Rupert Lowe MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I accept that this is a very sensitive debate. We all get along fine in Parliament, so I hope that Members will accept what I say as my genuine view. One of the greatest joys of being a farmer is raising livestock. We see them born, we feed them, we watch them grow and we care for them. When their time comes, we want the end to be swift, calm, dignified and painless. Right now, today, in abattoirs across the country, we are allowing vile practices that would turn the stomach of any decent person, all in the name of religious exemption. There is no bolt to the brain, no stunning, no anaesthetic, but a blade—a deep, crushing cut across the throat. The animal does not die instantly; it thrashes, gasps and panics—it feels everything. It experiences a minute of pure agony while the blood pours from its body. There is no sedation or stunning, just raw terror and suffocation. As a farmer, I would rightly be prosecuted for treating our animals like that, but in the abattoir, it is legal under religious exemption. It is two-tier slaughter. Instead of an instant, painless death, these poor beings are put through the most unimaginable pain, all in the name of religion. This is not farming; it is torture. The British people have no idea that this is happening, because supermarkets do not label it, restaurants do not mention it and schools do not highlight it, and politicians in these buildings are too terrified to mention it, out of fear of upsetting the religious minorities. I am afraid I do not care—it is about animal welfare. Millions of Brits are eating halal meat against their will and without their knowledge due to our deceitful labelling system. The two-tier regulatory arbitrage between our abattoirs and halal slaughterhouses means that economic factors foster a more widespread adoption of the cheaper option, which means that halal meat is seeping into the food chain and the consumer is unwittingly eating it.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

  More

  I do, and I will cover that at the end of my speech. We are all eating halal meat without knowing it. I find that morally repugnant. We should ban non-stun slaughter, we should ban halal slaughter and we should ban kosher slaughter.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

  More

  I am going to finish. A halal abattoir can brutally butcher an animal alive, and all is fine. Where is the fairness in that? Where is the humanity in that? This is not a fringe issue. In 2024, an estimated 214.6 million animals were slaughtered for halal meat: 27 million entirely non-stunned and the remainder with some form of weak and ineffectual attempt to ease the animal’s pain, often just causing an epileptic fit. It is state-endorsed butchery. We talk so much in this place about being a nation of animal lovers. It is time to prove it. Let us ban non-stun slaughter, along with any fig leaf of reduced-stun slaughter, which simply accentuates the suffering.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

  More

  The issue of stunning is complex, as the hon. Member probably knows. The halal stun is a lower voltage than the non-halal stun. As the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) rightly said, chickens are put into an electric bath before they are killed. It is the level of the stun that counts. Freedom of belief does not mean freedom to cause cruel and brutal pain. When I care for animals, I have the most stringent set of rules to abide by. I am regulated on how I house them, feed them and transport them. There are inspections, paperwork and codes of practice, all to make sure they are treated with dignity.

