Rupert Lowe MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have recently joined the Public Accounts Committee, and in my short time on the Committee I have come across qualified accounts and local authorities not having audited accounts; only 4% of them have audited accounts. I have watched the Government wasting almost endless amounts of money, and then I witness this madness of them basically breaking the backbone of British farms and British small businesses, and in effect ensuring that there will be none of the long-term investment that drives our economy. Does the hon. Member agree with me that, before we start breaking up these enterprises, we should get the Government’s house in order and cut state waste?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  My questions are these. Where are they now? What is the Minister doing to detain them? Where did they come from? What are their convictions? How has this been allowed to happen?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I can count, thank you. Why did the Minister mislead the British people? Who is being sacked?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will indeed write to the Committee. I have one final question for the Minister: what else is the Home Office lying about?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and I completely agree with what she has said. The girl was then pushed to her knees before being brutally raped. Another—one of too many. Last year, a 35-year-old old Iranian small-boat migrant raped a 15-year-old girl in an alleyway. He was known to police in Germany, where he had been convicted of assault offences. He told the girl she could be his “sex doll”, and that he wanted to—I quote— “fuck her”, before dragging her down an alleyway, forcing her to her knees outside a secluded doorway, and then raping her. The poor girl’s anguished mother later asked, “Why was he in this country?” It is a question that millions and millions of British people are asking. Why are they here? These are unimaginable horrors, but they are happening, right across our country, every day, brutally and relentlessly. This House may not like to hear this, but it must listen; it must understand; it must digest. This is a political choice, and it is one that this Parliament has made. These are men who should never have been in our country to begin with. They should have been detained, and they should have been deported, indiscriminately and without question. They were not: they were housed, fed and cared for at taxpayer expense. They were released on to our streets and allowed to roam freely—thousands and thousands of them, unvetted foreign men from barbaric cultures that have no place in our communities. Words cannot adequately describe my disgust at what has been forced on to the British people. Since being elected, I have used what little influence I hold to try and uncover the impact of these migrants and just how severely the British people are suffering because of it. I have asked more than 600 questions of the Home Office, but I receive very few answers, particularly when the question is regarding illegal migrants. “No data”, “not centrally collected” and “disproportionate costs” are often cited. I thought that perhaps it was incompetence, but evidence has come to my attention that proves the Home Office has been misleading MPs. On 20 January, I asked the Home Office “what information the Department holds on the number of irregular migrants defined as absconders.”

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, and I will come to that point in a minute, but I completely concur. To recap, I asked the Home Office “what information the Department holds on the number of irregular migrants defined as absconders.” A Minister replied: “The requested data is not readily accessible from published statistics, and could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at a disproportionate cost.” That was not true. On 3 September, I asked the Home Secretary “what estimate she has made of the number of foreign nationals who have absconded after being served with a deportation order.” The answer, from a different Minister, was: “The Home Office does not hold any central record of the requested information.” That was not true. On 24 November, I questioned the Home Office permanent secretary in the Public Accounts Committee on the number of illegal migrants who have absconded from Home Office accommodation in the past five years. I got no concise answer. During all this, a Home Office whistleblower presented themselves with these figures, in black and white, regularly disseminated within the Home Office. The actual data is as follows: there are 736 foreign criminals in the total absconder pool for foreign national offenders. That is 736 foreign criminals who have been released from prison and then absconded before deportation. Please think about that: 736 criminals—rapists, murderers, paedophiles. They were meant for deportation but have escaped into the community—736 of them. It is a terrifying thought. Overall, the total absconder pool stands at 53,298, largely referring to the number of illegal migrants who were once in the system and whose current whereabouts is unknown.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister now commit to publishing these figures on a regular and transparent basis, or will I have to continue exposing this? Further whistleblowers have already come forward with additional information, and I thank them for that. My warning to the Home Office and to other Departments is this: be very careful about any further misleading statements. There are many decent people in the civil service who will not tolerate it, and I want them all to know that they have a safe and secure channel to release this information publicly through me. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this festering, rotting mess desperately needs to be disinfected.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  The scale of illegal immigration and its impact on our country is simply not understood in this Parliament, and nor do most Members even care. British people are genuinely scared—women are frightened to go into their towns alone, and parents are terrified to let their children walk to school. It is getting worse and worse. The British people are not stupid; they can see their communities radically changing, and they can feel their streets becoming more unfamiliar, more dangerous and more menacing, all while the Home Office deliberately conceals the true extent of the change from our citizens. I am contacted by dozens and dozens of women who genuinely fear for their lives and who feel ignored by this place—ignored by those who are supposed to represent and protect them; ignored and abandoned; thrown to the wolves in pursuit of some sick multicultural experiment that is being forced on our people, one that has very real-world consequences. What happened just yesterday? Two Afghan illegal migrants were jailed for raping a schoolgirl. The footage exists—she filmed herself during the rape. Even the men’s barrister warned that it would lead to “disorder” if it was released, as it was so horrific. “You’re going to rape me”, the girl cried as she was dragged away. She screamed for help and begged not to be taken. One of the migrants gagged her with his hand. The Afghan men forced her to perform sex acts in a secluded area. She is heard screaming for help; she calls for her friends; she wants to go home. She is pleading for help from passers-by—none came. Can you imagine her horror, her fear and her desperation? Think if it was your daughter. How would that make you feel? Honestly, think about that.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I do agree with the hon. Member’s helpful intervention. Unvetted and unknown men—sex pests, misogynists, and even far worse—are in our communities, on our streets and near our schools, in the thousands and thousands. This is a national security emergency and must be treated as such. The evidence is undeniable. I have seen it in Home Office documents. It exists. It is real. The figures were not even disputed by the Home Office; they simply told The Daily Telegraph : “The Home Office has refused to confirm whether the figures are accurate, saying it does not comment on speculation.” This is not speculation. This is cold, hard data. The numbers demonstrate quite spectacularly how the Home Office has failed to keep the British people safe. It is an outrageous scandal that this information has been deliberately hidden from the British people. We deserve to know the facts. We deserve to know what is being forced on to our communities. The answer is staggering: 736 foreign criminals gone, disappeared; and 53,298 illegal migrants gone, disappeared. My questions—

