support for women and girls. I know that the Foreign Secretary is doing important work on that. We must not content ourselves by believing that such misogyny only exists abroad. Matt Goodwin, the Reform candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, said that women who do not have children should be taxed more, and that young women need an education in fertility—as if “The Handmaid’s Tale” was something we should aspire to. He seems to believe that women who choose not to have children, or who cannot, are somehow failing in their duties. Reform has said that, were they in government, the Equality Act—the basis for much of the progress we have made on women’s rights in the UK—would be repealed. Shame on them. Online, British women are stripped of the agency we have over our own bodies, exemplified by Grok weaponising women’s bodies through nudification. Our Labour Government are right to crack down on such apps. My hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) had the truly awful experience of someone using that technology to make a fake video of her being chloroformed and “prepared for rape”. That makes the comments by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), in the previous statement all the more unacceptable. The intended humiliation of women online is not simply cruel or misogynistic, although it is certainly both. It is intended to instil fear, to signal that some violent men believe that they are entitled to dominate women and to normalise such abhorrent behaviour. Last week, ahead of International Women’s Day, I met members of the Fife violence against women partnership. We discussed the more than 5,000 incidents of domestic abuse and the more than 1,100 crimes of indecency reported to the Fife police last year. We know that many more will have gone unreported. They also shared with me their concerns about social media and the misogyny spread online by so-called male influencers. I heard shocking reports about some of the things that local schoolboys have said to female teachers—comments that they have learned online. They included female teachers being told by boys that they teach, “You’re so ugly, I wouldn’t even rape you.” Male influencers online also seek to spread the idea that the role of the tradwife is what girls and young women should aspire to in life. This is the idea that women belong only in the home, and that we should all take our fulfilment simply from cooking meals for our husbands and rearing children. This online misogyny is spread by the likes of Andrew Tate, the late Charlie Kirk and far too many others, and it is aided by harmful algorithms. Perhaps it should not surprise us that a new global survey has found that younger men increasingly believe that a wife should obey her husband, and that men are expected to do too much to support equality. That is not an accident; transnational organisation is making that happen. The European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights has found that $1.18 billion was pumped into European movements dedicated to rolling back women’s rights between 2019 and 2023. That funding came from 275 different actors, including church-run non-governmental organisations and far-right populist parties. Russia was the biggest source of donations, and the United States the second biggest—especially from American Christian nationalists. That American funding is now accompanied by financial help from the US Government, who have set aside $200 million to support MAGA-friendly think-tanks in Europe. Let us be clear: this is designed to spread their ideology, including here in the UK. When we, the decent majority, both in this House and outside it, confront the grassroots arm of the far-right—local groups acting in our communities—we must be clear that they are not just isolated local groupings of people; they are the grassroots arm of a well-organised international effort to reverse women’s rights. Our Government are doing a huge amount to drive forward women’s equality on closing the pay gap on childcare, on tackling violence against women and girls, and so much more. I am proud of that work. But we face a dark threat to the fabric of our society from the organised misogyny that I have described. We must defeat it, and we have much to do.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Local Museums · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate on local museums. Local museums play a crucial role in our constituencies. They not only bring people to visit from all corners of the country and, indeed, the world, but strengthen the ties that bind us to where we live, giving us pride in the contributions that our homes have given to the world. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Kirkcaldy Galleries and War Memorial, which celebrated their centenary last year. They were the gift of John Nairn, whose family’s linoleum-making business helped to make Kirkcaldy the linoleum capital of the world. He paid for the construction of the galleries, in memory of his only son, Ian Nairn, who was killed in the Somme in 1918. The galleries building is one of the first things that people see as they leave the train station in Kirkcaldy and head to our town centre. The award-winning art galleries have a large collection of paintings by William McTaggart and Samuel Peploe, and have hosted exhibitions by Diane Arbus and Fife’s very own Jack Vettriano, who was heavily influenced by the works on display in the galleries. As it is World Book Day today, it would be remiss of me not to mention the excellent children’s library that is there, too, which my own kids spend many a happy hour in, usually looking for one particular Mr Men book or another. The galleries also contain a first edition copy of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”, which celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. The father of economics was born and grew up in Kirkcaldy; there is a commemorative plaque on the high street marking his mother’s house, where he completed writing that book. Adam Smith’s titanic legacy has been preserved by the excellent work of the Adam Smith Global Foundation, which manages the heritage centre and Adam Smith Close, where the stones mark significant events in Smith’s life, by the Old Kirk where Smith was baptised. The Minister will be aware of concerns that Church leaders have expressed about the closure of the listed places of worship scheme; I wonder whether he might address those concerns in his response. While I have him here, I must also take the chance to give my utmost support to Kirkcaldy’s bid to be