• 21 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q14. Does the Prime Minister agree that imprisoning Lucy Connolly, a young mother with a 12-year-old daughter, for one foolish social media post that was soon deleted is clearly not an efficient or fair use of prison?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I think the passion of fans can be a dangerous thing if they are on a board, yes. The FA Premier League’s success has been driven by the prescient founding formula for financial distribution, ensuring a competitive league. Under the Bill, fans collectively will suffer, and another more innovative league in another geographic region, probably in Asia, will emerge as a leader. Members might all feel good about themselves, but billions and billions of pounds will be driven out of the country. There is no need for a football regulator or indeed any more wokery in the game, exemplified by the support for a questionable organisation such as Black Lives Matter, when the knee was taken before each game: the world’s best football meets the world’s best virtue signalling. Just last week, I uncovered two coaching roles offered by Ipswich and Fulham, both specifically excluding white men from applying. Ipswich made the right choice and removed the racist ad; Fulham have not. These roles have been pushed by the Premier League itself. Match-going fans are overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly white. They would be surprised to hear that clubs are banning them from applying for certain roles based on their skin colour. Racism is racism, even when white people are on the receiving end of it. I hope that all of us in this House call it out for the wickedness that it is. We must eradicate the poisonous DEI from our beautiful game. Fans attend football to escape all that nonsense. A functional football team is the perfect analogy for any successful society, based on merit and merit alone. Fans do not want ideological lessons from their clubs; they want to watch exciting football, enjoy a beer and have a proper day out. Good for them, I say. All of us here need to leave them alone. Those responsible for this Bill must also take full responsibility when the premier league inevitably wanes as the woke do-gooders perpetrate the damage that history teaches us is inevitable. The Chancellor speaks oxymoronically about trying to revive our financial markets by regulating for growth, after the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 destroyed London as a centre where capital meets risk. You do not regulate for growth; you deregulate for growth. We do not need this interference by tyre-kicking regulators in our national game. Judging by this debate, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport looks like she is pretty handy on the terraces. I say to her, in football lingo: you don’t know what you’re doing.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I should declare my interests, as on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in two football-related businesses as a result of my chairmanship of Southampton football club. We do not have many success stories left, but English domestic football is one of them—so what do politicians want to do? Regulate it, of course. The biggest beneficiary from the success of the Premier League is His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, through tax and national insurance levied on player and staff wages. That is money flowing out of the beautiful game. Salaries have correlated closely with the growth of broadcasting income, particularly from overseas television rights. Lord Sugar referred to it as the prune juice effect. No regulator played any part in laying the foundations of the world’s most successful league. English football works and has worked for many decades. My message to all Members today is to leave it alone. Football is a risk business, supported in this country by the most passionate fans in the world. It requires a balance between risk taking and business savvy, if the aspirations of the supporters are to be delivered in the form of entertaining, successful football of which they can be proud. Many of the failures in our game, such as Bury under Hugh Eaves and Leeds under Peter Ridsdale, were driven by boards dominated by fans rather than by more logical businessmen. The job of running a smaller club in the premier league is difficult at the best of times—I should know—when competing with clubs that have substantially greater turnover. A regulator will simply make the job of smaller clubs more difficult and limit their ability to take calculated risks to successfully compete for promotion, league position or cup success. It is the larger clubs that will benefit, and the dynamic that has driven the premier league’s success will be undermined.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

  More

  Despite multiple promises of inquiries from political parties across this House, it seems the only operational investigation will be the rape gang inquiry that I have privately launched. It has garnered cross-party support, and I implore MPs from any political persuasion to align with our cause. Will the Minister commit today to engaging in a co-operative manner with the investigation and make herself available to answer questions from our expert panel?

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

  More

  Sincere condolences to the shadow Leader of the House on the loss of his father. Mass deportation of illegal migrants and foreign criminals must be our ultimate policy objective. Will it be logistically straightforward? Absolutely not. Is it necessary? Absolutely, yes. It is mass deportations or a mass amnesty, and I choose deportations. Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time on how we can deport the numbers required on a rapid timescale that is acceptable to the British people, who reasonably expect our borders to be policed and the law to be upheld?

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

  More

  Women are being forced to face significant risk in order to be inclusive. Men must not be allowed access to women-only spaces, regardless of whether they believe themselves to be a woman—they are not. We must prioritise safety over inclusivity, dignity over wokery, reality over ideology. Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time on protecting women-only spaces and women-only services?

• 6 Mar 2025 · English Football: Financial Sustainability and Governance · Hansard source

  More

  As is seemingly my usual opening line in many of these debates, I am one of very few people elected in this place who has any actual experience of the industry that we are discussing. As a former premier league football chairman, I can honestly say that the premier league works. Britian does not have many success stories left, but our domestic football is one of them. My message to all of you is “Leave it alone.” I mean this as a genuine question: do any of you understand the consequences of what you are looking to do? Regulating these industries does not work. London as a financial centre has withered and died on the vine since the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Why would football be any different? The premier league projects unrivalled soft power, rakes in a fortune for HM Revenue and Customs and is actually good fun, usually offering competitive football, despite Southampton’s woeful record this season. What is the Government’s plan? It was first proposed by the Conservatives, of course: regulate, strangulate, suffocate. Who wants that to happen the most? La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and even the Saudis. A regulator would deter foreign investment and add bureaucracy to an already heavily governed industry. It is ludicrous and does nothing to protect clubs in the lower leagues. It should be revoked. Let us encourage and campaign, not regulate. The private sector built this success without regulation. My overriding message to all of you is “Leave football alone.”

