Tessa Munt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Jun 2026 · Social Media Ban for Under-16s · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement—it was brilliant. May I raise concerns about historical data held by social media companies? Has she thought about what powers she, and parents and carers, might hold to invoke something like the right to be forgotten, in order to ensure that children’s records and data footprints are destroyed, if that is what is wanted, and the social media companies’ memories are wiped, with a real penalty enforced if they do not comply?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Regulation of the Marmalade Market · Hansard source

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  At the end of October 2013, I led a debate on the regulation of jam, which caused a bit of a stir. It rightly warned of the end of the British breakfast as we know it. Thirteen years later, I have returned to discuss marmalade. Last July, a lady called Vivien Lloyd, who inspired the debate about jam, returned to see me at one of my constituency surgeries—hopefully, she is in the Public Gallery this evening. She told me of her alarm about the arrangements being made for marmalade. This debate is particularly timely. Members may have seen that “Marmalade Madness!” was the headline of the Daily Express just a few days ago. I wondered whether it had earned a double-page spread. [Hon. Members: “Groan!”] Great, isn’t it? I understand that “Paddington: The Musical” won seven Olivier awards this weekend—Paddington is the most well-known lover of marmalade in sandwiches and enjoys stratospheric popularity—but Members and the Minister will be delighted to know that I will not be breaking into song. I looked forward to welcoming interventions from hon. Members on the “Conserve-ative” Benches, but they are not here. What a disappointment! Anyway, that pun does not work very well, not just because it is a particularly corny pun, but because marmalade is in fact a preserve rather than a conserve. That is exactly the issue I wish to speak about: the enormous inaccuracy in the classification of jams, spreads and, importantly, marmalade. Stories explaining the origins of marmalade are full of inaccuracies. One account says that Mary, Queen of Scots, was ill and requested a remedy made of oranges and sugar. Her maid supposedly whispered, “Ma’am est malade”, leading to the name of the preserve. Another story credits marmalade to Dundee, where a ship full of oranges is supposed to have sunk in the port. Resourceful Dundonians supposedly devised a way of preserving the cargo to make it last. Unfortunately, both stories are untrue. Quince jams existed throughout Europe much earlier than the dates of those stories. The French and Portuguese took their word for quince jelly from the Greek “melimēlon”, meaning sweet apple. It seems that that lack of care for heritage can still be seen in the approach that we take to regulating our marmalade market today. As a consequence, preservers and food retailers are selling marmalades that do not comply with regulations on total sugar and fruit content, as specified in the Jam and Similar Products (England) Regulations 2003. Marmalade should be 60% sugar. There are rules for the percentage of a product’s total sugar content, and for marmalade it is 60% or more. The sugar content for reduced-sugar marmalade is anything from 25% to 50%. Statisticians and mathematicians among us will have noticed that that leaves products with a total sugar content of 50% to 59% completely uncategorised, and that loophole has been exploited by many marmalade manufacturers. However, recent regulatory changes shift the nature of the problem, and the Breakfast Foods (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026 will come into effect in the next few months and make some welcome changes.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Regulation of the Marmalade Market · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I acknowledge the commitment shown by the wife of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) to marmalade. The critical thing is that it is made from citrus. I have been to Fortnum & Mason—I will probably have to apologise to them tomorrow morning—and seen strawberry marmalade, pear marmalade and all sorts of other flavours. That is rubbish—there is no such thing. Some manufacturers use the weight of sugar in the recipe to calculate the percentage of sugar instead of testing the end product in the jar with a refractometer. To summarise, consumers are getting a lower-quality, higher-sugar product that can be made more cheaply than proper marmalade, but can be disguised as the same thing. To avoid that, I ask the Minister to ensure that marmalades have total sugar content of 60% or above, as measured with a refractometer. That way, we can protect the heritage of British marmalade. Another concern in the marmalade market is the