Paul Waugh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I welcome today’s update on the national inquiry into grooming gangs, particularly the way in which the Minister has made sure that victims and survivors are definitely going to be at the heart of whatever happens. During the trial of seven members of a Rochdale grooming gang earlier this year, it emerged in court that the social workers involved had referred to one of the victims—who was 13 at the time—as a prostitute. Other victims, who were 10 at the time, were also called prostitutes. I know the Minister will agree that the criminalisation of young girls as prostitutes causes them further trauma later in life. These girls were victims and the state should recognise them as such, so what steps will the Minister take to ensure that such convictions for prostitution are disregarded as swiftly as possible?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s intention to recognise formally the state of Palestine at the UN later this month—which many Labour Members have pushed for ever since our election, and which was in our manifesto. It is the biggest shift in British foreign policy in decades, and a major step forward to giving the Palestinian people hope that they will have the state they have long been denied. While I welcome the sanctions on Iran today, with the famine in Gaza now formally declared, and with 132,000 children expected to suffer from acute malnutrition between now and next June, will the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether the UK is actively looking at fresh sanctions on Israel to prevent that further tragedy?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the content of the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly the UK-France migrant deal, which provides a safe and legal route for all those families who are genuinely fleeing persecution and who play by the rules and want to enter the country legally. The deal balances that with the need to remove from this country and send back to France those who try to jump the queue in small boats. The shadow Home Secretary suggested that the potential figure of 50 returns a week under this pilot scheme is not enough. Under the last Government, 128,000 people crossed the channel; can the Home Secretary remind the House how many of those people were returned to France? It was not 50 a week or 100 a week—it was zero a week, every week for six and a half years.

• 22 Jul 2025 · Music Streaming: Label-led Principles · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, I declare an interest, in that my son Fin is a member of the band Big Huge New Circle, whose latest single “Pearl” is out on Spotify, and is recommended by Clash magazine, which calls it “beautifully complex”. I welcome today’s announcement, particularly the introduction of per diems and the session musician uplifts. I thank the former Member for Cardiff West, who is sitting in the Peers’ Gallery, for all his work on this. It is hugely welcome, and perfectly timed for the Musicians’ Union delegate conference this week. Given the widespread concern about fair pay for streaming, and how long it has been since our Select Committee first reported on this, can the Minister explain what further powers the Government hold to intervene if these industry-led measures fall short?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Earlier this month I hosted in Parliament Dr Waseem Saeed, a British surgeon who had returned from working in the Nasser hospital in Gaza, where he treated children for severe burns, amputations and shrapnel wounds that were crawling with maggots. He showed us videos that would shock everybody in this House. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Israel should face a reckoning in the courts for such injuries and deaths, and that the UK should force such a reckoning? More importantly, does he agree that recognising a state of Palestine is really about recognising the humanity of the Palestinian people, and that their children deserve to have equal worth to every child on this planet?

• 17 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Hanson Springs in Rochdale was founded 62 years ago by Malcolm Hanson, and it has gone from strength to strength. This year the company is investing £3 million in new plant, machinery and expanded factory space. Malcolm turns 80 next month, but still works 40 hours a week and his granddaughter Lucy joined the firm only this week, straight from Rochdale sixth-form college. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing Malcolm a very happy 80th birthday, because he is exactly the sort of grafter and entrepreneur that makes our town and this country such a special place?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. Workers in Rochdale on the minimum wage received a much needed pay rise this summer, thanks to this Government, but honest businesses are being undermined by the menace of illegal working, particularly by illegal migrants from Iran and Iraq in bogus barber shops and fake vape shops. Does the Prime Minister agree that we need to speed up the roll-out of digital IDs, particularly to help our police and immigration staff crack down on this grey market that ruins our high streets and undercuts the pay of British workers?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister makes a point about the state funding children. Does he accept that a million families that have three or more children receive child benefit presently? If he accepts that point, does he, as a father of three—as am I—not accept the principle that those children come first under the child benefit? What is the difference between child benefit and universal credit? Does he want to cap child benefit at two children?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making an important speech with which many Labour Members will agree. She will be aware that 59% of families with more than two children and which are on universal credit are in work. That is far from the feckless parent caricature that we have heard from the Conservatives. More importantly, does she agree that the children should come first, so we should urgently scrap the two-child cap as quickly as possible?

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

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  On Friday, the BBC interviewed an Egyptian economic migrant named Obaida in Calais who said that he had tried and failed four times to cross the channel but, since the Prime Minister’s agreement with President Macron, he was giving up: “I don’t want to go to Britain any more, because they are making it much harder for us. Every time we try, they deflate our boats and remove the engine. If they make it even harder, I’ll stop trying.” Does that not prove that this new deal to send migrants back to France can be a genuine deterrent, unlike the last Government’s pathetic attempt to claim credit?