• 5 Feb 2025 · English Devolution and Local Government · Hansard source

  More

  Given the Secretary of State’s statement, I remind her that proper functioning democracy costs money. My constituents in Great Yarmouth do not like being represented by unelected councillors, so can she give a copper-bottomed guarantee that the new Norfolk and Suffolk homunculus council will have its elections in May 2026?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing such a valuable debate. Being a farmer is not job; it is a career. In fact, it is not a career; it is a way of life. As one of the few active farming MPs, I am more qualified than most to comment. We were told before the election that Labour had no intention of changing APR, and farmers would have voted for Labour specifically on that pledge from the Environment Secretary. They certainly would not now. We should call it what it is: an outright betrayal. Where do people think our food comes from? It does not grow on shelves in Waitrose; it is grown by British farmers on British farms. I urge all MPs to speak to their farming constituents. They will all say exactly the same: the backbone of British farming is being intentionally broken. If Labour continues down this path, thousands of grieving British farming families will lose their farms forever. Is that really what the Government want? The answer seems to be yes. This assault on British family farms will undermine our food security, making our already uncertain place in an increasingly dangerous world even more precarious. Supporting British farmers today means safeguarding our domestic food supply for tomorrow. That should be the aim of any responsible Government. A rethink of this policy is urgently required.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 21 Jan 2025 · Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening · Hansard source

  More

  I do not think the tone of the debate is in any way relevant. What is relevant is what the Government do to protect the interests of the British people. The answer to the question I asked is no, and if Members disagree they are even more deluded than the Home Office. When I try to explore the actual cost of these hotels and the surrounding healthcare, travel, translation, recreational activities and more, I am denied vast swathes of information by the Home Office. It is a cover-up. It says that it does not pay for x or y, but that is because it is all subcontracted out on billion-pound contracts spread over 10 years. The list of further subcontractors on those contracts is fully redacted. Why might that be? Again, it is a blatant cover-up. Let me be abundantly clear: the full cost of these hotels is being concealed from the British public. I am doing everything in my power to uncover the truth. Locals are not even informed about what has happened in their town. I asked the Home Office to develop a consultation process with residents before a hotel is hijacked. It refused and reminded me of its obligation to care for illegal migrants. What about the safety and needs of taxpaying local residents? Hotels are being filled with young men in close proximity to girls’ schools. Does anyone here find that acceptable? I have pushed the Government to undertake a review of the impact on British women and girls of crime emanating from these hotels. Again, they refused. Who is the Home Office actually serving? Sadly, I have little doubt that far more crime is being committed by illegal migrants than we are being told. I have raised the matter time and again with the Government. Nobody seems to care. There are roughly 30,000 illegal migrants in hotels around the country. As we know, the vast majority are young males, many from cultures that do not respect women. That is not racist, far right or whatever else; it is a reality, and one we must start to deal with. Secure detention is required, not open hotels. If the facilities do not exist, build them. If we get serious on deportations, they will not be necessary for long. Send the following message and the boats will stop: “If you come to the UK illegally, you won’t be met with luxury accommodation. What will the British Government do to you? Two words: detain and deport.” That is the only way.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you very much, Sir John, and apologies for not bobbing appropriately. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Our message to the world has to be this: if you come here illegally, you will be deported. Not housed in luxury accommodation, fed and cared for at the taxpayer’s expense; deported. Not allowed to roam the streets entirely unchecked, with no limits; deported. Not free to apply for asylum under whatever lie the Home Office is buying this week; deported. Removing those with no right to be here is not cruel; it is not heartless; it is necessary. Language matters, and these men are not desperate asylum seekers; they are not irregular migrants—they are illegal migrants, and they should be treated as such. Spreading them across the country into unsuspecting communities is pure insanity. Members should ask themselves honestly: if a hotel at the bottom of their road was suddenly filled overnight with young foreign males who had entered the country almost entirely unchecked, would they be happy for their teenage daughter to go out after dark? The answer is no.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Southport Attack · Hansard source

