Peter Prinsley MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Asylum Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) for mentioning RAF Barnham, which is in my constituency—it is adjacent to the border of Thetford, and within easy walking distance of it. It was formerly a base that housed mustard gas during the first world war, and in the cold war it was the home of the RAF’s strategic nuclear weapons, so it has an interesting history. The people of Suffolk are a kind and compassionate people, and they understand the need to house those who are fleeing war and persecution. However, I saw a protest at RAF Barnham this weekend, so how will the views of local people be taken into account, and what exactly is the role of the local planning authority?

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairing, Mrs Harris, but I take no pleasure whatsoever in speaking in the debate on this petition. Its manipulative title fits the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, as Lord Pickles has clearly stated. I must register my interests. I am, of course, a Jewish MP—perhaps the only Jewish MP in the Chamber this afternoon. I am a member of Labour Friends of Israel and of the all-party parliamentary group on British Jews, and a representative on the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Shame on those who have orchestrated this regurgitation of antisemitic tropes. It is ancient just as it is predictable. In 1190, 57 Jews were slaughtered in Bury St Edmunds, then Norwich, Lincoln and York. Our country has a terrible record of anti-Jewish hatred, and all the Jews of England were expelled in 1290. Few people know that. Antisemitism is not new in this country. Just think a little about the title of the petition: “pro-Israel influence on UK politics and democracy”. It is familiar; we have seen it before. In the ’20s and ’30s, German antisemites and Nazis argued that the Weimar Republic had become verjudet—“Jewified”. In 1941, Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as secretly manipulating London, Washington and Moscow. The idea that Jews exercise hidden influence over politics, democracy and society is not new; it is an ancient conspiracy theory repeatedly used to isolate Jews, undermine social cohesion and stoke hatred. Let me tell the Chamber what really threatens democracy: the funding of political parties by billionaire expats; Elon Musk’s claims that civil war in Britain is inevitable; the vice-president of the United States blaming the terrible murder of Henry Nowak on mass migration; Russian interference in democracies across Europe; and alleged Iranian links to a number of recent attacks on Jewish institutions, synagogues and communities—yet here we are, forced to debate Israel’s role in our politics and democracy. Antisemitism is an ancient hatred repeatedly repackaged to distract people from their real grievances. Once again, it is rearing its head in Britain, reaching appalling levels on our streets, in our workplaces and online. This debate is making those divisions worse, and the terrible conflict in the middle east is no justification for it. Citizens of conscience march with a genuine and heartfelt sense of outrage at the war, and I respect that, but there are those who seek to intimidate. Hon. Members should try being a law-abiding Jew in a British town centre on a Saturday afternoon—for too many Jewish citizens, public spaces are not safe. Let us come to our senses. We must reject antisemitism in all its forms, reject conspiracy theory dressed up as political analysis, and defend a politics based on evidence, decency and truth.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Fish and Chip Sector · Hansard source

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  Fish and chips is a great British food, but fish and chips first came to Britain with Jewish immigrants from Spain in the 16th century. Cold fried fish was a staple of many Shabbat lunches, including my own grandma’s. The first chippy is credited to Joseph Malin, who added chips in about 1860, in London. What a great idea and what a great immigration story!

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s plan to change the law. It was obvious to me and to others that such a change would be needed, and it was one of the matters about which the newly elected doctors spoke to Ministers last year. Imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you have graduated from a medical school, excited at last to be called a doctor, and looking forward to finally getting to work after years of intense study, uncountable examinations and fierce competition. When this happened to me at Sheffield medical school, our early pre-registration posts were organised by the university. We were simply distributed around the local hospitals. We were in familiar locations, with our classmates and consultants who knew us. We began, rather hesitantly, to work as doctors, but suddenly we had responsibility for life and death. However, something changed. Now young doctors are simply sent by chance, with little notice, to a region of the country they have never visited. They are far from their friends. Ironically, they are now called resident doctors, but that is the very last thing they are; the residences have long since disappeared. The shift system replaced the on-call rotas, and the doctors’ mess disappeared, so hot food was no longer available. Now, if they are lucky, they have an office chair in which to rest, and a sandwich dispenser in a cold corridor. They have no friends nearby, nowhere to live, and nothing to eat at night. It is not really the best start, and these are the young doctors on whom your life may depend. We really must do something to look after the health workers who look after us—all health workers. That does not just mean paying them properly, although we obviously must do so. Today we are speaking about our doctors, for young doctors face a very uncertain future. After Brexit, many of our European doctors just left. The deficit was filled, as so often in the past, by doctors from the rest of the world. Especially in hospitals that are remote from medical schools—such as my hospital, the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds, and the hospital where I worked for so many years, the James Paget hospital in Great Yarmouth—we have always depended on brilliant doctors from many nations, many of whom have become my long-term colleagues and some of my best friends. Immigration rules were altered after Brexit, effectively enabling applicants from across the world to apply for a very limited number of posts. As we have heard, although competition is healthy, it is certainly not healthy for the ratio of applicants to posts to go from about 2:1 to more than 4:1. As we have also heard, this is absolutely the cause of the bottlenecks. UK graduates simply cannot progress and are obliged to repeat years, often as unstructured and unrecognised clinical fellows. They leave the country or give up medicine altogether. The Government have rightly recognised that this must change. Medical training is a continuum, and the end result is a general practitioner or a hospital specialist—by the way, I much prefer “specialist” to “consultant”. Doctors have five or six years of undergraduate training, and eight to 10 years of postgraduate training, and it makes no sense to graduate so many students and then fail to accommodate them in postgraduate training. The measure to prioritise the graduates of UK medical schools is simply common sense and I support it, alongside, I understand, almost all Members of the House. Finally, let me issue a word of warning. The number of new medical schools—I understand that there are many new medical schools, including the one in Cumbria, which I did not know about—means that we have more graduates than ever. That is good, because we have insufficient doctors, but the health system must create additional training posts, more substantive posts for general practitioners and hospital specialists, and incentives to create these posts, especially in general practice, so that our new neighbourhood health centres, which I like to call “Bevan health centres”, can be fully staffed and open late at night, and so that we see an NHS renewed. That is our aim, and we will achieve it.