• 3 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Rochdale is the historic birthplace of the co-op movement, so it is fitting that we will host the UK Co-op Congress 2025 this weekend. There is an impressive array of speakers, including Steve Coogan, Patrick Grant, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), and the Leader of the House herself. As we celebrate the International Year of Co-operatives, will she join me in paying tribute to representatives of the Co-operative Union of Palestine, whom I met in Ramallah earlier this year, for all their heroic work in keeping communities together—against the odds—in the west bank and Gaza?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  When this Labour Government extended free school meals to half a million more children last month, Laura—a working mum in Rochdale—told me it would save her £500 a year. She said: “I am over the moon. Only Labour would have done this.” Does the Prime Minister agree that people voted Labour a year ago for not just change, but hope, and that cutting child poverty is the moral mission of this Government in order to help every child in this country?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 July.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Supporting Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  After years of unfunded and undelivered promises from the Conservatives on levelling up, places like Rochdale are finally getting the fairer share of money that they really deserve. The Minister expanded a little on the Green Book, but could she outline how its place-based approach will help places like mine and advanced manufacturing in the Atom Valley?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This weekend, the England women’s football team play their final friendly before they defend the Euro championship trophy they won so brilliantly in 2022. I am delighted to say that Rochdale’s very own Keira Walsh will again wear the No. 4 shirt at the heart of our midfield. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking and wishing Keira and the Lionesses all the very best of luck and in thanking her proud mum and dad, Tracy and Peter, for what they did in producing such an inspiring figure for women and girls across the country?

• 26 Jun 2025 · G7 and NATO Summits · Hansard source

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  Rochdale has been a proud home for Ukrainians ever since they were forced to flee Soviet starvation, murder and oppression in the 1930s and 1940s, so many in my constituency will warmly welcome the decision to send 350 advanced air missiles to Ukraine, built in Britain and paid for by the interest on seized Russian assets. Does the Prime Minister agree that Russia, not Ukraine, should pay the price for Putin’s barbaric war?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Modern Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  Rochdale Training provides local apprenticeships in engineering and other skills that we desperately need, and works with local employers to deliver that. Its chief executive, Jill Nagy, told me that today’s announcement of £1.2 billion in extra funding for training is warmly welcomed, as are the new foundation apprenticeships. Will the Secretary of State join me in praising the work of Rochdale Training? May I urge him to look closely at Hopwood Hall college’s bid to be one of the north-west’s technical colleges of excellence for construction?

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Iran-Israel Conflict · Hansard source

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  The nuclear ambitions of a bloodthirsty terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran pose a real threat to world peace, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that Israel’s own conduct as an increasingly rogue state when it comes to international law endangers not just Israeli citizens but the Palestinian citizens of Gaza, as we have seen over the weekend, and makes the case for a Palestinian state more urgent, not less?