UK town of culture 2028. I am sure that all hon. Members present will agree that it would be a worthy winner. The bid has been led by the Lang Toun Partners, formed by the Adam Smith Global Foundation and other fantastic organisations from our town. Our town has so much going on, but it is a well-kept secret to too many outside the Lang Toun. It is time that we shouted louder, so I am delighted to support the bid to cement our position on the cultural map and make Kirkcaldy the UK’s town of culture for 2028. I would also like to mark the important contributions of Burntisland Heritage Trust, who do so much to celebrate Burntisland and preserve its important history, as well as the excellent Museum of Communication in Burntisland. Finally, with International Women’s Day taking place this weekend, I end by recognising the work of Jennie Lee, who grew up in my constituency, in Cowdenbeath. Jennie was the UK’s first ever Minister for the Arts. She trebled Arts Council funding, was a strong supporter of regional and national arts, and founded the Open University. Jennie’s legacy is truly one to be proud of. Perhaps the Minister finds her as much of an inspiration as I do. Her picture hangs in my office and I take inspiration from her important work every day that I sit in this place.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister is right to be clear that UK military action has to be in line with international law, and that we were not involved in the offensive action of Israel and the US. He is also right to act to protect British lives and British interests in the face of Iranian attacks. In rightly drawing lessons from Iraq, does the Prime Minister agree that a failed state in Iran is not in the interests of the UK, nor in the interests of the wider middle east?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman talks about drones. A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Munich security conference, where I had the privilege of hearing President Zelensky speak. He said that in January, Ukraine was attacked by more than 6,000 Shahed drones, which are made in Iran, or in Russia based on Iranian design. Does he agree that the sheer scale of bombardment that Ukraine faces from those drones, and from countries that also wish our country ill, is just one reason why the United Kingdom is right to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Gaza Healthcare System · Hansard source

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  I am sure that everybody in this Chamber is absolutely opposed to the horrific Hamas attacks that took place on 7 October 2023. What confuses me is why the shadow Minister and his party continue to repeat Israeli propaganda points. I was an aid worker before I was elected to this place. I was in Gaza during the war. Can he give us some examples of all the things that he is repeating about the misappropriation and the stealing of aid? Can he give us one concrete example?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Gaza Healthcare System · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree with me on the need for justice and accountability for horrific acts that have taken place in hospitals, including a massacre in the grounds of al-Shifa hospital, and a situation in Nasser hospital where many babies were left to die following Israeli military action?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Gaza Healthcare System · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) who, as so often on topics like this, speaks with great authority. I rise once again this year to remember the Holocaust, one of the darkest chapters in human history. The industrial-scale extermination of 6 million Jewish people and millions more prisoners of war, political prisoners, Poles, disabled people, members of the LGBT community, Roma and others is a horror so bleak that we must ensure the memory of what was done and those whose lives were taken never fades. The theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “Bridging Generations”. In last year’s debate, we marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Like a number of other Members, I shared some of my own family’s story and spoke about my Jewish great-grandfather. In the intervening year, we have lost more Holocaust survivors who were determined to let the world know what happened to them, their friends and their family in that horrific place. Holocaust education is not just teaching history; it should play a crucial role in combatting antisemitism and hatred, and preventing future genocides. As we are able to hear from fewer and fewer survivors each year, there is an additional duty for all of us to educate future generations on the atrocities that were committed on European soil. In my constituency just last month, a group of masked young men were photographed giving the Nazi salute and brandishing the symbol of the SS on the steps of our town house in Kirkcaldy. It was so shocking that at first, I thought the image must have been generated by AI, because things like that don’t usually happen round our way, but the local police confirmed that it was real. It was honestly frightening that those men felt comfortable participating in such an act in broad daylight, not 400 yards from our Holocaust memorial or the war memorial, which commemorates the hundreds of Kirkcaldy men who died fighting the Nazis. Acts like this are a warning to us all: hatred spreads in plain sight. There are those among us, including some who sit in this place, whose purpose is to sow and stir hatred and division in our communities. It is fostered and spread online, in the presence of vulnerable young minds. This is an eradication of historical record and memory in favour of misinformation. I am grateful to my local police force in Kirkcaldy for its swift action in identifying, arresting and charging suspects, as well as to the many Fifers who expressed their outrage that such an ignorant, offensive and dangerous act had taken place in our midst. I have said to my constituents that, in the months and years ahead, sadly we—and they—must all be prepared to take a visible stand against hate. Some of the people in that photograph were not men but boys, who apparently said that they had not understood what the gesture of the Nazi salute meant, nor understood the SS symbol on the flag that they held, but that is why the theme of “Bridging Generations” is so crucial. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, education and memory must become a responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), in a profound speech, spoke about the difference between history and memory. We in Kirkcaldy are proud of our Holocaust memorial, designed by students from three Fife schools who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2005. The sculpture is in the shape of a doorway, and has symbols carved into it that were used across Europe and America in the 1930s to tell others, “This is a safe place.” The UK, and towns like mine in Fife, has long been a safe place for minorities and those fleeing persecution. It is incumbent on all of us to call out racism and antisemitism and those who seek to divide us. I know that the vast majority of my constituents—indeed, of our country—agree with that, but we can take nothing for granted in today’s uncertain world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) so eloquently said, we cannot assume that it will not happen again. Indeed, in the wake of the antisemitic attacks on Heaton Park synagogue and Bondi Beach, we must be clear eyed about what is happening. In the aftermath of the Holocaust and world war two, international law and the rules-based order were created, to put lines in the sand about right and wrong and to learn the lessons of what had taken place. Now, as the rules-based order is increasingly trampled on by nations that should know better, we the UK must do more to prevent mass atrocities. There must be better prediction, prevention and response to mass identity-based violence. Data suggests that since 2012 there has been an increase in the number of countries where mass atrocity crimes are occurring, and action is needed to stop it. There is a gap in global leadership on this agenda, and it shows. The UK has never had a strategy for the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. Given the state of global affairs, surely we need one now more than ever. Surely, too, we should seek to build a coalition with like-minded countries to monitor the warning signs and act together to prevent the mass murder of citizens who are targeted simply because of who they are. I ask the Minister to take that away. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, humanity was determined to prevent genocide, mass atrocities and identity-based violence from taking place ever again, but the warning light is flashing red and it is time for renewed domestic and international action, alongside education. Holocaust Memorial Day is often marked by the lighting of a candle. It is now up to us to light that candle, and carry the memory of those who perished with us always.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  After beaches in Burntisland and Kinghorn recently had their water quality downgraded, many of my constituents will be angry that Scottish Government-owned Scottish Water are hiking bills by almost 10%. Both beaches were closed for periods last summer due to pollution, and people became sick from exposure to it. That is particularly galling after the chief executive of Scottish Water was handed a £50,000 pay increase. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is long past time for the SNP Scottish Government to get a grip and to clean up our coasts? Will he make time for a debate on water quality?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Venezuela · Hansard source

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  There has been much discussion of international law, but what matters is that it is upheld at such a dangerous time in the world. Our country is less safe when it is not upheld. In the context of Venezuela and Greenland, will the Government reaffirm their commitment to the UN charter as a key instrument of international law, and will they vote accordingly at the UN Security Council?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We continue to await a Home Office decision on the future of the Gaza student scholarship scheme. While thinking about that, will the Government commit to honouring the visas of the small number of students and their families who already have funded places to come here but have not yet been permitted to leave Gaza?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Middle East and North Africa · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for all his work on Yemen, which gets too little attention. It is a personal commitment of his. The humanitarian crisis there is truly horrific. As he said, over Christmas, the Israeli Government banned 37 international humanitarian organisations, many of them British, from delivering lifesaving aid in the state of Palestine. They include Medical Aid for Palestinians, the International Rescue Committee, Action Aid and Médicine sans Frontières. In doing this, Israel follows in the footsteps of other aid-banning regimes, such as North Korea, Russia and Myanmar. More civilians are dying as a result. We know from the past two years that words and statements have no impact on the behaviour of this Israeli Government. When will the UK take real action and impose sanctions on all the Israeli Government officials who are involved in this illegal, inhumane ban on humanitarian organisations?

• 17 Dec 2025 · INEOS Chemicals: Grangemouth · Hansard source

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  Today’s news of UK Government investment in Grangemouth is welcome. Following the devastating announcement by ExxonMobil about job losses at Mossmorran in my constituency, the Mossmorran taskforce is now up and running to give maximum support to the workforce and to consider the future of that site. I welcome the news today that the Mossmorran workers will be prioritised for interview for new jobs created at Ineos in Grangemouth. The Minister and I have discussed this, but will he confirm that the Government are exploring investing in possible alternative futures for the site and the workforce at Mossmorran?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 17 December.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s condemnation of the horrific attacks in Australia. We must be clear that antisemitic terrorism is always an outrage. At Christmas time, many across our country will be thinking of Bethlehem, where the situation remains extremely difficult. The Government’s important scheme for students from Gaza with scholarships to study in the UK expires on 31 December, but a number of scholarship holders and their children have not yet been permitted to leave Gaza. If the scheme closes, these brilliant Palestinians will lose their university places and we will lose their talent. Will the Prime Minister extend the UK’s existing scheme into next year to prevent that from happening?