definition of marmalade itself. That is being flaunted in cases where producers are developing creative new preserves. Only these additional ingredients can be used in true marmalade: spirits, wine, liqueur wine, nuts, aromatic herbs, spices, vanilla, vanilla extracts and vanilline. Every year, Penrith holds the world marmalade awards. Recent winners include Nordic fusion blackcurrant and vodka marmalade, coffee heaven marmalade and yuzu, passionfruit and apricot marmalade—I had to check what the last one was, as I had no idea. Without clear and enforced regulation, those differences are obscured. Products that fall short of the standards are still presented to consumers as marmalade, trading on the reputation of a product that they do not in truth match. That is not innovation; it is misrepresentation. Recent regulatory changes attempt to address that by tightening definitions. Marmalade will quite rightly be more clearly defined as a citrus product, and combinations of citrus with non-citrus ingredients will no longer be permitted to use the term. That is a welcome step towards greater clarity for consumers and towards protecting the integrity of the product itself. The vast majority of marmalades are already labelled as Seville marmalade or orange marmalade, but this measure would ensure that that applies to all marmalades. Predictably, colleagues in the Conservative party and the Reform party have leapt on the bandwagon and claimed that, due to heavy-handed EU regulation, we may no longer call marmalade marmalade. While that claim is overstated, it reflects a misunderstanding of what is actually changing. Indeed, it is reminiscent of the banana-straightening nonsense spouted in the lead-up to the EU referendum in 2016. We are not losing the word “marmalade” but refining it. The changes ensure that what is called marmalade is, in fact, made from citrus fruit. In a post-2016 referendum context—a post-Brexit context—that takes on an added significance and irony. We were told by some that we would now have the opportunity to define, protect and champion our own food standards, rooted in our own scientific and culinary heritage. There is a real risk that by drifting towards looser definitions adopted elsewhere, we could lose just over a century of British tradition. Accurate regulation is not about pedantry; it is about protecting consumers and quality and maintaining trust. It is about ensuring that when something is labelled as marmalade, it meets the standards that generations of Britons would expect. If we fail to uphold those standards, we risk not just eroding a definition, but failing to preserve a meaningful part of our national food heritage. These are my requests of the Minister. First, it is still unclear what will happen to the 50% to 59% sugar marmalades. Maybe we should have three categories: reduced sugar marmalade, which is 25% to 49% sugar; preserve, which is not marmalade but has 50% to 59% sugar; and marmalade, which has 60% sugar and above. Secondly, legislation should require that sugar content be measured with a refractometer. Thirdly, I request that we have a defined list of permitted additional marmalade ingredients, as I have mentioned, and that that should be enforced. Fourthly, we have removed the requirement to label the sugar content, with an understanding that that will be expressed in the nutritional values information. That is doubly problematic for marmalade, because it is often made by artisan producers, who sometimes do not label their nutritional values, and, as I discussed in my speech, the 60% sugar content is so critical to producing something that is actually marmalade. My penultimate point is that legislation should require that, at a minimum, the sugar content is made clear, either as part of the nutritional values or just by having the sugar content on a separate label. Finally, the new rules require that marmalade be labelled “citric marmalade” or “Seville orange marmalade.” That is fine, but it leaves the door open to so-called strawberry marmalade or raspberry marmalade. Can we ensure that the new legislation permits that only citrus fruits can precede the word “marmalade” on labels?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Minister for Men and Boys · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. That goes back to the business of data. We need to have the data, and I ask the Minister to look at that issue as well. I have made several points about data and statistics. If we do not know what is going on, we cannot possibly make an intelligent assumption about anything. Another area—to criticise my own gender—is that of children so often being used as a weapon against men. Again, this is something that I have seen in the groups in which I have been involved and in my work in the past: the use of children, most often—though not always—by women is a shocking indictment. We have not got to grips with that, and we absolutely need to. I have