Mike Wood MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Apr 2026 · Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way on that point?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister dissembles over what he knew about Sistema and Mandelson, but the Cabinet Office due diligence report sent to the Prime Minister on 11 December 2024 stated: “Mandelson served as a non-executive director of the Russian conglomerate Sistema, which is itself the majority shareholder of RTI, a defence technology company…Mandelson remained on the board until June 2017, long after Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.” Will the Prime Minister finally confirm that he knew that Mandelson was a director of Sistema long after the invasion of Crimea, but appointed him anyway?

• 14 Apr 2026 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement and for providing an advance copy. We naturally welcome the progress reported today. The fact that 3,273 people have received offers totalling more than £2 billion is a significant milestone in a decades-long struggle for justice. I thank the Infected Blood Compensation Authority for its work to speed up the payments. As Baroness Finn said in the other place, “what we call the scandal was, in truth, the infliction, collectively, of grievous harm upon thousands of people by the state.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 4 November 2025; Vol. 849, c. 1821.] Nowhere was that more egregious or more shocking than in those cases where victims were infected as a result of deliberate experimentation in the name of science. We therefore commend the Minister for the specific increases to the unethical research awards, and in particular the uplift to £60,000 for the survivors of Treloar’s school and the expansion of the scheme to include those treated as adults. Those are necessary recognitions of a truly outrageous chapter of the scandal. However, while the Minister spoke of tangible, systemic change, many victims and their families will be looking at the fine print with a degree of trepidation. I therefore have a number of questions regarding the delivery and scope of these announcements. The Minister noted that further legislation will be required later this year to enact these substantial changes. Given that the infected blood inquiry’s additional report was published back in July last year, will he reassure the House that the legislative timetable will not lead to further agonising delays for those in declining health? Will the first quarterly feedback summaries, which he has promised will come in July, provide a hard deadline for when those new level 2B severity awards and backdated supply chain management payments will actually reach bank accounts? If not, does he have an expectation of when those payments will be made? I think the Minister mentioned increased core injury awards for bereaved parents whose children died before the age of 18. Can he provide greater clarity on the justification for excluding parents whose children were infected when they were young children but turned 18 before the time of their death? Regarding the 50% increase to the core autonomy award for those infected at age 18 or under, will he confirm that that will also apply to those infected through their mothers in utero? The Government rightly aim to minimise the administrative burden and the demand for evidence. We welcome the £60,000 lump sum for those with clear potential to earn but who lack evidence of earnings, but how will the Infected Blood Compensation Authority define “clear potential” without falling back into the lengthy, individualised assessments that the Minister says he wants to avoid? Finally on the compensation scheme, the Minister announced that for past financial loss, the Government will use whichever calculation is “most financially beneficial” for the recipient. We welcome that pragmatic step, but can he clarify whether the removal of the 25% deduction for past care will be applied automatically to all existing offers, or will those people who have already received offers need to reapply to have their awards adjusted? As the Minister said, the compensation scheme must “embody their stories”. Justice delayed is justice denied, and we must ensure that the new supplementary awards do not become a secondary bureaucratic hurdle for a community that has already given so much testimony and waited so long. Before I close, I turn to a matter that seems to be missing from the Minister’s statement: the inquiry. When he last updated the House before Christmas, I raised the need to “move from a period of review to one of rectification and delivery.” —[ Official Report , 30 October 2025; Vol. 774, c. 516.] I also asked him how and when the inquiry might be drawn to a close so there could be a degree of policy certainty. I did not hear him refer to that in his statement, so will he confirm that, with the implementation of the key recommendations from the additional report and Sir Brian’s letters, the public inquiry has now drawn to a close? Once again, I thank Sir Brian Langstaff and his team for their diligent and comprehensive work over the past eight years to help deliver some justice after decades of scandal and suffering. Most of all, I again pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of the many victims and their families who were infected or affected by the infected blood scandal. They have suffered for far too long in ways that we can barely begin to imagine, and no compensation scheme can ever reverse the horrific harms needlessly done to them. I hope, however, that the universal acceptance of the conclusion of the reports and the determination of us all to do what we can to make changes that will stop others suffering in future will bring them some comfort.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Spring Forecast · Hansard source