  More

  In her statement, the Home Secretary said, “Let there be no doubt: responsibility for this outrage lies squarely with the perpetrator.” That is indubitably true, but I would argue that there is blood on the hands of the myriad very difficult to understand Government agencies and quangos that charge around in ever decreasing circles, blaming everybody else when something goes wrong. Will she commit to reviewing every single dropped or downgraded case on which Prevent failed to act appropriately, to avoid another heartbreaking catastrophe like this one?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T6. As someone actively involved in a number of businesses, unlike the majority of Front Benchers, I have spent far too much of my life trying to communicate with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and I am not alone. Taxpayers cumulatively spent 798 years on hold with HMRC in 2022-23, and letters often go unanswered for months. When the phone is picked up, decent British taxpayers and their advisers increasingly are treated like criminals by arrogant, petty, unaccountable bureaucrats. Will the Chancellor commit to a comprehensive review of HMRC, to make it as accountable to the taxpayer as the taxpayer is to them—

• 16 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I think we in this House can all agree that the premier league is the world’s most successful league. It has grown up under self-regulation, but there are now proposals to regulate it. The premier league transmits soft power across the world and raises huge amounts of revenue for the Government. Given the damage that the Financial Services and Markets Act has done to the London stock exchange and other markets, will the Government take responsibility if football declines after they introduce football regulation?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source

  More

  I should start by alerting people to my declared interests relating to the pharmaceutical industry. All of us familiar with the growth of the quango will be aware of how these unelected, unaccountable organisations have come to control and dominate British public life—not us, the democratically elected Members, but the quangos. Failure is rewarded and never punished. No organisation encapsulates that point as comprehensively as the MHRA. Its role is essentially to ensure that medicines and medical devices are safe and effective—where have we heard those words before? How can it possibly be trusted to regulate properly when it is funded largely by the companies it is tasked with regulating? It is simply human nature for a conflict like this to impact on the decision-making process. The biggest challenge in the MHRA’s history was the covid response, and it failed. It enabled the biggest assault on civil liberties and economic prosperity in my lifetime, which was lockdown—the greatest scandal of them all. It was, quite simply, the most disgraceful period of recent history. The MHRA’s insistence on vaccines for all enabled lockdown restrictions to continue for as long as they did. It must take part responsibility for the consequences: vast NHS backlogs, mental health issues rife, soaring alcohol-related deaths, obesity booming, children’s development wrecked, long-term illnesses mounting, increased substance abuse, domestic violence on the rise, unnoticed child neglect, fathers missing the birth of their children and elderly loved ones left to rot and die alone. We were not even allowed to mourn the dead properly. The wicked list is endless. None of it was based on any science, and certainly not the vaccination of almost the entire population—including, disgracefully, young children. This was a hideous dereliction of duty by the MHRA. It was not just children it forced the covid vaccination on, but tens of millions of people who had absolutely no need for it whatsoever. There was clear risk from taking the vaccine—not just the initial two doses, but the booster following them. The evidence for the vaccine was simply not there, particularly considering that by that stage, almost the entire population had actually caught the virus, which gave far more effective natural protection than any man-made intervention. The MHRA knew that, but it failed to act. Why? Was it under political pressure not to undermine the wretched covid response? Had it been honest about the real need—or lack thereof—for population-wide vaccinations, the whole case for lockdown would have collapsed. As of 4 November, there had been 489,991 adverse reaction reports from covid-19 vaccines in the UK. Those are just the reported issues. What is the true number? When individual after individual reports feeling far worse after taking the vaccine than they ever did after the virus, should we not question whether that vaccination was necessary? The MHRA failed. This was simply not a vaccine that was needed by the entire population. We were fed the lie that taking the jab would protect vulnerable loved ones, which was disgraceful dishonesty. The vaccine did not prevent transmission—we know that now, and we knew that then. It should always have been a fully free and informed choice. If an elderly man in his 90s believes that the virus poses more of a threat than the vaccine, then let him take it. For almost everyone under 70, that is a risk analysis that falls firmly in the camp of not having the vaccine. Don’t even get me started on the abhorrent vaccine passport policy—one of the most evil policies devised by Government in living memory. The MHRA should have provided full and transparent data so that educated adults could make their own decisions for themselves and for their families. It must act as an independent barrier against both political expedience and corporate profit, protecting public health above all else. The question is: who regulates the regulator? Who protects against regulatory capture? How did the MHRA allow politicians, celebrities and even its own agency to describe these vaccines as safe and effective, when yellow card data clearly showed it is not universally safe and certainly not universally effective? How could MHRA CEO June Raine say she had transformed the MHRA from a watchdog to an “enabler” of the pharmaceutical industry—an oxymoron for a watchdog that is meant to safeguard public health? It is Parliament’s duty now to exercise its sovereign power to ensure that we learn from the myriad of mistakes.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