listened to all the comments about education, and I want to make a quick observation about macho male culture. The President of the United States seems to typify what people might think of as an alpha male leader. His version of masculinity seems to see dominance, subordination of others and aggression as desirable and socially valued traits. His politics has been explicitly endorsed by Andrew Tate—I can hardly bring myself to say his name—but in that context, I thank Gareth Southgate. He raised the alarm in his public lecture that young men definitely do not have positive role models, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of online personalities who promote negative ideologies about women and the world generally. The world is not against men and boys, in my view, and people saying that that is the case is unhelpful. That is why we should laud the efforts of Gareth Southgate to rebalance that. I will quickly comment on prostate cancer. One in eight men gets prostate cancer, and black men are twice as likely to get it as those of other colours, so screening for men with the relevant genetic variants is good—but that is for a very small group. Last weekend, I was pleased to be at Wells town hall in my constituency, where the Cheddar Rotary and the Wells Lions club, and a whole group of fantastic health professionals spent the day testing 320 men. The misfortune was that about 38 of them could not turn up, for one reason or another, but it is brilliant when that sort of stuff happens in our communities. That is a start, but we need Government to step up on prostate cancer. I want to talk very briefly about male suicide. Some 14 men a day take their own lives. Again, there are some amazing things that happen. The all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), identified that many men view suicide as a rational solution to life’s events that they cannot solve any longer, whether that is relationship breakdown or financial pressures. Rather than viewing suicide as a clinical condition and a health issue, they see it as a life problem. Here, I pay tribute to the late Derek Mead, who provides a room at the cattle market at Junction 24 on the M5 where health checks for farmers are available. There is also a lady called Susie Wilkinson in my constituency, who is part of the Farming Community Network. Those are people who support people in the community. I will write to the Minister with several things that my party has asked for to promote mental health. There are so many things. There should be an MOT at key points in men’s lives, and in people’s lives generally. In conclusion I think that we probably need to have a Minister for men and boys in the short term.

• 4 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you as Chair, Sir Roger. Amendment 30 removes the exemption for journalism from the offence of misleading the public, showing that no one, including journalists or public officials writing in a journalistic capacity—including in internal newsletters—can avoid accountability for knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information. The purpose of tabling the amendment is to close the loophole that might allow public officials to evade that accountability by presenting misleading information under the guise of journalism. The rationale is to strengthen public trust in Government communications, ensure consistency in applying the law regardless of the medium used, and prevent deliberate attempts to mislead the public through media channels. The amendment responds to various concerns raised by accountability campaigners, transparency advocates and parliamentary scrutiny bodies that the exemption could be exploited, undermining the effectiveness and credibility of the offence. We have seen with cases that we heard about last Thursday when the Committee took evidence, and with some cases that we discussed on Tuesday, that we cannot ignore the damaging role the media has played in many situations. Some of those examples shed light on public servants using the media to set the narrative, with some of the most awful and damaging consequences for people’s lives and for shedding light on the truth. We know that—appallingly—the media has been used to set the narrative. With amendment 30, we are thinking about the public and how they perceive this place in particular, and the power structures that move around it. The sense is that legitimacy is key.

• 4 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn . Amendment made: 5, Clause 11, page 10, line 4, at end insert “by— (i) a recognised news publisher, within the meaning of Part 3 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (see section 56 of that Act), or (ii) a person in the course of working for such a publisher.” . — (Alex Davies- Jones .) This amendment clarifies that the journalism exemption from the offence of misleading the public only applies to media entities and those that work for them .

