Pat McFadden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Dec 2024 · Cyber-security · Hansard source

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  As I set out in my speech to the NATO cyber-defence conference last week, we are working to strengthen the UK’s cyber-resilience, but there is, of course, still more to do. In the King’s Speech, we announced that the Government will bring forward a cyber-security and resilience Bill, which will help to strengthen the UK’s cyber-defences and our work with industry to help to make the UK a safe place to live and work online. I stress to the House that this is an ongoing effort. It can never be perfect, but we are constantly working to make sure we have the strongest cyber-defences possible.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Let me assure the hon. Lady that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who leads on this, is fully aware of the issues she has raised. He is working with the groups affected and is determined to ensure that initial payments are out by the end of the year.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The former Transport Secretary had exchanges with the Prime Minister last week, which have resulted in her resigning from the post. She set out her reasons for her resignation in that letter. We now have a new Transport Secretary, who has already made an excellent start in the job.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  All Cabinet Ministers have an interview and make declarations to the propriety and ethics team before they are appointed to the Government. I am aware of what I told the propriety and ethics team before my appointment, but I do not look through the declarations from every other Minister.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The best thing to do when it comes to a specific place is for me to look into the exact situation and come back to the hon. Member. I assure him, as I have said several times during this session, that cyber-security is extremely important to the Government. It is not just the Government’s job; cyber-security has to be taken seriously by business and the whole of society. That is why we have the National Cyber Security Centre giving advice to bodies of all kinds to ensure that they are defended as well as possible.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thought that the hon. Member was going to give me a Christmas greeting, but I am still waiting. In the absence of any envoys, he will have to put up with me instead, as the Minister for intergovernmental relations. It is a part of my job that I take very seriously, for perhaps obvious reasons. I enjoyed my conversations yesterday with the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. I will keep having such conversations.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I will have more to say on this shortly, but it is important that Governments set out what they are trying to do and on what timescale, particularly when we have an atmosphere in politics—this is the serious point—of a lack of faith among many in the electorate in the ability of Governments of any stripe to deliver. We take that seriously, and want to do something about it.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As I said to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) a few moments ago, all Secretaries of State give their declaration to the propriety and ethics team upon appointment. The matter was concluded last Friday with the Transport Secretary’s resignation. She has been replaced by a new Secretary of State, and she set out her reasons for resigning in her resignation letter. If the right hon. Member has not had a copy, I am quite happy to make it available to him.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As I said a few moments ago, last week I addressed the NATO cyber-defence conference about the increasingly aggressive and reckless behaviour from Russia, in particular in the cyber-realm, including attacks on NATO members. I made it clear that no one will intimidate us into weakening our support for Ukraine. I also announced the Laboratory for AI Security Research and a new incident unit to help our allies respond to cyber-attacks against them. We promised to make a tangible difference to people’s lives. I will shortly be setting out in this House our ambitious plan for change over the next few years, and copies of that plan will be made available to Members in advance of the statement.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am very sorry to hear about the cyber-attack against my hon. Friend’s local authority. Such attacks can have a serious impact on local residents. As I said in my speech to the NATO cyber-defence conference last week, the Government are determined to strengthen cyber-resilience in the UK. We publish guidance on it and meet with stakeholders. Advice is available from the National Cyber Security Centre. In October, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched the cyber assessment framework for local government, which is particularly geared at the local authorities about which he speaks.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I hate to do this as we are approaching the festive season, but I am afraid that I will have to disappoint the hon. Lady. We have no plans to change the electoral system, and I cannot give her the Government time that she requires.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the plan, which stands in marked contrast to the scepticism shown by his party’s Front Benchers. He will have plenty of opportunity, now that we have published the plan, to ask Ministers about these things as we move forward. We know that they will be challenging to deliver. We have not yet followed the advice of the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara), who suggested that we do this every year, but I am sure that the Ministers in charge of these goals will keep the House regularly updated.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I have spent more of my life than I would have liked in opposition, and I learned one thing about being in opposition: one has to decide what one’s attack is. As I listened to the hon. Gentleman, I was not sure whether he supported or opposed the plan. The hon. Gentleman refers to millstones. Let me tell him very clearly: the only millstone that this Government and this country have is the appalling legacy left by the Conservatives. Let us contrast what we are announcing today with their milestones of failure. They had record high waiting lists, the worst Parliament for living standards on record, a surrender on house building, a failure on infrastructure and a £22 billion hole in the public finances —those are their milestones of failure. These are our choices today. The metrics by which we measure things are set out in the document before the House. The targets will make a real difference to people’s lives: higher living standards across the country, more housing, fewer people on NHS waiting lists, more community police and the best start in life for all children. That final metric is already measured when children start school at the age of five; under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, that