Siân Berry MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will speak only briefly, as I spoke in favour of the Bill on Second Reading in November, my name is on it, and I have long supported the campaigns to change the law, including those of Dignity in Dying and Humanists UK, of which I declare I am a member and patron. Since the vote on Second Reading, I have met and listened to a range of groups, professionals and individuals, mainly those who have concerns and those who want to see further changes made. In Brighton that has regularly included constituents at my surgery, as well as a group of leaders of local faith groups and charities who provide support to different vulnerable groups, including disabled people. Today we are debating about half of the more than 100 proposed amendments, led by several tabled by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who has set out so well how she put them together based on her own very detailed work with civil servants and her listening, including to opponents. I cannot commend her work and that of the Committee more. The new amendments from the promoter of the Bill include welcome changes to transparency rules and how the processes and decisions made are reported and scrutinised. Other MPs have also tabled many carefully drafted and clear proposals. On eligibility, I continue to support people with slowly progressive neurological diseases, such as motor neurone disease, as reflected by my support for amendment 4, which I have signed and which was argued for so well by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon). I intend not to list lots of amendments, but to set out briefly the approach that I will take to those amendments being debated, before listening to the rest of the debate and then deciding how to vote, because I believe we must end up with the strongest, clearest and fairest process for making decisions, safeguarding against abuse, scrutinising the use of the policy after it becomes law, and providing the very best and most appropriate help to people who want this choice at the end of their lives. I aim to back strongly the amendments that demand greater reporting and recording of decisions made and that demand transparency, including financial transparency, demographic data and other statistics from those who are supervising decisions and providing the new service, including the new supervising commissioner. The ability to monitor the implementation of this policy, ensure it is working as intended and detect any problems immediately is really important to me. I will also back changes in the process that ask for more training for those taking part in decisions and to ensure fair and effective communication throughout, including new language requirements However, I am not currently aiming to support amendments that I think place undue, compulsory, additional burdens, hurdles, intrusions or demands on the people applying for permission to make this choice beyond what is in the Bill currently. On the basis of what I have heard, the experiences of many of my constituents and the statistics, the people asking for this choice will, by definition, be at the end of a horrible disease—often terminal cancer—which they will have fought, and fought with their doctors, for a long time. They will now be facing their final months in a situation of potentially huge suffering over which they have no control and that they fear greatly. We must all remember that only dying people are eligible. In the vast majority of these cases, the person’s eligibility, capacity and reasons will be more than clear to the decision makers. I believe we must enable those cases to be approved in a respectful, caring and compassionate way, and as swiftly as the current Bill process allows. In other cases, where things are less clear, I agree: many more questions may need to be asked. I believe that the professionals currently tasked in this rigorous process under the Bill will be very well placed to judge when more information, consultation and investigation will be necessary. Under the current rules, along with the amendments and new clauses I support, they will also have to account very clearly for what they ask and what they decide under effective scrutiny. I cannot, therefore, support proposed changes that would make every applicant subject to additional intrusive steps and interrogation, with somebody appointed to argue against them, extra processes or compulsory psychological investigation.

• 13 May 2025 · Release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his response. Members of the family of Alaa Abd el-Fattah are again in the Gallery today, and his mother Laila has now not taken food for seven months. I met her again recently and she is so frail now. Does the Minister agree that Alaa’s arbitrary detention, long after his sentence ended, continues in violation of the Vienna convention, and that there must be consequences for Egypt, including international legal options and new travel advice, given the evident dangers to British nationals detained in Egypt?