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

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  I listened with cold fury to what was coming out of the mouth of the Leader of the Opposition, because much of it was beneath contempt. I commend the Home Secretary for her statement and for commissioning a fiercely independent figure such as Louise Casey to conduct this national audit, without which we would not have had today’s outcome. In Rochdale, we know all too well how many years it has taken for victims to get the justice they deserve. They have waited many, many years to see these sick criminals locked up and put behind bars. Only last week, we had seven more of these perverts locked up in Rochdale, which is a testament to the police and the prosecution who finally got those cases together. However, the victims also want accountability for anyone in a position of authority, as the Home Secretary has said—anyone who found out about this, or knew about it, and failed to act. Does she agree that no councillor from any political party, no social worker, no police officer, no council officer and no ethnic group should hide from the fierce scrutiny of this national inquiry?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and there is a wider point here about the Henry VIII powers in the Bill. This would be the third such power added to the Bill since Second Reading. At that stage, it had none. The Attorney General, Lord Hermer, has said that “excessive reliance” on Henry VIII powers “upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive”, and he is right. Away from matters of constitutional principle, I am especially concerned about the practical impact of such a power, which would allow a future Secretary of State to change the law as set out in the Suicide Act 1961. This is the Act that contains the offence of encouraging or assisting a suicide. Ministers have confirmed that the Bill leaves the offence in place in all cases except where a medical practitioner assists a person to die under its provisions. We must surely therefore not hand the power to a future Secretary of State to weaken or even abolish that offence without the need for primary legislation. My amendment specifies that the Suicide Act cannot be amended in that way. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley recognises that my amendment does not seek to undo or undermine her new clause, but rather to build on it and to ensure that the ban she intends to deliver does not collapse around the loophole at its heart.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The dangers of what is happening in America provide a real lesson for us here. As the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) put it, conversations about assisted dying should happen in person—between the relevant doctor and the patient. They should not be prompted by a TV ad, or something seen on a bus. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) spoke very movingly about the way that IVF services have been commercialised, leaving people who are, as he says, “already on their knees” vulnerable to exploitation, so that someone else can profit. I am certain that nobody in this House believes that passing this Bill into law should mean the rise of a similarly aggressive market for assisted death, but it is our role—indeed our responsibility—to deal not only in intended consequences, but in unintended ones, too. The real risk in the drafting of new clause 14 is that it allows exceptions that are not specified in the Bill. A future Secretary of State will be empowered not only to make the necessary regulations, but to amend them at any time; and a future Secretary of State, who does not share the concerns of this House, would have the ability to draw the exceptions so widely as to make the ban worthless. There are a number of similar advertising bans already in place on tobacco products, surrogacy and the latest cancer drugs being marketed to the public. In every case, the legislation sets out the exceptions, leaving no room for doubt as to how Parliament intended to protect the public. Why should the services that this Bill would legalise not be subject to that same legal clarity? Do people who have less time to live not deserve all the protection we have the power to give them from a death they do not truly want? I cannot believe that this Parliament would be content to have that power taken out of its hands, and the rights of our most vulnerable constituents left for someone else to decide on some other day. My amendment therefore sets out that exceptions to the advertising ban should be limited to cases where a person has requested information and where the materials are intended for health professionals and not for their patients. New clause 14 would allow a future Secretary of State to make provisions that would usually have to go through the House in legislation. It is not at all clear to me why that power is needed to introduce a ban on advertising.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  The point of my amendment is to make sure that a future Secretary of State would have to come before the House with primary legislation. Report stage is not about the principles of the Bill. It is not about whether a Member may, in principle, support the idea of assisted dying, as Mr Speaker will point out to everybody who strays from the amendments. It is about the individual Bill before us today. We have to ask: what will it mean in the real world for our very real constituents?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not; I am short of time. Just how strong are the Bill’s safeguards? We are not commentators; we are legislators. Our job is to scrutinise, to test and to test again the Bills that come to this place. I spent 26 years up there in the Press Gallery writing about politics, but the big difference between them and us is that we have a vote in this place. With that vote, particularly a free vote, comes responsibility, and there is no greater responsibility than protecting the vulnerable from feeling they have to end their life. That is why I tabled the amendment. I am not driven by religion, though I do not believe that those with religious faiths should be denigrated or patronised, as they have been during the passage of the Bill. It is worth saying that some of those who passionately support assisted dying have a faith—a devout faith—that their world view is the right one. I am driven instead by my duty as a legislator to get this Bill right, and by what I see as my moral duty to protect the most vulnerable in society. I believe that my duty is to protect those who do not have celebrity names or campaign groups behind them—the people who do not get heard, who do not want to be a bother, who do not want to make a fuss, and who feel at the end of their lives that they are a burden on their family but may never say so. I worry about the unheard, the unseen, the ignored and the marginalised. Most of all, I worry about the heartbreaking modesty of that phrase we often hear from older people: “I don’t want to be any trouble, love.” We need, for their sakes, to make sure that the safeguards in the Bill are the strongest they can possibly be.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of the amendment in my name, which seeks to strengthen new clause 14 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). Why do we want to restrict advertising about assisted dying? It is not just because such adverts could appear crass or insensitive, or because we worry that private companies could profiteer from death, but because advertisers know that they influence choices. The issue of choice, whether it is informed choice, skewed choice, self-coercion or coercive control, as has already been mentioned, is, in many ways, at the heart of the Bill and whether its safeguards are sufficient. My brother works in advertising and he knows its power. It is why companies spend billions of pounds on it, why Google is the giant that it is, why we see lots of adverts at Westminster tube station trying to influence every single one of us, and why X is full of ads. Advertising works because we human beings are suggestible, and prone to messaging, visual cues and hints. Older people are bombarded with adverts for everything from stairlifts to care homes. One person’s advert, though, is another person’s public information campaign. It is not impossible to imagine a future Secretary of State, who passionately believes in the merits of assisted dying, authorising such a campaign. It could be a Government-approved plotline in a soap opera, or an ad read out by a podcaster that ever so subtly sounds like a news item, or even their own opinion. Many in this House rightly try to protect teenagers from online harms, but the online harm of an ad for a website about assisted dying shared on TikTok could be a reality without the tighter safeguards in my amendment.