Paul Waugh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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.

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

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  Rochdale’s award-winning trading standards team has led the country in exposing the spread of ghost car number plates, which allow child sex offenders, speeding motorists and drug dealers to avoid police detection cameras. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Darren Hughen and Dennis Chalmers, who visited Parliament this week, and will she support my campaign and that of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) to outlaw ghost car number plates?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May I pass on my own personal condolences to the shadow Leader of the House? He and I have known each other ever since he entered this House. He made a fitting and moving tribute to his late father. Every family in Rochdale, including mine, has a relative or friend who has benefited from the superb end of life care provided by Springhill hospice. I want to pass on the hospice’s thanks to the Government for providing £111,000 in new funding just this month as part of a £100 million investment in hospices across the country. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the Greater Manchester hospices provider collaborative, which visited Parliament this week to show the NHS just how much innovation and expertise hospices can provide to the palliative care movement?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for securing this important debate. Last month, I was with the Father of the House as part of a cross-party group of MPs who visited the occupied west bank and Israel. While in southern Israel, we also had the chance to look towards Gaza from a distance. We stood up high on a viewing platform that looked toward the Mediterranean and, through a telescope—and a close-up on an hon. Friend’s iPhone—what emerged was the stark image of the bombed-out buildings and smashed streets of a war-torn city. It was truly a vision of hell. Just this week, Israel has suspended aid deliveries to Gaza—a move that is all the more devastating during the holy month of Ramadan, when food has particular significance. The latest blockade confirms that the Netanyahu Government see humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip; it is a callous tactic of political leverage. It lays bare that this Israeli Government do not see aid as their legal duty to help the most vulnerable in a conflict zone. On our trip we visited the site of the Nova music festival—a very moving sight indeed—where nearly 800 young Israelis were murdered on that horrific night of 7 October. We also met Yotam Cohen, brother of Nimrod Cohen, who was taken hostage by Hamas and remains with them. Yotam Cohen’s cold anger at the Netanyahu Government was palpable to everyone who met him. He felt that the Government could have freed his brother, along with all the other hostages, much sooner—many months ago. But while the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza rightly deserve our attention, on our trip to the west bank, as the Father of the House has just said, we became very conscious of the fact that a future Palestinian state is being slowly suffocated by extremist Israeli settlers enabled and protected by the Israeli police and armed forces. As the Labour and Co-operative MP for Rochdale, what heartened me was how the co-operative movement has deep roots in both the Israeli kibbutzim movement and the Palestinian economy. In Ramallah, I met the general union of Palestinian co-operatives, which shared with me video footage showing how, miraculously, amid the rubble of Gaza, the agricultural co-op is growing seedlings for strawberries, peppers and aubergines, and trying to rebuild an income for all those who have been devastated by the war. These are literally green shoots of hope amid all the darkness and despair. Our trip, organised by Yachad—a British Jewish group that campaigns for a political resolution of the conflict—allowed us to see the trauma on all sides, and talk to many Palestinian and Israeli peacebuilders who believe that there is still hope. We met Roni Keidar, a resident of Netiv HaAsara in southern Israel who, as the Father of the House said, had to hide in her house as Hamas fighters murdered 20 people in her village. When we asked her for a message to the British people about the state of Israeli and Palestinian relations, Roni said: “Tell them there are many people like me who do think there is room for both of us…If we keep saying ‘it is either us or them’, eventually there will be neither us nor them.” Throughout our visit, the resilience of the Palestinian people was evident. Arab Barghouti, son of the jailed Palestinian politician Marwan Barghouti, told us that his people’s very existence is itself an act of resilience and resistance. Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian Prime Minister, perhaps put it best when he told us, “Being hopeless is not a privilege we Palestinians can have.” It is our job in the UK and in this Parliament to make sure that we do everything we can, locally and nationally, to fuel that hope with practical action and diplomacy.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s own personal fortitude in standing up to hate, particularly at the last general election when she, along with many other Labour candidates, suffered abuse on the doorstep. There is a lot of talk today about combating hate, but many candidates turned a blind eye to their own supporters who used the phrases “genocide enablers” and “child murderers” in the last election, which was utterly disgusting. Will she join me in condemning that?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Pippa, Britain’s first ever illegal vape sniffer dog, won a special hero award this week from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. Springer spaniel Pippa was honoured along with Rochdale trading standards and police for their work seizing vapes targeted at children by organised crime groups. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Pippa and the Rochdale team on their dogged detective work?

