PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Engagements - 22 January 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The senseless, barbaric murder of three young girls in Southport was devastating. A measure of justice has been done, but for the victims, the injured and the affected, we must see a fundamental change in how Britain protects its citizens and its children. As part of the public inquiry, we will not let any institution deflect from its failures.

Next Monday marks Holocaust Memorial Day. Visiting Auschwitz last week only strengthened my resolve to build a national Holocaust memorial and learning centre beside this Parliament.

The whole House will welcome the release of Emily Damari and other hostages from Gaza. We must now see the ceasefire deal implemented in full, the release of the remaining hostages and a surge in aid into Gaza for citizens.

May I also welcome Cheryl Korbel, whose young daughter Olivia was murdered in awful circumstances, and her sister Antonia to the Chamber? I have met them twice, and we will change the law so that the most serious offenders attend their sentencing hearings.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

Before Christmas, I received nearly 1,000 handwritten letters from pupils at St Peter’s secondary school in Exeter. Each letter strongly advocated for greater support to tackle the mental health challenges faced by young people, with many sharing deeply unsettling personal stories. I am committed to improving local mental health services to help young people build the resilience they need to live happy and healthy lives. However, I know these challenges are not unique to my constituency and are being faced by children across our country. So can the Prime Minister please outline what steps his Government are taking to enhance mental health support for our children nationwide?

I thank the hon. Member for raising an issue of huge concern in his constituency and in all constituencies. Far too many young people are not receiving the care that they need, so we will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, recruit an additional 8,500 staff to deal with children’s and adult mental health services, and roll out our Young Futures hubs in every community.

We will do whatever it takes to protect farmers from the risk posed by foot and mouth. That is why we acted swiftly to ban imports of cattle, pigs and sheep and their products from Germany, to protect farmers. We will not hesitate to restrict imports from additional countries if the disease spreads, and we will keep the situation under close and careful review.

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

May I take this opportunity to welcome the release of hostages, including Emily Damari, from barbaric captivity? I also know that the thoughts of many will be with the victims of the Southport killings. There are important questions to answer, and I will return to those after the case is concluded.

Between 2009 and 2022 the OECD found that children in England rose up global league tables in maths, reading and science. Conservative Government action means that English schools now top the western world at maths and reading, but the Prime Minister’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will be voted on in Committee this week, reverses the improvements that made that happen. The Bill is an act of vandalism. It is wrecking a cross-party consensus that lasted for decades. Why does the Prime Minister think that so many school leaders are criticising the Bill?

It was Labour that introduced academies in the first place to drive up standards. Academies are here to stay, and will continue to drive up standards. That is what the Bill is about. Also in that Bill are important provisions for protecting children, including a provision to stop abusers taking children out of school, and a unique identifier to ensure that the whereabouts of all children are known. What did the Leader of the Opposition do? She instructed Conservative Members to vote against those measures.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not even bother voting on that Bill. He talks about safeguarding measures, but that is not what the issue is—this is about the reforms that he is changing. We have an example of where those reforms were not introduced—Wales, which has been under Labour control for two decades. Welsh educational outcomes have tumbled down international league tables, and poor children in England now do better than wealthier children in Wales. The Bill denies children the guarantee that their failing schools will be turned into a better academy. It is an attack on excellence, it is an attack on higher standards, and it is an attack on aspiration. The Bill is the worst of socialism. Is it not deprived children in England who will pay the price?

As I said, we introduced academies, we are committed to them, and we are driving standards up. The Bill is important because it also sets up breakfast clubs for the very children that the right hon. Lady claims to champion. It limits the expense of school uniform, and puts in place vital protections for children. She has to answer the question: why did she instruct all of them to vote against child protection measures?

The Prime Minister thinks that he can distract people from what is wrong with the Bill. This is not about breakfast clubs and school uniforms. Teachers and parents will be horrified at just how bad this Bill is. Even his own MPs may not realise it, but the Bill will cut teachers’ pay—it cuts pay for 20,000 teachers. His Education Secretary says that there is “not a ceiling” for pay—[Interruption.] Labour Members are all shaking their heads; they clearly have not read the Bill. The Education Secretary hasn’t read the Bill either, because clause 45 means that teachers’ pay will be capped. Did the Prime Minister know that the Bill as it stands will cut teachers’ pay?