• 9 Dec 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry · Hansard source

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  As the Minister may know, we have been running our own independent inquiry into the rape gang scandal, funded by over 20,000 concerned people. Our hearings are taking place in early February next year. We have made immense progress to date, with more to come. Will the Home Secretary meet me to discuss how our work might assist the national inquiry, which we all want and need to succeed without further delay, as the rapes are continuing today?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor has embarked on a Fabian programme of brutal tax-and-spend economics that might please the dwindling number of Labour voters, but is hollowing out the nation’s productive base. Those who take risks, invest long term and create high-quality jobs are increasingly voting with their feet. Record numbers of top earners—the rain-makers who actually bankroll public services—are leaving the UK for good, taking their wealth and, more importantly, their brain power with them. Does the Chancellor even begin to understand the lasting and irreversible damage that she is causing to the British economy?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable I feel sitting on the Government side of the Chamber, but I could not find a spare seat anywhere else, which is a testament to the fact that this subject is contested extremely passionately and that arguably it needs to be debated in the Chamber. Digital ID is the biggest step towards a surveillance state that this country has faced in my lifetime. If any Government want access to every detail of our lives, they are the ones who should be feared. We live in a country where the state cannot even run a basic IT system without losing data or leaking personal details. Digital ID will not last a week before a mountain of sensitive personal data is left at a bus stop in Kent again. I do not trust any Government. I certainly do not trust this Government. Let us remember: once the Government get a new power, they never give it back. It expands and evolves. Digital ID will not stop at proving who we are. It will creep into travel, banking, housing, benefits and even voting. Today, it is voluntary; tomorrow, it will be required for security reasons. The day after that, we will not be able to access basic services without it—all for our own good, remember. Britain is supposed to be a country in which the Government serve the people, not the other way around. It is a country built on privacy, liberty and trust. British people just want the Government to leave them alone and get out of their lives—to build a business, raise a family and live in peace. Digital ID treats every citizen as a suspect. It assumes that the state has the right to look over our shoulders. We defend against it by severely limiting the power of the state, not radically expanding it. Abolishing jury trials, cancelling elections, implementing facial recognition—and now this. This incoming dystopian future must be resisted. I will be holding my own protest against this creeping move towards George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. I will simply not comply. I will not be downloading a digital ID and I urge other MPs to commit to doing the same. The solution is obvious: I will just have to reinvest in a Nokia—I preferred the simplicity of that anyway. The sound people of Great Yarmouth do not want digital ID.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. Does the Home Secretary agree that if a migrant—legal or illegal—cannot speak English, claims benefits, lives in social housing, refuses to work, rejects integration, commits crime, and is a drain on our society or even actively hates Britain and wishes to do us harm, they should be removed from our country, regardless of how many millions of deportations that would inevitably result in?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Social Media Posts: Penalties for Offences · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am grateful to the Petitions Committee for granting time for this extremely important debate, following our successful petition. Most importantly, I thank the more than 190,000 British people who signed the petition that we initiated, which calls for an end to the creeping use of prison as a punishment for what people say online. We would not be here today without their support, which is a credit to the petitions system, one of the better-functioning arms of Parliament. I welcome Lucy Connolly and her husband, who are here today. She is one of the many ordinary citizens who has been swept up in the chaotic and inconsistent enforcement of our online speech laws. Her courage in speaking openly about her experience has helped to expose a growing problem: namely that the British state is now more willing to imprison somebody for a social media post than for a rape. That is not justice, that is not proportionate and that is certainly not the mark of a free country.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Social Media Posts: Penalties for Offences · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has heard of the Pakistani rape gangs, which are currently the subject of my crowdfunder. When he reads the report that is coming out in March, I am sure he will agree with me. We are witnessing the steady expansion of what are essentially speech crimes—offences where there is no violence, no real threat of violence and, often, no identifiable victim at all. Yet people face dawn raids, criminal records, ankle tags and even lengthy prison sentences—for words, for arguments, for opinions that somebody somewhere claims to find offensive. I had my own experience: a late-night police raid, initiated by false allegations from former Reform party colleagues, relating solely to words I had allegedly spoken—the party of free speech, indeed. The Reform leadership’s bitter attempt to see me in prison failed, but too many others do not escape the consequences of such vile misuse of the system. We now have laws being used to punish subjective offence, based on the most fragile interpretation of “harm” and enforced through discretionary and—far too often—politically skewed policing. A post that is deemed sharp criticism one month somehow becomes grossly offensive the next. It is arbitrary, it is inconsistent and it is fundamentally incompatible with a healthy democracy. I receive multiple death threats, yet the police take no action. To take just one example, online influencer Shola Mos-Shogbamimu recently posted on X: “I’m against the death penalty but for you @RupertLowe10 I’ll gladly make the exception.” This post currently has 2 million views. The Met police have said no action will be taken. I do not want people in prison for social media posts; I also do not want such obvious two-tier policing. Shola walks free, yet Lucy Connolly was imprisoned for one foolish social media post, soon deleted. Where is the fairness in that? If these ludicrous laws are to be implemented, it must be done fairly, with no political bias. Evidently, that is not currently happening. Is our prison system so efficient, so functional and so unoccupied that we have the capacity to put a young mother like Lucy in prison for more than 300 days? I think not. When rapists and murderers are walking free—even being released early—there is zero justification for imprisoning Lucy and the many others like her, particularly when the influence of such questionable legal aid is so heavily involved. We must be clear: no free society can survive with a people afraid to speak. Democracy depends on robust argument, dissent and the ability to challenge orthodoxy. As George Orwell so presciently stated: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Parliament needs to draw a deep line in the sand: in Britain, nobody should ever be sent to prison for an offensive social media post—full stop. That requires legislative reform. We need clearer thresholds in law, a robust statutory requirement that prosecutorial decisions consider freedom of expression, and a prohibition on custodial sentences for pure speech cases. The poison of two-tier justice must be forensically extracted from our judicial system. This debate is not about whether we are prepared to live in a country where liberty exists only for those who never cause offence—an impossible and undesirable standard. To Lucy and to every other person who has found themselves dragged through the system for a post online: you deserve better from your Government, and I sincerely hope today marks the beginning of a serious rethink in this House.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q14. Every week we hear of a brutal murder, rape or stabbing, far too often perpetrated by someone who should not be in our country to begin with. Does the Prime Minister agree that, for cases in which the guilt is so undeniable, the crime so monstrous and the evil so irredeemable, the reintroduction of the death penalty for both foreign and domestic criminals should be put to the British people in a legally binding referendum?