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am, indeed, coming to exactly that point, because this is set in the context of what the Tories left behind. The clear trajectory of their last Budget was to squeeze day-to-day public spending to just 1% above inflation every year until 2029. That carried dire implications for every unprotected Department—up to £20 billion of cuts a year. The Resolution Foundation calculated that that would be the equivalent of three quarters of the cuts of the austerity years—austerity 2.0. Sadly, there is no evidence that the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), left her own note for her successor. If she had, it surely would have read, “I’m afraid to tell you there is no money for public services.” If the Conservatives had won the last election, what would that have meant in practice? My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary revealed that when he took office, he was told that the NHS was facing such large deficits it would have to cut 20,000 appointments and operations a week. Thanks in part to the national insurance rises in the Bill, he can now deliver on our manifesto commitment to provide 40,000 extra appointments every week, with our investment in mental health services treating an extra 380,000 patients.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Medical Aid During Conflict · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this fantastic debate. The whole House will benefit from his medical expertise and political commitment to this issue. I had the great honour last week of hosting a meeting in Parliament to hear the heartbreaking testimony of Professor Nizam Mamode, a good friend and former colleague of my hon. Friend—he is a great transplant surgeon. Professor Mamode explained how during his work in Gaza this year for Medical Aid for Palestinians he treated child victims of drone strikes and snipers’ bullets. He said he had worked in war zones around the war, but nothing had been as horrific as what he had seen in the repeated, regular attacks on children in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Israeli Government are allowed to get away with what they are doing in Gaza under international law, other regimes around the world will see it as a green light for thinking that civilians and medical staff are a legitimate target in war zones?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Minister, can you explain to us why you increased the standard tier capacity from 100 to 200? Can you answer some of the concerns raised this morning by both Figen Murray and Andy Burnham on that point? Dan Jarvis: Yes, I am happy to do that. But with Dame Siobhain’s indulgence, perhaps you will let me say a few words about the sessions that we have had today. I hope that this has been a really useful opportunity for members of the Committee to hear from a range of authoritative stakeholders about the Bill. That, certainly from my perspective, has been incredibly useful in informing our collective understanding as the Bill moves forward in its passage through the House of Commons. It would also be remiss of me not to reiterate the comments that I made earlier on about Figen Murray. I think that her contribution, and the contribution of the team that has supported her, has been outstanding and inspiring. We frankly would not be at this place without the incredible work that she has done over some time now. I think that that is worthy of recognition by the Committee this afternoon. I also want to briefly reflect on the testimony that we heard from Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes, because I think that that was significant. He very helpfully outlined the nature of the terrorist threat that our country faces, and it is reassuring to know that the analysis from him and his team is that the Bill is both proportionate and effective. I was also struck by the very positive testimony that we heard from Mayor Andy Burnham on the Greater Manchester experience. I think that, for those who have had some concerns about proportionality and about the impact that this Bill could have on certain sectors of the business community—and the hospitality sector in particular—it was reassuring to hear the very positive experience from Greater Manchester. Also, before turning to the substance of your question, Mr Waugh, I just want to reiterate the importance of the cross-party support that we have been able to build for this Bill. This is legislation that began its life in the previous Parliament under the previous Government, with important pre-legislative processes taking place. All that has been incredibly helpful in terms of informing the process and ensuring that the Bill is as fit for purpose as it possibly can be. I am very grateful to all of those who went before and for the contributions that they made. I turn to the substance of your question; I will bring in Debbie in just a moment because she has dealt with the detail of this for longer than me. I think that the heart of your question is about issues of proportionality. I am struck by the fact that we have had a useful conversation today about where the threshold of the standard tier should lie. I am quite confident that if a decision had been taken to place that threshold in a different place, we would still have had a discussion about whether it was in the right place and whether the decision to have it at a lower level would have excluded some even smaller premises. We have to be realistic that whenever you are dealing with legislation that requires a threshold, there will always be a debate—it has been in that sense a very constructive one—about where that particular threshold sits. We have got to where we are based on extensive consultation. There was the pre-legislative process that took place in the previous Parliament. There have been two quite extensive public consultations and a significant amount of contact with a range of different stakeholders who would be affected by the legislation. In the end, Government have to take a view about what is the most appropriate threshold and that is what we have done. We think that that is the right judgment, but clearly there is still a debate to be had around that. After significant consultation and consideration, that is where we have got to and as the Minister, I think that is the right judgment. It is also worth making the point that other changes have been made to the legislation since the earlier iteration, not least the inclusion of the “reasonably practicable” test, as well as the points around reasonable expectation. I hope they go some considerable way to reassuring the concerns expressed about the impact the legislation would have on smaller venues and premises. Debbie, if there anything you want to add to that, you are welcome to do so. Debbie Bartlett: In terms of reflecting on the change from 100 to 200, one of the clear voices we heard through the consultation and the pre-legislative scrutiny process was around those voluntary organisations and premises. Moving from a 100 to a 200 threshold reduces coverage of those village halls from 54% at the 100 threshold to just 13% at the 200 threshold, which feels more proportionate given some of the feedback we received through the pre-legislative and the consultation process.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Leader of the House referred earlier to the Modernisation Committee. Can she update us on its work on the key issue of call lists, which worked well in this place during covid and work well in the other place every day, and on her wider efforts to make this place a more family-friendly Parliament?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Conservative Members are clearly unembarrassed by the total lack of women among the hereditary peers. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should be embarrassed by the total lack of women on their Benches right now?

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I was indeed. I was going to share with the House the secret that I used one of my references in a report to endorse the right hon. Gentleman as a candidate. He makes the point, in agreement with the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), that incrementalism is a good thing; surely this is an incremental Bill that takes the first step towards a bigger reform.

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I will not give way. I do not have much time. “One rule for them, another for the rest of us,” was the Tory party’s approach back then. Now, their approach is, “One school for them, another for the rest of us”—that is just as toxic a charge. The real problem is money. There was a 9% fall in spending per pupil between 2010 and 2020. Worst of all, we have had 14 years of no overall growth in spending per pupil in our schools, a squeeze that the IFS said was “without precedent in post-war UK history”. Turning back to the Tory leadership contest, most of the contenders for that poisoned chalice have claimed that if elected, they will restore private school tax breaks. The fact that the Tories plan to make another £1.3 billion-worth of cuts to state schools on top of their own record of austerity proves that they have not learned a thing from their catastrophic defeat at the last election. If they all put into state schools an ounce of the passion, the emotion and—yes—the hard cash they put into private schools, the public might start to listen to them again.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The footage of a Greater Manchester police officer stamping on and kicking a man in Manchester airport is truly shocking and disturbing. That man is one of my Rochdale constituents, and I am meeting his family later today. Our police face a difficult job every day to keep us all safe, but they know that they are expected to demonstrate the highest standards of conduct in their duties. Will the Leader of the House make time for Members to discuss the important issue of police conduct?