Barry Gardiner MP: speeches

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Speeches

23 Jun 2026 · Environmental Sustainability: UK-Indonesia Collaboration · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does she agree that, as part of that consultation, many of us would like the Government to consider that this should not just be a matter of legality, but of actual deforestation? She will know of cases where other countries have passed similar legislation; in Brazil, its then President changed the law to make sure that the companies that were deforesting were able to comply with our legislation, and therefore to continue the trade. There is a loophole here. Does my hon. Friend agree that the consultation would do well to close it?
23 Jun 2026 · Environmental Sustainability: UK-Indonesia Collaboration · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is talking about peatlands; she will know that Indonesia had a huge, deep burn of its peatlands in 2019, with 31,000 sq km of land burned. In the UK, when we had a terrible peatland fire on Saddleworth moor in 2018, just the year before, an estimated 4.5 million people suffered from the particulate matter—the smoke that went into their lungs—and the health conditions caused by that. Keeping those peatlands moist, damp and wetted in Indonesia is so important. My hon. Friend rightly talked about the population of Indonesia being so large; it is so concentrated that it can be desperately affected by that health risk.
16 Jun 2026 · Thames Water · Hansard source
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Will the Secretary of State confirm that, in the event of a special administration regime, any compensation would be based on appropriate value as set out in the case of Lithgow v. the UK, not on regulated capital value, as suggested by the shadow Secretary of State. For Thames Water, appropriate value would take account of the £23 billion in infrastructure repairs needed to meet condition P of its licence and comply with its statutory obligation, as well as the £13 billion of dividend and debt interest already paid to creditors. Appropriate value would therefore be nil. The Secretary of State said that Ofwat is responsible for taking the decision to modify the licence. I urge her to read section 12A(7) of the Water Industry Act 1991, because she has the power to overrule.
20 Apr 2026 · Antisemitic Attacks · Hansard source
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I ask the Minister to reinforce the fact that those good community relations are built not simply on the toleration of the views of others but on—
20 Apr 2026 · Antisemitic Attacks · Hansard source
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The hate-filled attack on the Kenton synagogue in my constituency is the latest in the series of disgusting attacks on Jewish buildings that the Minister outlined. But these are more than attacks on buildings; they are calculated attacks on the whole Jewish community, designed to destabilise and instil widespread fear. This is the very definition of terrorism. I am grateful to the police for their swift response and the arrests that they have made in relation to some of the attacks, but I believe it is vital that the Government and the Met treat these as terrorist attacks, not simply as criminal damage. I would also ask that the Home Office, and perhaps the Home Affairs Committee, examines the involvement of foreign actors and the ease with which they are able to launch such attacks. For too long, London has been regarded by some hostile regimes as a safe base from which to operate and a place where money can be laundered. That British Jewry lives under the dark shadow of antisemitic hatred is something that, sadly, we have all come to understand but must never come to accept. I pay tribute to the work of the CST and the security personnel at Kenton, who are always there to greet those of us who visit to ensure the safety of us and the whole congregation. In the London borough of Brent, we like to pride ourselves on the multicultural nature of our community and the harmony between all those from different faiths and cultural backgrounds, but good community relations have to be worked at—
20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source
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The Prime Minister has the right to expect that his senior civil servants will always tell him the truth and the whole truth. He will recall that Mrs Thatcher used to say of Lord Young that she liked David because he always brought her solutions and not problems, while her other Ministers brought her problems. Does he believe that there is a problem within the civil service that promotion and advancement is on the back of not giving your Ministers problems and that on this occasion the senior official at the FCDO knew that if he did tell the Prime Minister what he ought to have told the Prime Minister, he was bringing him a problem?
13 Apr 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source
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Japan, Turkey, China and India have already been in negotiation with Iran to try to secure safe passage for their vessels through the strait of Hormuz. The Prime Minister was absolutely right to visit the Gulf states and their leaders. He knows the importance of the strait to those economies. Did he receive any assurance from them that they would not try to negotiate with Iran to salvage their own economies? Any tacit acceptance by those states of Iran’s right to control the strait would set a terrible precedent and empower Iran’s leverage in its nuclear ambitions.
3 Mar 2026 · Spring Forecast · Hansard source
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More!