• 13 May 2025 · Release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah · Hansard source

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  14. What recent progress he has made on helping to secure the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

• 12 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister told me that cutting back on PIP eligibility was in line with post-war Labour principles, but more and more Labour Members are saying that that policy—balancing the Government’s books on the backs of disabled people and those who care for them—is cruel and wrong in principle. Will the Secretary of State tell us who is right?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clause 15, but I also want to associate myself with the many right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken up for our creative industries. Our most talented and creative minds have not been getting fair representation from the Government up to now, and this has been a very interesting, well informed and, hopefully, influential debate today. New clause 15 is about privacy, safety and providing a dedicated complaints procedure for individuals including victims of modern slavery, domestic abuse, gender-based violence and for others at risk of serious harm if their personal data is mishandled. This is not a theoretical question. Last November, The Independent reported on Lola, a domestic abuse victim whose home address was leaked to her ex-partner by a company that obtains restraining orders. She said that she was left fearing for her life. As the Open Rights Group has laid out in its briefing, the Information Commissioner’s Office is not functioning as it should be in cases such as this. I have many examples—including how Charnwood district council sent details of the new address of an abused woman directly to her abuser at her former address, so that her abuser knew where she lived—yet people placed at risk in this way currently have no means of challenging the Information Commissioner’s Office if it fails to take the right action, which happens too often. New clause 15 simply proposes dedicated procedures to support vulnerable people making complaints and a right to appeal to the Information Tribunal, a route currently available to large tech firms but not to the people harmed by their practices. I hope that Ministers will take these proposals up. On other amendments, I fully back the Liberal Democrats on new clauses 2 to 6, which I am signed up to. I personally will abstain from voting on the Liberal Democrats’ new clause 1 and on the Conservatives’ new clause 19. This is because, although I am minded to increase the age of digital consent from 13, given the wider implications of harmful content and data that can be collected and used to do harm, my discussions locally with parents and young people in Brighton Pavilion have led me to want to properly include both groups in any decision on what that new age should be, given that it would cut people off from social media. We must have rapid and real processes of deliberation on this issue as soon as possible that are not just consultative but collaborative. Finally, new clause 21 is of serious concern to my constituents, and I agree with them and TransActual that it would constitute a gross violation of privacy rights by creating a mass outing of trans people. Subsection (1)(d) of this new clause even goes so far as to seek to revert historical changes made to someone’s gender marker. I urge the Government to reject this and to act further to protect trans rights more broadly.

• 7 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. VE Day marked the end of horror in Europe. Afterwards, our post-war expansion of welfare benefits was something truly principled from Labour. Given the real fear felt by disabled people in Brighton Pavilion and across the nation, does the Prime Minister agree that now is the time to be principled again and restore their support, not make his MPs vote to restrict it?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  Yes, of course.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with every single thing that the Mother of the House has just said, because I could not possibly live up to it. I genuinely believe that this Bill will undermine efforts to ensure that equality before the law is a reality for everyone. It flies in the face of expertise and of the painstaking, authoritative work of the Sentencing Council —a rightly independent body run by, and for, the judiciary. This is a strange and populist Bill that is undermining and delaying good, well-evidenced independent guidelines for effective sentencing that would have made our justice system more fair, rather than less. I will start my objections to clauses 1 and 2 standing part of the Bill—I am essentially opposing the Bill as a whole—by commenting on the process. We have before us a single-page Bill that in its specificity and intent cannot but bring to my mind how the current President of the United States is using executive orders to interfere intrusively and intricately in the rightly independent decision making of other bodies. This is a micro Bill that micromanages. I worry what else we might see from this Government if such an example is set today. On Second Reading, the shadow Justice Secretary was not shy of telling us about his next targets, which include the long-standing “Equal Treatment Bench Book”. The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) has outlined other guidelines that might be immediately affected if we pass this Bill today. My second objection is about the substance of the Bill, which is primarily contained in clause 1. I cannot believe that Ministers and shadow Ministers are unaware that achieving fair and equal outcomes does not mean treating everyone exactly the same. That principle is so fundamental that I think I learned it through the round window. I cannot believe they are unaware that systemic racism and unconscious bias are real things that still affect people at every stage of the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom in 2025. They must be aware that the good practice that we put together must mitigate those things, or else it will compound them. I do not believe that the Government as a whole think that the findings of the independent Lammy review of 2017 are untrue, or that they and a wealth of other evidence did not demonstrate the need for guidelines of this sort to provide information to help mitigate the impact of systemic racism and prejudice. Yet here we are, being asked to vote for legislation that essentially bans this evidence and these principles from being part of independent judicial guidelines.