Lee Anderson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 Jan 2026 · BBC Charter Renewal · Hansard source

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  I am quite happy to declare that; it is on my Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is £100,000 a year and it is probably more than the hon. Member will ever get paid for appearing on TV, if he gets paid anything at all. I am not paying my licence fee. I have not paid it for around 10 years. I am not paying to subsidise the pensions of people like Huw Edwards. Some people in this room—probably all of them—may think I am being a bit unfair on the BBC, but I challenge anybody in this room to get on their phones right now and find evidence of another broadcaster that has been riddled with as many scandals as the BBC. People should not be forced to pay for a service that they do not use. Yes, it still makes some great programmes, but it should be a subscription service.

• 6 Jan 2026 · BBC Charter Renewal · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time, and he is quite right: the BBC should be held to high standards. Can he think of another broadcaster that has had as many scandals as the BBC over the past 30 or 40 years?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In November last year, the Energy Secretary and his entourage attended COP30 in Brazil. That was an event where a rainforest was chopped down so that the Energy Secretary could talk about saving rainforests. Does he understand the hypocrisy of it all?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Asylum Hotels · Hansard source

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  Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker. It is all well and good closing these asylum hotels, but they have to go somewhere else. The latest madcap idea that we hear from the Labour Benches is to build council houses for illegal migrants crossing the channel. Does the Minister think that will help to smash the gangs?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Asylum Hotels · Hansard source

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  Answer the question.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the urgent question, the Health Secretary suggested that Reform UK were vaccine sceptics—that is not the case. I have had all my vaccines since being born, and I will continue to have vaccinations, including the flu jab. Is there anything you can do to encourage the Health Secretary to be a little bit more accurate with the facts?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  Last week, I met an amazing lady, Rachel Williams, who after 10 years of suffering domestic abuse decided to leave her partner. Just a short while after, he entered the salon where she worked and shot her from two feet away with a shotgun. Luckily the second shot missed, but she has been left with horrific scars, both mental and physical. Prevention is a key element of the plan. What can the Minister tell Rachel that will protect women from violent ex-partners?

• 11 Dec 2025 · Oil Refining Sector · Hansard source

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  If the right hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, he is more than welcome. What the Government did not realise at the time is that when they got rid of a coalmine—each coalmine had a football team, a rugby team, a cricket team, a community club, a miners’ welfare, a brass band and a bandstand in the local welfare grounds—it destroyed whole communities, and those communities will never come back. They will never be the same again. Fast forward 40-odd years and we have a Labour Chancellor and Government, who we would think would protect these industries. Look at the hypocrisy in that part of the world. We have Drax power station, which used to burn coal from a nearby coalmine, just a few miles down the road. I think that was shut about 10 years ago. I remember the Energy Secretary at the time was campaigning to keep it open. How things have changed! The power station now burns wooden pellets from trees chopped down in North America—in Canada. They chop the trees down and put them on diesel-guzzling cargo ships. They then chop them up into pellets using diesel-guzzling machinery on the ship. They then come to this country, are put on diesel-guzzling cargo trains and transported to Drax power station, where we set fire to them. And we say that is renewable energy. That costs the British taxpayer about £1 million a day in subsidies. I think it has cost about £10 billion so far since we have been using wooden pellets there. Just a few miles down the road we have the perfectly good Lindsey oil refinery, which appears to be doomed, with 400 jobs at risk and a thousand more in the supply chain. If the Government are going to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise industry or keep places open, they should look at the oil refineries, because once they have gone, they are never coming back, and we have lost the community and that sense of pride. There are not many Government Members here, to be honest—I cannot see many—although I will thank the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) for his passionate contribution. I did not catch most of it because I am a little bit deaf; I will sit a bit closer next time.

• 11 Dec 2025 · Oil Refining Sector · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member talks about hurting working people. Does he not agree that the closure of the oil refineries hurts working people?

• 11 Dec 2025 · Oil Refining Sector · Hansard source

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  I have heard colleagues talk about “net stupid zero” in the past. We think the targets should be scrapped; we are not against trying different sources of energy to fuel our nation. We are saying we should have a sensible transition. China has got it right: it is burning coal. China is opening coal mines and using coal-fired power stations. The irony is that China makes solar panels and windmills using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations, and then flogs them to us. We think, “That’s great! Look at this: we’re reducing the Earth’s carbon.” We are not reducing the Earth’s carbon; we are just exporting it to other countries. It is absolute madness and hypocrisy. When we are committing this nonsense, it costs our Treasury billions of pounds in receipts a year. It is absolute nonsense. When some of my hon. Friends say “net stupid zero”, that is what they are referring to. And it is stupid—it is absolute madness. I am going to finish now, because I have had an extra minute and I know other people want to speak. I have been one of those working men who gets up in the morning at 5 o’clock and goes and does a dirty, horrible, dangerous job. I know what it is like to come home, after doing a horrible shift on a horrible job. I know what the people in these communities feel like. They do it because they love their family and their community, so they go and do some jobs that nobody in this room would ever do. This Labour Government should remind themselves what the Labour party was founded on: helping the working man in this country.