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Sir Roger. Amendment 33 would place a personal responsibility on the chief officer, or the chief executive of a public authority or corporate body with public responsibility under clause 4, for an offence of failing to comply with the duty of candour or assistance. What is needed is clear personal accountability on the chief officer or chief executive for any failure to comply. That ensures that senior leaders cannot avoid responsibility for breaches within their organisation, and reinforces the expectation that those at the top maintain a culture of openness and co-operation.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. She is absolutely right: the amendment should not say “conduct of conduct”, it should indeed say “codes of conduct”. I hope the Chair can note that, and forgive me for any confusion. I am hoping—by misspelling everything—to promote clarity, uniformity and accessibility, making it easy for staff to understand their obligations and the processes for reporting wrongdoing. By standardising the minimum content in ethical codes, the amendment would strengthen accountability, support a culture of integrity and help to ensure that protections, such as those for whistleblowers, are applied effectively across all public authorities and organisations. I recognise that the Minister has spoken pretty strongly against doing this; none the less, I am seeking clarity. Having a minimum standard set by the Secretary of State might be helpful, but I recognise that the Minister has already had a good old go at saying no.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q My caveat would be that it is not just the state per se; we have heard that there are any number of private organisations that act appallingly—whistleblowers come forward, and we need to catch that in the scope. Steve Rotheram: I obviously support any whistleblowing protections. Certainly, if there is any enhancement, it should be a requirement for consultation with trade unions when we develop better codes of ethical conduct. There is definitely stuff we can do on that. We need to empower public servants to foster a culture of candour, and that is why the Bill is so important. Thanks very much, Tessa; I remember you and others, too—it was quite a moment in Parliament. Do not forget that those people have been fighting since we left to get something like this on the statute book. The weight of responsibility on all of you on this Committee is enormous, and I know that you will do well by the families and those campaigners. Andy Burnham: No pressure.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I recognise your efforts to try to get this right, but I suppose it is distressing for most members of the public to discover that, with monotonous regularity, people who work within your services can only go to the BBC, so that the BBC can put people in undercover to find out what is going wrong and then produce a programme that everyone gets really upset about. You have had a professional and a statutory duty of candour for some time, and it is all wrapped around patient safety, yet there still seems to be a significant problem. I have a couple of questions. First, what do you feel you can do to stop the suppression of witnesses? Will the Bill cover that? We know there are legal duties attached to this, but something has to change to stop whistleblowers suffering detriment. I do not know whether you feel the Bill is going to do it, because whatever has been in place for the last 10 years has not done it. Secondly, the NHS has shown a willingness to accept people who have been recycled from roles in other services, departments and organisations when they might not have been deemed to have succeeded in those roles; they suddenly become chairs of trusts or take other roles in the organisation. There is something not quite right going on, in my opinion—it is my opinion. Helen Vernon: I will talk to something that we are doing to help with that, at least in relation to the NHS duty of candour. One of the things that we have heard is a barrier to openness is the fear of a subsequent claim. As a public body, we can do something about that, because we can issue guidance to the NHS that debunks it, in essence, by saying, “It’s incredibly important that you put the duty of candour first, that you are open and honest, that you share information when it is available, and that you do the right thing for the patient, regardless of the possibility of subsequent litigation.” That is one thing that we have been doing. It is a message that we have found it quite difficult to permeate in its totality, bearing in mind that we have clinicians coming up all the time through training, for example. We need to get to people when they are taking on a new role and we need to cover the whole of the NHS, which is evidently huge, but it is certainly something we make a huge effort on, to make sure that we remove barriers where we hear of them. Professor Fowler: From the NHSE point of view, I would argue that progress has been made but it is imperfect. I accept that point, but I think we have seen evidence of greater levels of transparency, as I said. Obviously, the Bill will need to interact with existing provisions, such as professional regulatory standards. We have a fit and proper person test that we apply— Arun might want to come on to that, because some of it is done through the CQC. We now have a 10-year plan that commits to radical transparency as part of its aims. Underlying that, in order to drive up quality, there is a commitment to a quality strategy, which we are working on and will look again at assurance mechanisms and how we tidy them up and simplify them to some extent, but also how we improve them. In making these changes we have to be very cautious to understand, first, why people do not step forward if they do not step forward, and secondly, that we have obligations, for example, to protect patient confidentiality in any information we release, protect our staff, and look at proportionality. I mentioned the volume of papers we have looked at; it is important to understand that there are resource implications for clinicians’ time in responding to some of