• 11 Nov 2025 · BBC Leadership · Hansard source

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  “Auntie” is definitively a monopoly. When Mr Reith wrote into the charter that she should inform, educate and entertain with complete impartiality, he did it for good reason. This recent disgusting episode with this “Panorama” programme, where we have undermined our relationship with probably our greatest ally, is just the tip of the iceberg. Would the Minister agree that now is the time to responsibly defund this monopoly? If she does not, would she agree that it is time for root-and-branch reform with a view to ensuring that, in the same way that she has done with football club boards, we see people from across the country who are actually forced to pay for this service represented on the board of the BBC?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State today agree to publish clear, honest and regular statistics on the number of illegal migrants convicted of sexual offences, murder or indeed any other crime? A yes or no answer will do well.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  Please spare me the continued moral outrage. I am bored of it. The British people are bored of it. It is not cruel to deport criminals, and it is not inhumane to defend our own citizens. What is cruel and inhumane is allowing foreign killers and sex offenders to walk among us in the name of the human rights they should have forfeited the moment they committed their crimes. Hon. Members can sit here and persuade themselves otherwise, but one simple fact remains: the British people want those people gone—not some of them, not most of them, but all of them. What happens on their return to their own country is quite simply not our problem. The solution is to take three straightforward steps. Step one: we should leave the ECHR and remove all other legal obstacles to mass deportation—Restore Britain’s new 100-plus page policy document proves it can be done. Step two—

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  What about the human rights of the British people? They have the right not to be raped, stabbed and killed by foreigners who should never have been in our country to begin with. Please spare me the continued moral outrage.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. What does the ECHR actually mean for British people? Let us go through a few examples. A convicted Sri Lankan sex offender was allowed to stay in Britain because he is gay and would be at risk of persecution if he was returned to his home country. I do not care. A Jamaican drug dealer was jailed twice but allowed to stay in Britain after claiming that his removal would breach his right to family life. I do not care.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  The interventions held me up, Mr Mundell.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  No. A Zimbabwean was jailed for killing a man in a car crash but allowed to stay in Britain after it was discovered that he had an illicit love child. I do not care. A convicted Indian paedophile was allowed to stay in Britain by claiming that the move would harm his children. I do not care. An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets. I definitely do not care. We hear so much about the human rights of foreign paedophiles, sex pests and murderers—