We do need flexibility in our schools. If the Leader of the Opposition had hopped off social media for a while, she would have seen the amendment put down this morning to achieve that end.[Official Report, 28 January 2025; Vol. 761, c. 2WC.] (Correction) She says that the Bill is not about child protection; we had a young child killed who was taken out of school by an abuser. The Bill closes that gap—that is urgently needed. We have children who have not gone back to school since covid. The Bill closes that gap. She can make her points on academies and we can debate academies, but to vote against the Bill is a disgrace on all Conservative Members.

That is nonsense. The amendment that the Prime Minister is talking about does not address the issue. He raises academies, and that is exactly what I am talking about. Like every parent, I believe that all our children should have the best teachers. Apart from the issue of cutting teachers’ pay, the head of year 11 at Michaela—the most successful school in the country—came from the armed forces. The headmistress of that school has said that with Labour’s new rules, she would

“never have been able to hire him.”

Those are the academy freedoms that I am talking about. The Bill would have blocked that veteran from teaching. The Bill implies that doctors are not sufficiently qualified to teach biology and that an Olympic medallist cannot teach PE. Why is the Prime Minister closing down routes into teaching when we should be opening up more of them?

The Leader of the Opposition knows that that is not right. [Interruption.] No, it is not. Look at the provisions in the Bill. To say that teachers in our schools ought to be qualified should not be extraordinary or opposed. Under the Conservatives’ watch, we had far too many examples of secondary schools missing teachers. When we needed maths teachers—they championed maths—we did not have enough maths teachers in our secondary schools. I want every single child to have the best possible education.

The facts speak for themselves: standards went up under Conservative Governments. What we need to know is who is benefiting. Everyone is asking: who is benefiting from these changes? It is not teachers—their pay is being capped. It is not parents—their choices are being restricted. It is definitely not children—their outcomes will get worse. So who is benefiting? It is the trade unions. The National Education Union sent out a tick list proving that after a decade and a half, it is finally getting its way. Why is the Education Secretary allowing trade unions to run her Department and ruin children’s education?

The Bill benefits the children who need the nourishment of a breakfast club. The Bill benefits the families who cannot afford uniforms. The Bill benefits the children who are currently out of school and nobody knows where they are. The Bill will benefit the children who could be taken out of school by abusers were it not to go through. The Leader of the Opposition should change her mind and support these vital provisions.

The Prime Minister needs to get out more and speak to schools. I was at the Harris academy just this month, and what is it saying? The Bill reverses two decades of progress. It is imposing Labour’s new curriculum on every school, taxing the education of children with special needs and excluding talented outsiders—the closed shop is back. This is pure educational vandalism. Alongside those attacks, Labour is removing single-word Ofsted judgments so that parents cannot see standards slipping. It is the same old Labour: bad outcomes for all children; excellence for none.

I know what it is like to go to a school that did not care about standards—this is a tragedy in the making. The key changes in the Bill were not in Labour’s election manifesto. Is that not because the Prime Minister knew that parents and teachers would reject them?

Parents and teachers know that we introduced academies. Parents and teachers know that we are driven by standards. We are committed to standards—they are part of the future—and we will continue to focus on them.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about special needs. She has got a nerve; I don’t know. Conservative Members know it: they have asked me at Prime Minister’s questions about the appalling situation of special needs under their watch. We are going to fix that mess like we are fixing every other mess.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue, which I know he has campaigned on for a very long time. We are investing a record £25 billion in the NHS as part of our plan for change. Building an NHS fit for the future means that places like Redditch will see lower waiting lists and services that reflect needs. While responsibility over service rests with the appropriate NHS commissioner, I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister.

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

I echo the Prime Minister’s opening remarks about the Southport killings and Holocaust Memorial Day, and I particularly join him in expressing our immense relief at the release of Emily Damari and in celebrating that she is back with her mum Mandy and the rest of her family. Let us hope that all the hostages are released as soon as possible, and that the ceasefire turns into a lasting peace.

Last week, I urged the Prime Minister to speed up the social care commission, to implement the changes that people need this year. The very next day, it was announced that the chair of the social care commission was also going to chair another important inquiry, into grooming gangs. The Prime Minister said that the job of chairing the commission is so enormous that it cannot be completed within three years, yet he also said the chair of that commission, Baroness Casey, has enough free time over the next few months to chair another inquiry. How can both those things be true?