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  To return to the intervention from the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), it is difficult for some to realise that with these guidelines, the definition of “normal” has flipped away from the male, the white, the Christian and the majority to shine more of a light on people who are parts of minorities and might have experienced systemic problems leading up to the sentencing decision. That is the point of the guidelines. That is how we act in an anti-racist way. It is how we put together policy that mitigates the great problems that the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), has outlined and we know well. In contrast to this rushed Bill, the process that led to the now suspended new Sentencing Council guidelines was excellent: the document was consulted on widely; the Justice Committee looked at it; and it was given the green light by a Conservative Government, of which the shadow Justice Secretary was a member. Before I am intervened on, I am aware that a small change was made, but in essence the same document has come forward and the same principles were enshrined in the document that was proposed and approved. There was basically consensus that more use of pre-sentence reports should be made for people suffering from systemic injustices, that particular groups might be in greater need of them, and that judges should be permitted and encouraged to ask for such reports for those groups in more circumstances. I want to talk about another group who will suffer from the delay caused by the Bill suspending the guidelines. I do not know when we will get new guidelines, but there will be more harm to women, families and children, who were all given more specific focus in the new—now suspended—guidelines. I have worked for some years on the problems and injustices facing women in the criminal justice system. I am concerned about the serious consequences that will come from any delay to these long overdue changes to further widen the use of pre-sentence reports and to make those reports easier for these groups. There will be serious consequences not only for too many people with these characteristics or circumstances—however we define it—but for wider society too. Will Ministers tell us about the impact of this delay on women, families, pregnant people and other groups named? When will we get new guidelines that include them? How many people will be harmed in the meantime? This delay has already taken some weeks. Some Members will be familiar with the seminal 2007 Corston report about women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. Incidentally, that document reminds us in its introduction: “Equality does not mean treating everyone the same.” The Sentencing Council guidelines were about to help plug a gap that still remained in terms of addressing the recommendations and themes of the Corston report. Indeed, in its commentary, the Sentencing Council rightly points to deeply concerning evidence of this problem. I am aware of difficulties judges have had in justifying delays and adjournments to go and get pre-sentence reports. The old guidance pushed for often impossible same-day reporting back from the Probation Service and cautioned against adjournments. With this delay to the new guidelines, will it be 2027—20 years after Corston—before the old guidelines are fully removed? How many women might be harmed in the meantime? As far as I can see, the shadow Justice Secretary has scored a major win today, seizing this issue to stage another culture war ambush against another minority. Instead of standing by judges and by important principles we have all known for a long time—instead of simply allowing these guidelines to be trialled while the concerns being raised were addressed calmly—this Government have essentially put an executive order-style Bill before us now for its remaining stages. There was not even time on Second Reading for opponents like me to point that out. I am sorry, but I believe that this Bill represents nothing less than a rushed and extraordinary capitulation by this Government to hard-right propaganda. People will suffer injustice as a result. It is profoundly worrying to see the Government legislating in this manner, micromanaging justice in ways that are led by—let’s face it—dog whistles, rhyming slogans and disingenuous propaganda. I will support new clause 1, but I sincerely hope that other Members will join me in voting against this Trumpian Bill and showing our respect for the independence of judges and magistrates on these matters. It is vital that we do something today to stand up for evidence-led policy, judicial independence and genuine equality before the law.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  This is—

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  I hope the hon. Member was listening to my speech when I talked about the harm that might be caused by the delay in bringing in the really excellent parts of the new guidelines that might help women and families. Are the Liberal Democrats asking for a delay, or would they like to support bringing in the parts of the guidance that are agreed as soon as possible?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  There is a lot I could say, but I will mainly just commend to Members my new clause 7, which would remove official error from the most punitive measures in the second part of the Bill. I spoke against the whole suite of intrusive legislation in the second part of the Bill on Second Reading, and Green MPs still oppose it now. I was pleased to serve on the Public Bill Committee, and I will be supporting a number of other amendments that I also backed there, alongside the hon. Members from both sides of the House who proposed them. On Second Reading and in Committee I described how the Bill treats already stigmatised benefit claimants as suspects, not citizens, through blanket intrusion and surveillance. It is absolutely wrong that this legislation should go through in this form. I think the first part works, but the second part is absolutely out of order. New clause 7, tabled in my name, is about fair play. It would bring a test for the recovery of universal credit overpayments caused by official error into line with regulation 100(2) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, so that they could be recovered only where the claimant could have reasonably been expected to realise that there was an overpayment. Let us be in no doubt, mistakes by the DWP can have huge financial and psychological impacts on people who are receiving