this. There is a lot of complexity to some of the things we need to look at in making sure there is not a chilling effect and that people are willing to step forward and do not see a potential impediment. Dr Chopra: Aidan has already mentioned the fit and proper person test, but I want to make a couple of additional points. It is so difficult that we have to legislate for candour, but some of this is about culture in organisations, and there is a way of tapping into looking at an organisation’s culture. We have questions in NHS staff surveys about how confident staff feel about raising concerns, and whether those concerns will be responded to. I find that data is quite helpful to understand a sense of the culture in the organisation. The other point I was going to mention was about inequalities, demographics and protected characteristics. A great proportion—up to 40%—of the medical workforce in the NHS come from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, and they are often the people who struggle the most to have their concerns raised. They are the ones who are scared of retribution for raising concerns. Tackling that will be a significant factor in making sure that the duty of candour, as it is currently is meant to work, is as successful as we would like it to be. In terms of how we can measure some of that, my team was able to run about 100 of our recent reports using a large language model in AI to look at duty of candour. When it comes to comparing those providers that were rated “Outstanding” or “Good” with those that were rated “Requires improvement”, an open, transparent culture consistently came up as a likely factor. That is evidence that such a culture is more likely to lead to an organisation that we describe as discharging its duty of candour well. These factors are really important. On the interplay point that Aidan mentioned, we will have the statutory duty of candour, the professional duty of candour, the provisions of the Bill and the NHS manager’s duty of candour. We have got to make sure that these four pieces of legislation work together.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We have had the Nolan principles of public life since 1995. If I were to pick out four of those seven principles, it would be: integrity, openness, honesty and accountability. Where are we now with the Bill in comparison with that? What is going to change the culture? Professor Waters: I have written various messages recently to Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector of Ofsted, quoting those Nolan principles. I have received replies that apologise for his insensitivity and promise empathy. I have not asked for empathy, sensitivity or a performance of those; I have asked for honesty, but that clearly does not work. Ofsted has a code of conduct, which they kept quoting in the inquest, but the coroner clearly found that that code of conduct did not apply. There are the Nolan principles, codes of conduct, accountability hearings, and even an offence of perjury, but none of them seem to work—they are too easy to slip away from. A statutory duty of candour with the possibility of criminal sanctions is sadly what is needed—it beggars belief, but that is what is needed to make public bodies be honest. Deborah Coles: I think the thing that people find quite shocking when we are talking about the Hillsborough law is that you have to effectively legislate to get people to tell the truth. I support what Professor Waters says about penalties, but is also about monitoring and evaluation, because the Hillsborough law will only be as good as its implementation. As I said, up and down the country, there are families going through legal processes that are so defensive and traumatising that the injustices that you heard expressed today by the Hillsborough families—and you will hear more later—about the lying, victim blaming, delays and denials are still being faced by families going through these processes today. That is why the Bill is so important.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What impact do you feel the Bill, as drafted, might have on whistleblowers? You mentioned whistleblowers; I have an interest in whistleblowers. Do you feel the Bill has been built to support and encourage whistleblowers generally? Daniel De Simone: I am more equipped to talk about MI5 and the case that I have been involved with, but whistleblowers are clearly incredibly important in my job. I would want to see every protection for whistleblowers, whereby organisations foster a culture in which whistleblowers feel able to come forward and do not feel that it is harmful for them or damaging to their career. I would obviously encourage anything that can be done to encourage that.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  You have already referred to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, the fact that that puts whistleblowing into the framework of an employment law issue, and the fact that it does not protect against retaliation. The focus then is on a whistleblower proving that they are deliberately being acted against, as opposed to on the wrongdoing done by the organisation in the first place; when they come out of the employment tribunal, they are then very often blacklisted and cannot work again. Do you feel that the Bill provides enough anti-corruption effort to ensure that, in particular, we could have prevented the Post Office scandal? As I understand it, 47,000 cases are waiting in the employment tribunal at the moment—that is the current backlog. Once this legislation comes into play, my sense is that that 47,000 will escalate beyond belief, but I will leave that with you. Does the Bill go some way to sorting this out? James Killen: The short answer is no. What strikes me most in the Bill is that it makes the duty of candour an individual thing, and focuses very much on the corruption that goes on at the level of the chief execs. In my mind, and certainly having listened to the health people earlier, the majority of duty holders will be people who are on the minimum wage and potentially part time—what I would class as vulnerable duty holders. Those people are going to be placed in the situation of having to choose between a potential criminal sanction for not exercising their duty of candour and speaking out against a corrupt boss who will potentially pull all the levers they have in the business to destroy their career. They are going to choose between their careers and families or a potential criminal sanction. For me, the largest omission in this Bill is that there is no form of criminal sanction for interfering in another person’s duty of candour. Culture and so on was talked about a lot earlier, and there is something there—I agree with everything that has been said about the idea of an office for the whistleblower, because I think that would take all of this away, but, if we are speaking about maybe a 60% or 80% solution, some sort of clause in the Bill that gives a criminal sanction to other people within an organisation for interfering with somebody else’s duty would be key.