Baroness Casey is well placed to conduct the audit into grooming gangs, given her hard-hitting report on exploitation in Rotherham. That does not affect her work on the independent commission on adult social care, which begins in April. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the first part of that commission will report next year, so that we can deliver recommendations as we receive them. Already we are introducing fair pay agreements, providing more money for social care funding and putting up the allowance. We are already taking steps. There will be a two-part report and we will act on the recommendations as they arrive, but this needs to be done properly.

I still do not think the Prime Minister is giving social care reform the priority that it needs. It is urgent, so I will keep coming back to that to hold him to account.

Turning to the United States, can the Prime Minister guarantee that he will not sell out Britain’s fantastic farmers to Donald Trump in a trade deal that undermines our high food and animal welfare standards, in the way that the Conservatives sold them out in the Australia and New Zealand deals?

We will work with the US and with other countries, but we will never lower our standards.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Too many buildings are still unsafe, and the speed of delivery has been far too slow. Our action plan sets out measures to identify buildings at risk and fix them faster. My message is clear: the funding is there to fix this, and there is no excuse not to deliver for residents.

Expanding London’s airports and building a third runway at Heathrow would be incredibly irresponsible in the midst of a climate emergency, flying in the face of the Climate Change Committee’s advice. The Prime Minister clearly knows that, because he and seven Cabinet colleagues voted against a third runway at Heathrow in 2018. Will he confirm his position?

I am not going to comment on speculation. The hon. Gentleman knows that this Government are committed to growth, to the aviation sector and to our climate obligations. I am not going to take lectures from those who talk about climate change, but oppose vital renewable infrastructure in their own constituencies.

Growth is at the heart of our plan for change, which will fund our public services, create good jobs and raise living standards across the country. My hon. Friend is right to champion one of the largest brownfield sites in the UK, which could create more than 11,000 jobs on site and add £1.2 billion to the economy. It underlines the importance of this Government bringing economic stability, creating the national wealth fund and driving up growth.

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the concerns of his constituents; I am not surprised they are frustrated and even angry at the lack of delivery under the previous Government. There was no credible plan—[Interruption.] Let me read the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s verdict on what we inherited—

That was your decision!

Order. I expect better from those on the Front Bench, Mr Philp, and I am sure you are going to show better.

He was Liz Truss’s right-hand man, so we wouldn’t expect anything else.

The IPA’s verdict on the previous Government’s plan was that there were “major issues”—[Interruption.] This is the Conservatives’ record; they should not be chuckling. The verdict was that there were “major issues” with the definition, schedule, budget, quality and delivery. It was a fiction—always was.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this awful case—the stories and accounts are heartbreaking and deeply concerning. I will make sure that she and the group receive a meeting with the relevant Health Minister at the earliest opportunity.

The Prime Minister’s Budget raised taxes, borrowing and public spending as a strategy for economic growth. When will he accept the words of one Labour Prime Minister in the 1970s, who explained to a Labour conference that

“in all candour…that option no longer exists”,

and that the only way to obtain sustained economic growth is by cutting taxes and regulation?

The hon. Gentleman must have missed recent reports. The Office for National Statistics has just said that we have the highest investment in 19 years; PwC has just said that this is the second-best place to invest in the world; and the International Monetary Fund has just upgraded growth, now saying we are predicted to be the fastest growing major European economy. Wages are up and inflation is down—that is after just six months.

My hon. Friend has been a determined champion of Kettering general hospital, and rightly so. There is deep anger about the delay to the work because of the Conservative’s failure to have a plan, but while we implement our affordable and deliverable plan to build a new hospital, I can reassure her that the RAAC identified at Kettering general is being mitigated and replaced through the national RAAC programme.

Before Christmas, Lord Robertson, who is leading the strategic defence review, came before the Defence Committee and told us that he could not guarantee that the strategic outcomes from the review would be fully funded. Recently, we have also heard in media reports that the review might be delayed until the autumn—a delay of six months. Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to state categorically to the House that the strategic defence review, with its important requirements for the defence of our nation, will be fully funded and delivered on time?

We are committed to that because this is a serious review into our defence. The review needs to ensure we understand the challenges we face and have the capability to deal with those challenges in the modern era, so that is the exercise that is going through. We have committed to the path to 2.5%. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the last time 2.5% of GDP was spent on defence was under the last Labour Government, and that is the difference between the approach on this side of the House and the approach on that side of the House.