3 Mar 2026 · Environmental Protection and Biodiversity · Hansard source
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rose—
3 Mar 2026 · Environmental Protection and Biodiversity · Hansard source
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The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) was one of the finest on the environment that I have heard in this House for a long time. One day, the Government will see sense and he will become Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I will cut most of what I wanted to say. The national security assessment, mentioned by my hon. Friend, says: “Cascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.” Why is that not the subject of a great debate in Parliament? Yesterday, we had the Prime Minister’s vital statement on Iran. The whole House sat in a packed Chamber to discuss the US bombing of that evil regime and the security implications for the world. Yet we have our own national security assessment telling us that global ecosystem degradation and collapse is one of the most serious threats to UK national security, and we still have had no debate on it. The collapse of biodiversity over my lifetime is not a matter of spreadsheets. It is felt in silent fields that were once singing meadows, in poisoned waters that were once shimmering streams, in children who have grown up in a depleted world without knowing how much has been lost, or how abnormal is the world they inhabit. The monitoring and enforcement system currently in place under environmental regulators lacks capacity and is chronically poor. Take our water sector: of the 2,778 serious pollution incidents reported in 2024, officials downgraded 98% as “minor incidents”, yet only 496 were actually attended or inspected before being downgraded. There can be no doubt that the regulatory system is as rotten as the pipes the water companies have abandoned since 1989. I welcome the Red Lines for Nature campaign as far as it goes, but that is scarcely far enough when it talks of no further weakening of environmental protections and no funding cuts to environmental bodies.
3 Mar 2026 · Environmental Protection and Biodiversity · Hansard source
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Will the Minister give way?
2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source
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We should all welcome the end of the Iranian regime—if it is the end of the regime. Those of us who were in this House for the decision on Iraq needed no convincing that Saddam’s was an evil regime. What we needed convincing on was that the attack was permissible in international law and that there was clarity about the exit strategy; it had neither of those, and nor does the US attack on Iran. The Prime Minister’s broadcast justification of the use of our bases spoke of enabling a defensive strike. Words have meaning: a “defensive strike” is a contradiction in terms. The usual phrase is “pre-emptive strike”, and in any language, a pre-emptive strike is an attack.
12 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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May I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for his remarks about Kingsbury school, which for 27 years was in my constituency before it passed over to that of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman)? I want to raise with the Leader of the House schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021, which has still not been implemented. It introduced a mandatory due diligence obligation for businesses to ensure that they do not use illegally produced forest risk commodities. We are now five years on from the passing of that Act, and that provision has not been introduced. My right hon. Friend has made good suggestions that I hold a debate or that I ask the Minister written questions, and I have done both those things. Can we please have a debate in Government time about why this provision not yet been enacted?
2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source
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Does the Minister share with me a sense of irony that the former Home Secretary and the former Immigration Minister who were responsible for giving out those 616,000 have now joined Reform?
2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source
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Will the Minister confirm whether the changes that are firm were also consulted on in the consultation document? If so, why were they consulted on?
2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source
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Does the hon. Gentleman recall that between 2022 and 2024, even though the number of spaces in the care sector was deemed to be between 6,000 and 40,000, his Government made available 616,000 visas for that?
2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source
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One of the four pillars that the Minister has set out in the consultation document in relation to integration is volunteering. A number of hon. Members have already mentioned that there is an arbitrariness—a subjective nature—to that. Who will certify the volunteer work that is done? One can imagine a plethora of organisations being set up that will then happily sign a chit saying, “So-and-so has volunteered for so many hours a week.” How will the whole process actually operate? It seems arbitrary and subjective. What will the volunteering entail? Will it have to be for the home community or for the wider community?