benefits, and the risk of harm is particularly acute with official error overpayments, which individuals have no way of anticipating. I point out that new clause 7 is equivalent to an amendment proposed by Labour Front Benchers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act back in 2012, when the Government first started to recover universal credit overpayments. Turning to a few of the other important amendments before the House today, I restate my support for amendments 2 and 5, in the name of the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling). These seek simply to remove the totally indefensible bank spying powers. I express my support for amendments 10 and 12, in the name of the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), which rightly seek to do away with the driving disqualification powers, which I have previously opposed. I also put on record my support for amendment 11, also in the name of the hon. Member for Poole, which rightly limits the banks’ spying powers to cases with existing suspicion of wrongdoing. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) has taken forward amendments 8 and 9, which I tabled in Committee. My Green party colleagues and I will also be voting for new clause 1, in the name of the hon. Member for Torbay, on carer’s allowance and lessons learned. It matters when we treat people who need a safety net as suspects. It matters when Governments invade privacy with a blanket intrusion that affects older people, disabled people and other minorities in a disproportionate way. And it matters that the powers proposed today extend to impoverishing citizens and punishing them for our own Department’s mistakes. Treating people with humanity and due process should be the default setting, not these intrusive new blanket laws, and I hope that Parliament will ask Ministers to dial up the competence, dial down the stigma and think again.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  The independent person is required to produce an annual report on the use of the new powers, which, as the Minister has just laid out, are quite extensive. However, there is no requirement for the DWP to adopt the report’s recommendations. In cases where it does not accept the recommendations, will the Government consider committing to at least explaining why they have reached that conclusion?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate · Hansard source

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  I am concerned about public health. We all know that diesel and petrol hybrids are not zero emission, we know that the 2035 extension is not about tariffs—it applies only to UK sales—and we know that the move was already on the cards since Labour ripped clean air out of its manifesto completely. Has the Secretary of State assessed the impact of the announcement on the achievement of clean air target commitments? Is this the last we will hear of any clean air Act from this Government?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Prevention of Drug Deaths · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. This issue is of great concern to me and my constituents in Brighton Pavilion. Between July 2023 and June 2024, more than 160 people attended A&E at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton because of drug-related overdoses. There were 46 drug poisoning deaths in my constituency in 2023. Every drug death is a preventable, devastating tragedy. The organisation Anyone’s Child: Families for Safer Drug Control amplifies the voices of those who have been directly impacted by drug policy failures, and it is now calling for the legal control and regulation of the drug market. For the past 12 years, drug deaths have increased each year in the UK, while the supply and trade have only become more violent, toxic and exploitative, especially for children. We should declare a public health emergency. Policing, stigma and criminal records cannot adequately address this crisis, but compassionate care, stability in housing and employment, and access to treatment can. Preventive treatment is patchy across the country. Funding is inconsistent, and there have been inappropriate targets and cuts to public health budgets. When a person is defined as a criminal for using drugs, they will be deterred from seeking drug-related services and support. The reality is that people are using and supplying drugs, and instead of keeping them safe, Government policy stigmatises and criminalises them. The Government’s punitive law and order approach is having terrible consequences for marginalised communities that experience violent over-policing—especially black people, who are four times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched, mainly for drugs, despite this being completely disproportionate to drug-use patterns. Like others, I urge the Minister to outline positive steps to take drugs out of the hands of organised crime and put them into the hands of health professionals through legal regulation. I want the Minister to outline steps towards significant and sustained increases in funding for drug treatment services, and towards removing legal barriers to harm reduction interventions, including drug consumption facilities like the one in Glasgow mentioned by the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister). I want to see steps towards the evidence-based decriminalisation of drug consumption and a longer-term road map towards legal regulation. We have the evidence on how to address this crisis and save these lives, but do we have the will?

• 27 Mar 2025 · PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Earlier in the week, I wrote to the Secretary of State, asking her to confirm that the plans would not go ahead if the proposals were assessed as being harmful to disabled people. The equality analysis says that the families who will lose out are estimated to represent 20% of all families who report having someone with a disability in the household. Given that PIP is not related to work, and that the money cannot be made up through work changes, does the Minister agree that proceeding is not acceptable when there is this level of harm?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, the Chancellor incorrectly stated that, on Second Reading, Green party MPs “voted against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill” —[ Official Report , 26 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 971.] In fact, none of us did that. How can the Chancellor’s inaccurate statement be corrected on the record, given that she has inadvertently misrepresented the voting record of other hon. Members?