I thank my hon. Friend, because the achievements of hard-working staff at Huddersfield royal infirmary prove that we can bring down waiting times through our plans for change. It is important that we are applying that best practice and innovation across the NHS. We must do more. We inherited record waiting lists and we are now bringing them down.

In what is supposed to be a honeymoon period for a new Government, the Prime Minister has sacked his chief of staff, forced his City Minister and his Transport Secretary to resign, while No. 10 has been briefing against the Pensions Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary. Is it not time that the Prime Minister accepts that the root causes at the heart of his Government are with him, not them?

We have just won a landslide victory and we have massive majority. We are getting on with the job—[Interruption.] Look at the sheer number of Ministers that the Conservatives got through on a yearly basis, causing instability in every conceivable Department.

I wish my hon. Friend a speedy recovery from his recent treatment, and I thank the doctors and nurses who treated him. Under the previous Government, there was no progress made in diagnosing cancer at stage 1 and 2 between 2013 and 2021. That is an appalling inheritance. We are spending £1.5 billion on new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners to ensure cancer patients get the care they need.

Eating disorders are the mental health disorder with the highest mortality rate, and we have at least 1.2 million sufferers. Some are being told that they are now too ill to be treated, yet eating disorders are entirely treatable. Today the all-party parliamentary group on eating disorders is publishing its report on how to make eating disorder services fit for purpose. May I ask the Prime Minister to pay very close attention to that report?

Let me start by recognising the hon. Lady’s dedicated work and campaigning on this issue for many years. NHS England is expanding eating disorder treatment services, including crisis care and intensive home treatment, and, as she knows, the Online Safety Act 2023 will prevent children from encountering harmful content that promotes eating disorders to services. Obviously, we will look very carefully at the report and consider its recommendations.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this case. She and I have met far too many families who have been devastated by this senseless violence. We are taking urgent action to ban zombie-style knives, and we are regulating the online sale of knives. It is unacceptable that these murder weapons can be bought with two clicks. Technology is there to stop it and we are going to take action. As for resources, we are putting an additional 13,000 police into neighbourhood roles and allocating £85 million to Bedfordshire Police to keep my hon. Friend’s constituents safe.

May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about the ceasefire and the release of hostages? Let us all pray that the remaining hostages on both sides are released as soon as possible. Since the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, Israeli forces have placed the whole of the west bank under strict military inspection as part of the Iron Wall operation. The Israel Defence Forces have launched a large-scale offensive operation in the city of Jenin, with numerous drone strikes on the infrastructure and a military raid by IDF troops and special forces in the occupied west bank. At least nine people have been killed by Israeli forces and 40 have been injured, including several healthcare workers. What urgent steps are the Government taking to protect Palestinians—including healthcare workers—and to prevent atrocities in the west bank, and will the Prime Minister outline the UK’s response to the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on Israel’s unlawful occupation?

I am deeply concerned by what is happening in the west bank. We have raised it a number of times in the various exchanges that we have had, but I am deeply concerned about it, and we are doing everything we can to alleviate the situation.

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind invitation. I particularly enjoyed Tamworth’s recent FA Cup heroics against Tottenham, although they did not quite win. We are committed to protecting our most vulnerable heritage, and I know that Historic England is working closely with Tamworth borough council to preserve this local treasure for future generations. It is particularly important to continue school visit programmes, supporting our mission to give every child the best opportunities in life.

We have put more money into colleges and, as the hon. Lady knows, it is for them to deal with these disputes.

My sympathies go to my hon. Friend’s constituents; far too many are experiencing terrible flooding. I visited Stafford last year, and they talked me through the misery of their experience. We inherited flood defences in their worst condition on record. We are now investing £2.4 million in flood defences to better protect communities, and we have committed £60 million to support farmers impacted by extreme weather.

Two-year mortgages have hit 5%, borrowing is billions of pounds above forecast and retail sales have slumped. Does the Prime Minister still believe that the Chancellor is doing a good job?

I thought the hon. Lady was just reading out the last Government’s record.

I am not surprised that my hon. Friend’s constituents are frustrated. There was never a plan; the funding only ever existed in Boris Johnson’s imagination. It was pure fiction and the Conservatives know it. We have an affordable delivery plan to build these new hospitals, including Watford general, and we will be getting on with it.