metric fell, so our plan is to raise that, so that three out of four children can start school ready to learn. That is the measure that we will choose. The truth is that the Conservatives could not tackle the challenges we have set out today, and they know it. They could not unblock the housing system or get the growth the country needs because they are the ones blocking the new housing and the infrastructure that we need. They could not fix the schools or the hospitals, or get more police on the streets, because they are still saying that they support the investment while opposing any revenue measure that pays for it, thereby sacrificing any reputation for economic competence that they had. What a contrast. We will not subscribe to the fatalistic view that all we can look forward to is more of the kind of failure we saw over the past 14 years. We believe in setting out plans that will improve people’s lives, because we know that a united Government, with a clear sense of priorities, prepared to do the hard yards and make the difficult long-term choices for the country, can deliver a better future for people. That is what is set out in the plans we have published today.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I can give my hon. Friend that commitment, and I can assure her of the passion that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care feels for this goal, for turning around the system and for reducing waiting lists and waiting times. He knows how important that is for patients, and for our goal of growing the economy, and that is why the goal is part of the document.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I am sure that in every part of the country, Governments who run the NHS want to see waiting lists fall. We put that at the heart of the plan for change today because it drives the whole system, and because the levels of satisfaction with the NHS that we inherited were the lowest ever recorded. No Government can be content with that; I can tell the right hon. Gentleman honestly that no Labour Government are content with it. That is why it is an important part of the plan.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member looks at the document, she will find that an expansion of nursery places is in it, because we know it is good for children and for working parents. That is part of the plan we set out today, and part of our plan to ensure that children in early years have the best possible start in life. I cannot announce anything further to the Budget on national insurance, but she knows the background to why we had to take those decisions.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member calls this a relaunch. I hate to break it to him, but the Government he supports in Scotland produce a programme for government every single year. Does that mean that they relaunch every year, or does he put that accusation only to us? He asks about devolution. We were the party that created devolution because we believed in a powerful Scottish Parliament. We still do, and it has just received its biggest real-terms increase in funding since devolution came into being. He missed out his thanks to the Labour Chancellor who made that happen.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about the next phase of the Government’s programme. In July we set out our legislative programme, in October we set out our financial plan, and today we are setting out our plan for change. When we were elected, we said that we would have five long-term missions for the country: to grow the economy, to build an NHS fit for the future, to break down the barriers to opportunity, to take back our streets, and to make the UK a clean energy superpower. These missions mark an important and fundamental break from the record of chaos that we saw under the previous Administration—the constant changes in policy that prevented the then Government from facing up to long-term problems, held people back and, worst of all, helped to spread the belief that politics and government could no longer deliver for people. In fact, by the end they had given up even trying. We will never submit to the fatalism that says government cannot deliver change for people. We do not believe that living standards have to stagnate as they did in the last Parliament. We do not accept the lowest levels of satisfaction with the NHS ever recorded, which is what we inherited when we came to power. We do not believe that a tawdry surrender to Tory Back Benchers should be allowed to cut off the dream of home ownership for the next generation. We will not sit back and accept a situation in which young children are falling behind their peers even before they start school, damaging their opportunities for the rest of their lives. A break with all that is more than a political choice. It is a national necessity, so today we turn the page on that record. We reject the hopelessness that it fostered, and we have set out milestones for each of our missions and the foundations that underpin them. We have already stabilised the public finances. We have announced £22 billion more for the NHS, and we are increasing the schools budget by more than £2 billion. We have rejected the plans that we inherited from the Conservatives to cut back on capital investment and on the country’s future; instead, we want to build the schools, build the hospitals, build the houses and build the transport infrastructure that the country needs—investments that the Conservatives now say they support, although they reject every means of raising the revenue to pay for them. That proves only one thing: they have given up any pretence of being the party of sound money, and given up on being a serious political party at all. Our plan for change sets out key milestones for the country. The first is to raise living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so that working people have more money in their pockets no matter where in the country they live. The second is to build 1.5 million homes and to fast-track planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects; that is more than in the last 14 years combined. The third is to tackle the hospital backlogs by meeting the NHS standard of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment in England. The fourth is to provide a named police officer for every neighbourhood, and 13,000 additional officers, police community support officers and special constables in neighbourhood teams in England and Wales. The fifth is to secure home-grown energy while also protecting bill payers: we want to be on track for clean power by 2030. The sixth is to give children the best start in life by ensuring that a record percentage of five-year-olds in England are ready to learn when they start school. Underpinning those milestones are the strong foundations that the country needs. Economic stability is the foundation for growth, following a Budget that restored stability to the public finances and put in place investment to move the country forward. We will reduce net migration from the record high level that we inherited from the previous Government, clear the asylum backlog and increase returns of people who do not have the right to be here —work that has