2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source
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I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing the debate. Legislation should be clear, and the people to whom it applies should know where they stand. Retrospectivity and arbitrary or subjective criteria make for bad law, precisely because they destroy clarity and certainty. Many of my constituents in Brent West are deeply concerned by the Government’s consultation. I welcome the Government’s saying that they will not change the status of those who already have settled status here. To do so, they admit, would be unfair. They say: “These are people who have been in our country for years, or even decades. They have families here…and have been contributing to our society…. Fairness is the most fundamental of British values. We made a promise when we gave those people settlement, and we do not break our promises.” —[ Official Report , 20 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 891.] Ah, but we do break our deals, it would seem. Take the family in my constituency who came lawfully to the UK 16 years ago. They did not meet the requirements for other settlement routes, but after 10 years, they have put down roots: they have had two children, and were earning just enough to apply for the 10-year path to settlement under the long residency rule. So far, this family have paid a further leave to remain application fee of £1,321 per person, plus an immigration health surcharge of £2,587.50 per adult, reduced to £1,940 for their children. That is a total of £14,363—paid not once, but twice, because the fee is due every 30 months. Can the Minister tell me whether next year, when the third payment is due, and having scrimped to save the £28,726 they have already paid, this family should double down and pay the third instalment of £14,363 so that they can go on to make the final ILR fee payment of £12,126? Or will they suddenly find that their pathway has been blocked by a new requirement that one of them cannot fulfil, and that the £43,089 they have already spent is lost, or that the process has been extended so that they continue to pay for another five years under what looks like indentured service? These people, too, have been in our country for years, even decades; they have families here and have contributed to our society. We held out a promise to them, too—that of a 10-year pathway, which now looks more like a road to nowhere except penury.
29 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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When will the Government publish the full national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse? No. 10 is said to have pulled the full report last autumn because it was too alarming. Given that the truncated version, published last week, says that “every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse”, with an “irreversible loss of function beyond repair”, and that this will affect national security and national prosperity, and give rise to conflicts between states, is it not vital that this House examines the full report and that the Government schedule a debate about it in Government time?
29 Jan 2026 · River Habitats: Protection and Restoration · Hansard source
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Nothing shapes a landscape more than a river. Nothing brings a landscape to life more than a river. If we ask ChatGPT, “What is a river?”, it will tell us: “it is a natural stream of flowing water that moves downhill across land”— and that tells us precisely why Members of Parliament should never use ChatGPT. A river is life—abundant life. Rivers are not just streams of water; they are amazing ecosystems. Globally, rivers are home to over 140,000 specialist freshwater species. We think of water as being everywhere, but 99% of the water on this blue planet of ours is unusable by humans. Of the remaining 1%, which comprises freshwater, almost seven tenths is locked up in ice caps and glaciers, leaving just three tenths of 1% of the water on our planet in lakes, marshes and rivers. It is strange that something so vital to all life on our planet should be so scarce and so vulnerable. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on securing this debate to focus the House’s attention on how we can better protect and restore our precious riverine habitats. Others have set out the dire statistics. Sadly, it is true that 87% of rivers outside our national parks do not meet the minimum ecological standards set out in law. Even inside the supposed protection of our national parks, only four out of every 10 riverine systems meet those legal minimum standards. With a new water Bill, the release of the land use framework and updates to the environmental land management schemes, 2026 is a particularly significant year for the health of our rivers. I welcome the publication of the water White Paper last week and the fact that it commits to implementing many of the recommendations of the Cunliffe review. Chief among those is a commitment to shift the focus of water companies towards pre-pipe solutions for water pollution. The Government say that they “will ensure legislation, funding streams, and regulatory mechanisms” to tackle the root causes of pollution, but those must be properly funded and backed up by a regime of thorough monitoring and swift penalty enforcement for infringements. We politicians have made much of the failures of the water companies over the past few years and the totally disgraceful exploitation of bill payers to line shareholders’ pockets while companies fail to address pipe leakage, combined sewers and sewage outflows. Equally, I entirely support the outrage expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset and for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) about Wessex Water and its motley leadership crew. However, they are not solely responsible; there is also the agriculture sector, whether that is chicken farms on the River Wye or eutrophication from nitrogen fertiliser run-off. The Government must drive the solutions to river habitat restoration. ELMS is the key part of that. When it was first launched by the previous Government to replace the EU’s agricultural subsidies, the £2.4 billion was to be split into three equal funding pots of £800 million a year. Landscape recovery was one of those pots, but last month’s environmental improvement plan set out the new headline commitment of just £500 million for landscape recovery projects. Now, £500 million is a lot less than the £800 million initially promised, but wait: that £500 million is not a year, like the £800 million; it is £500 million over 20 years. That is a paltry £25 million a year, making a total mockery of the idea that the Government are taking landscape recovery seriously. Will the Minister therefore publish the evidence and modelling showing how the combined ELMS offer will add up to deliver the Government’s environmental objectives and legal commitments on water? Can she direct me towards evidence that demonstrates that £500 million for landscape recovery is sufficient to deliver the Government’s environmental objectives and legal commitments, in terms of both our 30 by 30 commitments and our longer-term EIP and Environment Act 2021 targets? Will the forthcoming water reform Bill go further than the water White Paper and put nature-based solutions at the core of tackling water pollution, including actions to prioritise and fund catchment-based measures at scale? Will the Government consider embedding an overarching commitment, within the Environment Act delivery plans, to create a national river corridor network that prioritises the restoration of river habitats, along the lines proposed by the Making Space for Water campaign? Finally, when will the Government deliver on their commitment to update the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 so that protected landscapes are given stronger powers and clear duties to drive nature recovery, including river habitat restoration? The water Bill must embed the use of nature-based solutions in a way that has not happened so far. The water White Paper’s comments on exploring the use of green bonds to help investment in nature-based solutions is therefore welcome, but we cannot simply leave it to private investment to get us to where we need to be. The Government should empower the new super-regulator’s chief engineer to direct companies to prioritise and scale up nature-based solutions, mandating, wherever possible, a change from grey infrastructure to green. The ministerial directions to Ofwat and Natural England during the transition phase should pave the way for that— [Interruption.] Excuse me.