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  Hospitality adds nearly £2 billion to Northern Ireland’s economy, supporting more than 75,000 jobs, but last year more than 2,000 hospitality workers in Northern Ireland lost their jobs. Does the Secretary of State agree with Unite the union, of which I know he is a member, that this is the result of the Government’s disastrous national insurance rises?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36). Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put. A Division was called.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Draft Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I am in the rather fortunate position of being able to stand here as an Opposition Whip and shadow Minister who does not receive a ministerial salary, so I cannot be accused of having any conflict of interest in supporting the Government in what appears to be a sensible and, as the Minister said, technical measure that brings the de jure rules into line with practice over the past few years. It makes sense to exclude the salaries of permanent secretaries, as the previous review concluded, not least because permanent secretary salary bands are so broad as to make a mid-point measurement largely meaningless anyway. As the Minister says, we understand that the pay freeze that has been in place, certainly for the 15 years since the reduction at the start of the coalition Government in 2010, will continue. If I may just speak very personally—this might be a word for the hon. Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley—perhaps, in the longer term, the Government may wish to consider whether it is still appropriate that Members of the Whips Office should continue to be paid at a rather lower rate than Parliamentary Under-Secretaries. That is obviously a discussion for a different day and not one on which I think my party, nor the Minister’s, has a collective view. I have only one question. As the entitled salaries are increasing while the claimed salaries continue to be frozen, will the Minister tell the Committee how that affects pension entitlements? Are they calculated according to the salary to which Ministers are entitled or the salaries that are actually paid?

• 12 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Farmers in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire have contacted me in recent days about the steep rise in the price of key inputs such as fertilisers and straw. Current events are likely to make these pressures even more acute, with serious implications for farm viability and domestic food production. Could we have a debate in Government time on the rising costs facing British farmers and the long-term resilience of UK food production?

• 11 Mar 2026 · Draft Procurement (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  You can never have too many procurement SIs in a week, but for those who did not have the pleasure of Monday afternoon’s Committee, I will spare them some of the background information and just say that the Opposition support the draft regulations. As the Minister says, they will give effect to important provisions introduced by the previous Government’s Procurement Act 2023. The details required to be published for contracts over £30,000 are particularly important, as are the measures to ensure transparency for some sub-threshold contracts. Understandably, the Government have again not produced a separate impact assessment for the draft regulations, relying instead on the broader impact assessment that accompanied the Procurement Act and the associated reforms in 2022-23. Although many of the provisions are technical in nature, they will nevertheless shape how the new procurement framework operates in practice. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could provide reassurance that the central digital platform is ready to support the expanded responsibilities under the regulations, and that the contracting authorities and suppliers, particularly smaller organisations and enterprises, have been given sufficient guidance to adapt to these changes. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for the briefing a short time ago. It is said that in 1720, gullible investors were invited to put their money into “a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. Today, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister appears to be reviving that proud tradition. For months, his Department has insisted that digital ID was absolutely essential, and until a few weeks ago, it had to be mandatory—even for babies. However, after months of insisting that the scheme was indispensable, the Government are now asking the public to tell them just what it is indispensable for. There was a time when this was supposed to be the magic bullet to tackle illegal migration. Now, the Cabinet Office seems to be suggesting that it might just help to reduce hold times in Government call centres. This great undertaking has gone from promising the elixir of eternal youth to the equivalent of, “Well, you never know, it might help if you have a slightly upset tummy.” The public know snake oil when they are offered it. We should not be surprised, because this never was a thought-through policy; it was always a distraction stunt. For years, officials have been looking at the ID file on the shelf, hoping for a Government desperate enough to pick it up, and last September they finally found one. Desperate for an announcement to shove Andy Burnham off the front pages before a tricky Labour conference—look how that turned out—the Prime Minister dusted off this scheme with no clear idea of how it would work, what it would cost or what the consequences would be. After one of the Government’s many