• 11 Dec 2025 · Oil Refining Sector · Hansard source

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  We would expect this Labour Government to do a little bit more for these communities. Back in the ’80s, Labour was attacking the Tories for doing exactly the same thing: closing the vital industries. As I say, once the industry has gone, it is gone, and the skills that one generation passes on to another are gone as well. It is all well and good saying to somebody, “It’s okay, you can make windmills or solar panels,” or, “We’ll retrain you in green energy,” but they do not want that. This lot do not understand that there are still men and women in this country who want to get up in the morning and go do a proper day’s graft. They want to set the alarm clock at 10 o’clock at night, get up at half four or five o’clock in the morning and go do a proper day’s graft where they get their hands dirty. It is dangerous, dirty work, and they contribute towards their society by earning decent wages—good wages—and it keeps their communities going. If we lose that, we lose it for ever. In the last year alone, we have lost a third of refineries, following the closure of Grangemouth, and now Lindsey is obviously doomed as well. That leaves just four refineries in the country. Why is Lindsey closing? Because it is being hit again and again with costs just to stay compliant with the UK emissions trading scheme. We know that to be compliant, refineries are required to submit verified emission reports to the UK ETS authority and to surrender sufficient allowances to meet the total emissions generated. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) said, those costs account for the highest expenditure in a refinery’s operating budget. Just let that sink in: the biggest cost to a refinery is one that has been inflicted upon it for the sole purpose of meeting net zero. In other words, it has been inflicted by this Government and the Energy Secretary.

• 11 Dec 2025 · Oil Refining Sector · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. Of course, we have been here before with industry in this country. I remember what happened to the coal mines back in the 1980s. I worked in the coal mines in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and the whole industry was decimated by the Conservative Government at the time—

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. This Government are trying to create a Big Brother Britain. We had the ramping up of facial recognition and 30 arrests a day for social media posts, and they are getting rid of trial by jury in most cases. We also have children being radicalised in our schools by left-wing teachers. Now this Government are trying to force digital ID on to us all, and the excuse they are using is that it will stop illegal migrants working. If the Prime Minister was really serious about stopping illegal migrants working, he would detain and deport every single illegal migrant that crosses the English channel, but of course he will not. This is a gimmick. It is a pathetic attempt by a weak Prime Minister who has totally lost control. Over 5,000 of my constituents signed this petition, and they do not want this Government poking their nose into their private lives. My constituents are not illegal migrants. They did not break into this country. They are decent, hard-working people whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought in two world wars to secure our freedoms. Every single working person in Ashfield will now be penalised because of the failures of this Government. No one needs a digital ID to work in this country. They need a national insurance number, backed up by a driving licence, passport or some photo ID. My message to the Government is quite clear: you allow undocumented men into our country with no ID at all; you pick them up and place them in luxury hotels with no ID at all; you then give them a free asylum claim and free legal aid with no ID at all; yet you are ordering my constituents in Ashfield to get digital ID, and then you have the cheek to call us fascists. That is what they do. Just leave my constituents alone and concentrate on clearing up the mess that you lot have created.

• 1 Dec 2025 · National Curriculum Reform · Hansard source

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  Year 9 students at Quarrydale academy in Ashfield are currently studying politics, and on their display board they had the words “extreme right-wing parties”, “Nazi party” and “fascism”. At the side of those words, they had pictures of Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) and me. Does the Minister think that should be on the curriculum?

• 19 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Our Reform-led councils have already identified savings of more than £330 million in the first six months.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. While those on the Labour Front Bench continue to peddle their own form of dog-whistle politics, Reform UK— [ Laughter . ] Reform UK is cracking on with the day job. Our Reform-led councils— [Interruption.]

• 19 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister may shake his head, propped up by his gullible Back Benchers, but here is a challenge: will he guarantee that all the cancelled elections from this year and the proposed local elections for next year will go ahead in May 2026? Go on—be a man.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  One of the major pull factors for illegal migrants crossing the channel is the fact that they can get jobs quite easily. Does the Home Secretary still support an amnesty for all undocumented workers?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It has been reported in the media that we have prison officers working in our prisons who can barely speak a word of English. In fact, they are using flash cards to instruct prisoners to go back to their cells. It does not take a mastermind to realise that that is recipe for disaster. Will the Justice Secretary tell us if that is true or not?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Army Recruitment · Hansard source

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  I share the Minister’s concerns over Army recruitment. Could she please explain to me why a young person would even consider a job in the armed forces if they may get a knock on the door in 50 years’ time to be charged with an offence when they were simply doing their duty?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Army Recruitment · Hansard source

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  13. What steps his Department is taking to increase Army recruitment.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. I have a really simple question: do this Government consider China a national security threat?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Ms Ghani. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) just swore at my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin).

• 21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source

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  The cover-up continues. We have a Prime Minister who never wanted a national inquiry, we have a Minister who never wanted a national inquiry and we have the Labour Back Benchers who never wanted a national inquiry. Does the Minister agree that the victims of these horrific crimes will never get the justice they deserve, as long as we have a Labour Government in charge?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  Last year, the chief constable of the West Midlands police force told Muslim elders that he would always police without fear or favour and that he would not tolerate any sort of racism, but the banning of Maccabi fans is quite clearly racism. Does the Secretary of State agree that if the police chiefs cannot police a football match, they should no longer be in office?