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I know. I salute your courage. Thank you both for saying what you did. On whistleblowing, what do you feel there might be in the way of protections within this scenario? What protection should there be for whistleblowers? Professor Waters: Speaking just from my own experience—not as a lawyer or anything—in the last nearly three years since Ruth’s death I have been contacted by various people within Ofsted who shared some really quite disturbing information about its behaviour and its rewarding of certain members of staff who were associated with Caversham primary inspection and other appalling cases. When I have asked if they will speak out, they have said that they do not dare. They have to sign some form of the Official Secrets Act 1989. I have been contacted by numerous headteachers who have been traumatised by Ofsted inspections and have lost their jobs, health and nearly their lives. They have not been able to speak out because they were made to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to get some money to support their families. It just seems that at every level mechanisms are put in place to do the absolute opposite of what inquests and inquiries should be doing, suppress legitimate concerns and defend people who are causing active and ongoing harm. The stronger the defence—the protections—for whistleblowers, the better, and maybe, finally, all the people from Ofsted who have contacted me will be able to go public with the things they have told me. Deborah Coles: The only thing I would add to that is that, in the context of the Hillsborough law, we are talking about trying to effect legal, cultural and practical change. If we can help rectify the culture of cover-up, obfuscation, denial and defensiveness that occurs when things go wrong—we are talking across inquests and inquiries not only when people have died, but for other injustices—one would hope that that will help victims in the long term, because it will enable honesty and truth telling. Hopefully that will permeate across the system to those who have important evidence to contribute to inquiries and inquests.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Can I just say how sorry I feel for you? It sounds dreadful and I am sorry. The question I should ask you is, “How confident are you that this will change the culture in public authorities?”, but I sense from what I have heard that I ought to ask, do you have any confidence that the Bill will change things? Charlotte Hennessy: We are very confident. We have literally given 10 years of our lives, fighting to be here in this place. We have to acknowledge that Keir Starmer is the only Prime Minister who has endorsed the Bill. I would like to remind everyone that our Prime Minister made me a promise. He made a pledge to the public. It is now your duty to ensure that you fulfil that promise as well. If we were not confident in the Bill, we would not be sitting here today. Steve Kelly: Just touching on something that Seamus was talking about before, about changing cultures within authorities and so on, I would like to give you an example that has never left me. During the Hillsborough inquests, a man in his 40s or early 50s was giving evidence. He was an ex-PC—at the time of Hillsborough, he was probably a young PC. He was being questioned about the culture within the South Yorkshire police force at the time in 1989. I will never forget that man saying, “When you used to go Snig Hill, and you’d be walking along the corridor, you’d hold your head down when you’d see the bosses. You daren’t look at them, because we were frightened of them.” How could we encourage young officers like that to become whistleblowers? You couldn’t. We need a culture change. I thought that was a great point that this is something this law might do for not only policemen, but any public servants—anyone deserves support if they are trying to right a wrong. That young policeman must have taken that with him to those inquests. I remember looking at his face and thinking, “That’s the first time you’ve got that out.” The burden was on him all those years as well. It should not be like that. Hopefully, the Hillsborough law will support that. Sue Roberts: You are right; the culture changes have to be led from the very top—from the CEOs of these companies. Either they have to want to make this change happen or they need to move on.

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

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  I would like to return to the listed places of worship scheme. Although departmental policy is to keep grant funding records for seven years, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport uses grant records only for the last three years, since 2022, as only that data is considered reliable. The Leader of the House will know that slots for Backbench Business debates are taken until the next King’s Speech, and there is a massive queue for Westminster Hall and Adjournment debates. However, in hope and endless optimism, may I ask him for a debate about financial record keeping? Neither the Secretary of State nor the Treasury can possibly assess the value, importance and impact of schemes like this if they have no idea where the money has gone, because record keeping is so poor, it is inaccurate, or the records have been lost.