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

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  Yesterday, the Office for Students levied a wholly disproportionate fine on the University of Sussex after what looks like a flawed and wasteful investigation at a time when the higher education sector is in financial crisis. Could the Leader of the House ask the Education Secretary whether she will respond to concerns about why the OfS took so long to conduct its investigation, its behaviour, the costs it incurred and the ramifications of this very serious judgment?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to speak in the debate and I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing it. In 2019, a House of Lords report on the future of coastal communities called Brighton “probably the UK’s most successful seaside community,” and we are. I am very pleased that the city council has recently set up a new seafront development board, and I have already had a positive meeting with its chair to discuss how we continue to make our seafront better, to support and grow our city’s wonderful reputation for heritage, music, the arts, shopping, amusement, community action, diversity, nature and wellbeing. As others have said, there are currently no Government funding schemes specifically for coastal areas, and there is no ministerial focus; I echo the comments of everybody in this House on that. We need focus on the specific challenges that our coastal communities face, because austerity and Brexit have bitten Brighton’s communities too. Our people have big problems with housing costs, holiday lets, employment, health, transport and health inequality, which all need dealing with.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. The amount of different sectors of the economy in Brighton and Hove that have remarked to me on the impact of Brexit is huge, not least the cultural industries. I will echo others and talk a little about the regularly appalling state of our sea water, which is a genuine threat to our success. Southern Water has been taken to court and found guilty of criminal behaviour and lying, yet we still have sewage overflows off the south coast on a regular basis. I have met sea-swimming groups and individual constituents who have been very sick after swimming in the waters around Brighton, and the only way to get that properly under control is public ownership. My Green colleagues and I will continue to push for that in this Parliament. I will very quickly shout out Lucy Davies, the brilliant and enthusiastic new director of Brighton Dome. When I met her recently, she told me about the excellent collaboration happening between cultural institutions along the Sussex coast. The coastal catalyst programme will support creativity and culture for young people from Bognor Regis to Bexhill, and it is exactly the kind of co-operative work that needs to happen. There is no single solution to the challenges that impact on our coastal communities, but we need ambition, vision, a dedicated Minister and a proper package of strategic initiatives and funding. As MPs we can help by working together and with local leaders to build on the ideas, build up new initiatives that we all agree our communities need because of their very special natures, and put on the pressure for that to happen.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have a lot of sympathy with both new clauses. It is really important that we look closely, as we are mandated to do, at the impact of the Bill on the people whose examples have been raised throughout the debate. The Minister should answer the questions asked by hon. Members, and if the Government will not do what is proposed in the new clauses, he should say what the Government will do instead.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. It is a pleasure speak under your chairship again, Mr Western. I tabled the new clause as a probing amendment. In short, it would bring the test for the recovery of universal credit overpayments caused by official error into line with regulation 100(2) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, meaning that they could be recovered only where the claimant could have reasonably been expected to realise that there was an overpayment. Let me provide some background on why the new clause is needed. According to Department for Work and Pensions data, in 2023-24 the best part of 700,000 of the new universal credit official error overpayment debts entered into the DWP’s debt management system were caused not by fraud or claimant error but by Government mistakes. Unlike for many other benefits, the DWP can recover official error universal credit overpayments from claimants. This power was introduced through the Welfare Reform Act 2012, and represented a significant change to the position that previously applied to most legacy benefits. When concerns were raised at the time, assurances were provided by the then Employment Minister that the DWP did “not have to recover money from people where official error has been made” and that “we do not intend, in many cases, to recover money where official error has been made.” –– [ Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 19 May 2011; c. 1019.] However, Public Law Project research shows that the DWP’s default approach is to recover all official error overpayments. Relief is dependent on individuals navigating a difficult and inaccessible process to request a waiver. In 2022, only 26 waiver requests were granted. DWP mistakes matter. The financial and psychological impacts of overpayment debt recovery on individual claimants can be severe. The research I have mentioned found that the recovery of debts, including official error overpayments, by deductions from universal credit led to a third of survey respondents becoming destitute. The risk of harm is particularly acute for official error overpayments, which individuals have no way of anticipating, so they can lead to sudden, unexpected reductions in income that impact existing fixed commitments and carefully planned budgets. The recovery of official error overpayments brought an added sense of injustice, with individuals finding themselves in debt due to a DWP error over which they had no control. For example, one claimant was overpaid universal credit because the DWP had failed to consider income from her widow’s pension. She had informed the DWP that she received it and was assured that it would not affect her claim. She relied on that assurance and spent the money on daily living expenses. Four years later, the DWP told her that it would be recovering the resulting overpayment of £7,258.08. Aside from the significant financial impact, the stress associated with recovery impacted her mental health. She found herself constantly thinking about the overpayment and how she would pay it back, which in turn impacted on her physical health. She was left anxious that mistakes would be made again, leading to her incurring debt that she had no power to avoid. Recovery often puts individuals who have relied on payments in good faith in financially precarious situations, forcing them to make difficult choices about sacrificing essentials. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that the current standard universal credit allowance is not sufficient to cover the cost of essentials. In this already difficult context, households that are repaying overpayment debt can lose up to 25% of their standard allowance each month. People often base key life decisions and financial planning on information provided by DWP officials about their entitlement to universal credit. An official error universal credit overpayment can also have a knock-on effect on people’s entitlement to other support, such as council tax reduction. I am sure the DWP does not want to be responsible for pushing someone into further financial hardship. We can prevent this harm from occurring in the first place with my new clause, which would mean that overpayments can be recovered only where the claimant could reasonably have been expected to realise that they had been overpaid. The new clause is equivalent to an amendment proposed by Labour Front Benchers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act. Under the new clause, DWP officials would themselves consider the fairness of recovering an official error overpayment before any recovery was initiated. Increasing protections against the recovery of overpayments would also create a strong incentive to reduce the rate of DWP errors in the first instance, thereby contributing to a more accurate and better functioning welfare system from the outset. The Bill provides the Government with an opportunity to proactively address a harmful and unfair process that affects hundreds of thousands of claimants each year, easing the financial burden of debt on claimants who have done nothing wrong and encouraging the DWP to get payments right first time. I hope that the Minister will respond to my points on new clause 1, and I sincerely hope that we will make progress on the issue as the Bill progresses.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for taking seriously the concerns I raised. I will not press the new clause further today, but I hope that it will be looked at seriously in the next stages of the Bill, and that we can discuss this further in the House. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 2 Offence of fraud against a public authority “(1) A person who— (a) commits, (b) assists or conspires in the committal of, or (c) encourages the committal of fraud against a public authority commits an offence. (2) A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is liable— (a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both); (b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years.”— (Rebecca Smith.) Brought up, and read the First time.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Military Co-operation with Israel · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) for securing this debate. As hon. Members have mentioned, we are discussing the UK’s military collaboration with Israel when, in the past 24 hours, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. We can see in real time the consequences of that collaboration and who is paying the price. Families in Gaza are searching for their loved ones among rubble. The dead lie wrapped in stained white sheets. They are the ones who have paid the price. Meanwhile, this Government have relentlessly pushed for the continued export of UK-made parts for F-35s. The Minister must confirm whether any of those warplanes were involved in the attack on Gaza last night. Will he confirm whether UK-made parts enabled any of the bombings in recent days? If they did, will he acknowledge the UK’s direct role in the official collapse of an already fragile ceasefire? In September 2024, the Government admitted that “Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law”, that there was a “clear risk” the UK’s arms exports might be used to commit serious legal violations, and introduced a partial suspension of 29 arms export licences to Israel. But that move exempted the UK’s most financially significant and deadly export: components for the F-35 jets, including bomb release mechanisms, which are still being made in my constituency despite the city council’s rejection of the company’s presence in our city. Moreover, since the original suspension, the Government have issued at least a further 34 arms export licences to Israel. Will the Minister confirm that we have now issued more new licences than we suspended when that minimal measure was taken? Alongside issuing deadly arms licences, the UK has outsourced more of its complicity to its overseas territories and military bases. The UK’s base in Cyprus has been used by the UK, US and Germany to supply Israel with weapons, personnel and intelligence since October 2023. Gibraltar has continuously provided harbour services to vessels involved in providing energy and supplies to Israel—the Minister should confirm that, in response to hon. Members’ questions. In written questions, Ministers have flatly refused to answer questions about whether RAF Shadow R1 flights from Akrotiri, in Cyprus, into Israeli airspace have been instructed to collect surveillance footage for hostage rescue or any other purpose. That refusal means that further written questions are now deemed out of order and the Government are escaping any scrutiny. The UK can either reaffirm its commitment to human rights, as a nation that upholds democratic values, or it can continue to aid and abet a state whose human rights abuses now extend to genocidal actions—it cannot do both.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  I have heard nothing today that shows that the Government have listened to disabled people. Any changes to PIP should have been co-produced, but this week, 25 disabled people’s groups and charities wrote to Ministers begging for their opinions to be included, and not as an afterthought. Will the Secretary for State explain why disabled people are feeling so disregarded and scapegoated, and why impoverishing them to the tune of £5 billion is a higher priority than a simple wealth tax?