29 Jan 2026 · River Habitats: Protection and Restoration · Hansard source
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I would be very grateful to my hon. Friend if he intervened.
29 Jan 2026 · River Habitats: Protection and Restoration · Hansard source
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend— I did not know his constituency was the manufacturer of Benylin. It has certainly worked on my cough on this occasion, so I thank him very much. Nature-based solutions are the cost-efficient, multi-benefit, long-term solution. They recognise that enabling nature to thrive is the best way to restore our rivers, our wetlands and our riparian habitats. I particularly want to single out the work of the West Cumbria Rivers Trust and the West Lakeland farmers group. With their work on the Rivers Irt and Bleng, they have shown that the shade offered by restored riparian woodland brings river temperatures down to safe levels for threatened native species such as Atlantic salmon and brown trout. That shows how the health of a river is about not simply what toxins are put into it, but the whole natural ecosystem and how it is managed. Riparian woodlands also stabilise riverbanks, reduce erosion, and control sediment and nutrient input from adjacent land. Looking at the whole ecosystem, not just the river itself, is so important. I commend the Making Space for Water campaign, which provides an evidence-driven framework for river restoration, and I urge the Government to support it fully—indeed, I know they do. The Rivers Trust, National Trust, Woodland Trust and Beaver Trust are all calling for support to create a network of connected nature-rich river corridors that include river buffers, river wiggling, beaver reintroduction, which has been mentioned, and wetland restoration. It has been my privilege to canoe down some of the most wonderful rivers in the world. My great desire, before I shuffle off this mortal coil, is to canoe down all the great rivers of the world. I have done the Amazon, the Mississippi and the Congo, but there are so many more to do. Rivers are an incredible joy in life; we really must understand them, promote them and restore them, and we must ensure that we give them health—because they give us life.
29 Jan 2026 · Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report · Hansard source
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I am sure my right hon. Friend appreciates the enormous disappointment on this side of the House. Only two years before the general election, our now Prime Minister spoke in favour of a just settlement for WASPI women. I acknowledge that my right hon. Friend says that this was not in the manifesto on which we all stood, and that we did not make that promise, but he will recognise the real sense that an injustice has been done to these women. Today has not remediated that.
27 Jan 2026 · Commonhold and Leasehold Reform · Hansard source
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on resisting the calls from those who have exploited leaseholders for far too long and on capping ground rent. I welcome the assurance that we are moving from the outdated feudal system of leasehold to a proper commonhold future to give the full rights of ownership to leaseholders, but my hon. Friend will know that those who have taken money for no service or for poor service will resist this with all their might. A loophole may still exist for enfranchisement when developers put up a new building with a proportion of commercial property in its base, so can my hon. Friend address that, specifically in order to stop them using such a loophole?
8 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker. Delays in the court system mean that one of my constituents has been in prison on remand awaiting trial for over a year. She is in New Hall Prison, 200 miles away from her mother, who is disabled and cannot make that journey. She has requested a transfer to Bronzefield Prison, so her mother can visit. Today, Heba Muraisi is close to death because she has been on a hunger strike protest for 67 days. I plead with the Leader of the House to let common sense and humanity prevail, to urgently intervene to agree the transfer, and to consider allowing her release on bail to her family home in my constituency—

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