  More

  As well as withheld court transcripts, I have been pushing the Ministry of Justice for data on the following: how many Pakistani or other foreign rapists have been deported, are still in prison, did not serve a custodial sentence, are back in the same community as their victims, had previous convictions or have reoffended, with a full nationality breakdown of those involved in the gangs. The response was that the requested information “is not centrally identified in the data systems relevant to these questions.” If this were a state inquiry into the private sector, it would be accused of negligence. My view is that we need a full national inquiry. This is a rotting stain on our country, and it needs to be exorcised in full. It cannot continue to be kicked into the long grass. The British public want transparency, and they want to know why this has taken so long to be dealt with.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

  More

  Given the abject failure of devolution in both Scotland and Wales and the fact that the Americans fought a war of independence on the slogan “No taxation without representation”, my constituents of Great Yarmouth would like an answer to two questions. First, why should they continue to pay their council tax beyond May, when they will not be represented by elected people? And secondly, by what name do they call these unelected councillors after May?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) · Hansard source

  More

  Richard Tice, Jim Allister, myself and others, Mr Speaker.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) · Hansard source

  More

  James McMurdock— [Interruption.] Maybe Rachel Reeves, I don’t know. [Laughter.]

• 8 Jan 2025 · Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit quantitative easing; to prohibit the Government from indemnifying any losses that may result from quantitative easing; and for connected purposes. The purpose of this draft legislation is to ensure that the state is as economically accountable to the people as the people are to the state. That means terminating the state’s ability to debase the value of money through practices such as quantitative easing, which is not an option for the individual. Clipping, sweating, plugging and cutting are forms of coin debasement either by Government or individuals. The most famous modern UK example was the great debasement between 1544 and 1551, when Henry VIII reduced the gold and silver content of coinage by the use of base metals such as copper in order to fund his bacchanalian overspending and wars with France. It has been a common feature of Government behaviour over the 5,000 years of gold trading history, and it continues today in the form of quantitative easing. With no gold standard to constrain unproductive investment and direct capital to sound and profitable investment ventures, policymakers today have become obsessed with short-term stimuli centred on the performance of stock and bond markets. Central banks have become uncontrolled, unconstrained and reckless in their pursuit of delivering non-stop, unsustainable global growth driven by credit. QE is what third-world dictators used to indulge in shortly before their currencies descended into chaos, but it has now become a mainstream tool to avoid the Darwinian reality of capitalism. History is littered with examples of Governments, dictators and kings abusing their hard-working citizens. Coinage during Rome’s ascendant years was bolder, larger and widely accepted, but it reduced in size, weight and content as her empire waned. There was John Law’s Mississippi scheme in France in 1716 to 1720, when he and the Duke of Orléans, who was regent for Louis XV, presided over an establishment-backed scheme on the premise that paper money was preferrable to gold or a metal-backed currency, and that shares were a superior form of money as they paid dividends. It was, in essence, the first national central bank. It ended in chaotic collapse, and it badly damaged France and her economy. National debt was supported by printed money in the same way as today through QE via central banks globally. I fear that the ending will be the same in due course. In Weimar Germany, after the first world war, the Reichsbank had become accustomed to printing money to fund the wartime economy, increasing marks in circulation from two billion to 45 billion between 1914 and 1919. State debt rose by 30 times, from 5 billion marks to 153 billion marks. That continued with the value of the mark going into freefall in early 1923 and the issuance of notes of up to 100 trillion marks, before sense returned. It was a time of moral decline, short-termism and prostitution that benefited the opportunists, not the long-term wealth creators. With currency devaluation came a decline in all that had previously been cherished, including loyalty, faith, morals, innocence and honour. Over recent