already begun. We will also fulfil the Government’s first duty of protecting our people through strong national security. Those are the milestones in our “Plan for Change”. None of them is easy, but worthwhile change seldom is. To deliver them will require relentless focus and facing up to the trade-offs involved. Governing is not just about what we want to do, but about how we want to do it, so we have to reform the state itself to deliver our goals. That is why we want value for money, and are cracking down on fraud and waste through the new covid corruption commissioner. That is why we will raise £6 billion by going after tax avoiders—unlike the Conservative party, we are putting in the money to make it happen. That is why the Chancellor demanded efficiency and productivity savings of 2% from each Government Department next year. That is why we want to get more people off welfare and into work. That is why we will tackle the delays and blocks in our planning system to make it faster to get things built. The old debate was just about Government budgets. The new debate has to be about how those budgets are used, and about how people can be equipped with the right technology and the right systems to deliver, so we will ask the following questions each time. Is power being devolved enough? Is technology being used enough? Are we learning enough from those on the frontline? We will have more to say about reform of the state soon. I know there may be scepticism from those who first accused us of being far too cautious and now accuse us of being far too ambitious, but stop and think about what would happen if we did not set such goals. Politics needs a change when people have lost faith in its capacity to deliver, and the Government system itself needs a change to focus on the goals that we have set. If we had just carried on in the same old pattern, we would have too many children who are not ready to start school, with opportunity cut off within the first few years of their lives. We would carry on with huge NHS waiting lists, which hurt both our people and our economy. We would have more and more young people cut off from having a home of their own and asking what all their effort and hard work will ever lead to. We would continue with too many of our town centres being no-go zones for people after dark. We would still be at the mercy of dictators when it comes to energy prices. Perhaps most of all, we would have an economy like the one the Conservatives ran, in which living standards continue to stagnate, just as they did in the last Parliament. If we did that, the loss of faith would simply carry on. It is not a matter of whether we should do this. We have to do this to stop the country falling behind, and to meet the challenges that we face. If we meet these goals, we will have a country where living standards are rising, more children are ready for school, fewer people are waiting in pain for NHS treatment, more people have the chance to have a home of their home, and our streets are safer because we have the community police we need. That is change worth having and change worth fighting for, and I commend this statement to the House.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  As I said, if the goals are to be reached, it will require reform of the state itself, and part of that is about local delivery. There has been a lot of innovation in recent years. We started devolution when we were last in power, and the Conservative party took it forward with the creation of a number of mayors around the country. There is further to go with that. Having mayors and strong local leaders as partners can really help us to deliver the goals set out in the document.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  It is striking that when the Conservatives came into power, they began by promising to reduce net migration to under 100,000, and bequeathed us a situation where that figure was 10 times higher. This happened on their watch with their policies, and now we are left to clear up the situation and restore some order to our migration policy. The country will always need migration, but the “Plan for Change” document sets out what my hon. Friend said; we will reduce net migration and deal with illegal migration in the way she set out.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I welcome the question from my parliamentary neighbour on the other side of my constituency. He is right that people in his constituency and mine care deeply about the safety of their community. They saw the cuts in policing after the Conservative party came to power. They saw their neighbourhood officers being more and more stretched, trying to cover more and more area with not enough officers. It is really important to restore a sense of community policing, so that people feel safe in their community and on their street, because that underpins the freedom that people need to live their life.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As I said in my statement, let us consider what the situation would be if we did not do these things. We would just carry on with the situation that we have, in which, for example, young people work harder and harder and think, “How will I ever get a home of my own?”, and people waiting for NHS treatment are told that they might have to wait for 18 months or two years. That is too long to wait for treatment. That is why we put those things at the heart of the document today. It will make a real difference to people’s lives if we manage to meet the milestones. They are challenging, but doing this can help drive the system and ensure progress towards our goals.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Member’s question. He referred to defence and security. I did deliberately mention that area in my remarks, because it is an absolute foundation of any Government that their first duty is to protect their people. That is why there is a specific section on it in the document, and why it is an underpinning foundation for the goals that we have set out today.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  Building more houses is a challenging thing to do because there are always people who will object and blockages in our planning system, and things take too long. We have a major planning and infrastructure Bill coming in the new year that aims to unblock some of that. We know that the target is challenging, but we must build more houses in this country—and not just houses, but more infrastructure in order to get the economic growth that we need. It takes too long for major investments to happen. I look forward to the Conservative party’s support for our planning and infrastructure Bill when it is introduced in the new year.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member has asked his question. On farms, as the Chancellor made clear, a couple would have an allowance of £3 million before any inheritance obligation kicked in, and then it would be at half the rate that other people have to pay, so significant protections are built into the policy. On pensioners, it is very important to remember that we have said we will protect the triple lock, which is reflected in the pension increase that has been announced for next year.