times, capitalism in the UK and globally has been undermined as states have grown in size and central banks have distorted logic. Systemic risk management via the clearing banks in the ’70s was gradually replaced by more overt interventions, including by Alan Greenspan in 1987, and in 1997 when Long-Term Capital Management, an offshore company, was bailed out by the US Government. The year 2008 was a watershed moment, when Gordon Brown bailed out financial institutions at an estimated cost to taxpayers of £137 billion, followed by quantitative easing between March 2009 and August 2016. That was dwarfed by the actions of Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke in the US in 2008. They used $700 billion of intervention to prop up the financial system generally, particularly AIG. During the covid crisis of 2020 and 2021, when many bad decisions were taken by an already bloated state, between £310 billion and £410 billion—equivalent to between £4,600 and £6,100 per person in the UK—was spent in a number of questionable centrally planned interventions. In rather the same way as early Weimar Germany, Britain finds itself heavily indebted and continuing to run multiple deficits, making matters progressively worse. Our moral decline is clearly evident, as true capitalism has been undermined by regular intervention, increasing state regulation and a growing, bloated and inefficient state. It is interesting that Weimar Germany’s revival started with the dismissal of many civil servants, and social welfare spending being massively cut. The French Government’s recent funding crisis makes it look even more like a national Ponzi scheme than in the UK. Both wings of French politics refused to sanction debt reduction despite the budget deficit being expected to rise to over 113% of GDP by this year. Market concerns are pushing the euro lower and France’s borrowing costs higher, with bond yields briefly surpassing Spain’s for the first time since 2008. Javier Milei, Argentina’s President since 2023, has brought significant economic reforms with his radical libertarian agenda, earning both praise and criticism. Milei’s focus has been on cutting public sector spending, reducing inflation and implementing drastic fiscal adjustments, which have led to improvements in Argentina’s economy. Inflation has fallen from nearly 300% to around 119%, public sector jobs have been reduced by 35,000, and the country has achieved a primary fiscal surplus. Argentina’s economy has also exited recession, with a growth rate of 3.9%, and borrowing costs have dropped, signalling reduced debt default risks. Elon Musk has been appointed to lead Donald Trump’s new Department of government efficiency, which he will co-run with Trump ally and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk said that the Department’s creation would address Government waste and inefficiency. Trump described DOGE as a transformative initiative aimed at slashing bureaucracy, cutting regulations and restructuring federal agencies, and likened it to the Manhattan project. Money is the foundation of all human exchange of enterprise and replaced barter in the earliest communities. It allows for the transfer of skills through a transferable medium such as a coin, a note or indeed a transfer. By a continuous process of inflation, no matter how it is perpetrated, Governments can confiscate—secretly and unobserved—an important part of the wealth of their citizens. As they do so, the size of the state inevitably grows, and it becomes a self-serving, greedy master of the people it should be serving. Common-sense logic and human relationships among working people are inevitably undermined, and there is a general moral decline in society. Taxes should be transparent, justifiable and simple. The cost of government should be covered by taxes alone, limiting the growth of excessive statism. Gold has historically been the standard store of value and protection against currency debasement for over 5,000 years. It is interesting that profligate Governments always denigrate gold-holding, and holding it is often banned by Governments in crisis who have deceived their electorate. The words of President Woodrow Wilson after he signed the Federal Reserve Act should serve as a warning to all of us: “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilised world—no longer a Government by free option, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” Friedrich von Hayek, an eminent Austrian-school economist, said: “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” Given the historical track record of states abusing their citizens by various forms of currency debasement, including QE, the default position should be to make it illegal, unless this democratically elected House has an informed vote supporting debasement. This Bill seeks to achieve that position, and I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to.