U-turns, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister now assures us that this digital ID will not become compulsory. Nothing is ever compulsory until it suddenly is. We know how this story goes. At first, it is voluntary, then it becomes strongly encouraged. Then, you discover you need it to open a bank account and see your GP. Before long, your phone battery dies while you are in the queue at Costa, and you are essentially a non-person: “Sorry, sir, no flat white for you. Computer says you no longer exist.” It is no wonder that even the Health Secretary wants nothing to do with this particular headline. Of course, the Government tell us not to worry because the system will be secure. This is the same Government who cannot even keep their own Budget secret. How much confidence can the public really have that their personal data will not be misused, when the Minister who was responsible for the scheme this time last week had to resign following reports that he hired a firm to spy on journalists who had written negative stories about his organisation? In November, the Office for Budget Responsibility put the cost of this boondoggle at £1.8 billion over three years, which is more than the cost of building and operating a new Type 45 destroyer—and nearly as dangerous if not used properly. The OBR did not change that figure in last week’s projections, so we can assume that £1.8 billion remains the best estimate. And for what? Britain has managed perfectly well for centuries without a peacetime national identity system. Society functions without citizens having to authenticate themselves to the state every time they wish to open an app or go about their daily lives. Before we rush headlong into constructing the world’s most elaborate digital clipboard, the Government should recognise some serious concerns. If their system fails, it will be expensive; if it is hacked, it will be dangerous; and if it expands, it will be intrusive. So what exactly is the overwhelming crisis in British life that requires us to take all three risks? Until the Government can answer that question convincingly, the British public will view this proposal in exactly the same way that they view most grand Whitehall technology schemes: with deep suspicion, a modicum of mild amusement and a firm determination to keep their identity exactly where it belongs—in their own pocket, not floating somewhere in the Government’s cloud.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Draft Procurement Act 2023 (Specified International Agreements and Saving Provision) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Desmond. The Minister will be aware that we have some concerns about part of the UK-India agreement, but those concerns do not apply to the provisions on public procurement, and as such we support the measures in the regulations. In effect, the regulations add the UK-India agreement to schedule 9 to the Procurement Act 2023 introduced by the previous Government. That will mean that suppliers from India that fall within the scope of the agreement will be entitled to participate in relevant UK public procurement processes on the same basis as UK suppliers. We are proud of many of the changes brought in by the last Government through the Procurement Act to boost the UK economy, including the move from the EU’s most economically advantageous tender system to our own, broader, most advantageous tender system. That subtle change of language has massive real-world implications. It lets contracts reflect real value and not just price. Instead of the rigid focus on the lowest price under the previous EU-derived rules, under our new procurement framework we can consider value more holistically, including social and local benefit; instead of restrictive procedures, there is more competitive flexibility, so that buyers can design the process; and instead of it being difficult to exclude bad actors, as was the case under the previous system, robust powers are in place to debar suppliers on national security grounds. I am sure that the Minister will confirm that those powers will still apply under the regulations. Importantly, buyers can now give significant weight to bids that create jobs in their specific region or the sector for which they are responsible, and for the first time, public bodies are publishing key performance indicators for major contracts. If a supplier fails to deliver for the public, it can be held to account and potentially barred from future work. Given those positive changes, it makes sense to apply the new system to procurement covered by the UK-India trade agreement. Of course, due to the transitional provisions currently in place, some procurements continue to be governed by earlier legislative frameworks, including the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016. That is one of the reasons why we agree that the regulations before us, which will ensure that the procurement chapter of the UK-India agreement can also apply to procurements still conducted under those earlier regimes, are necessary. In practice, that means that economic operators benefiting from the agreement will be entitled to the same treatment as UK suppliers in procurements carried out under framework agreements, dynamic purchasing systems or qualification systems that remain subject to the previous rules. The amendments will apply only to procurements commenced after the UK-India agreement enters into force; procurements already under way will not be affected. The Government have indicated that a full impact assessment has not been produced on the basis that the regulations are not expected to have a significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors. Given the scale of public procurement in the United Kingdom, it would be helpful if the Minister provided some clarity on a few points. First, what assessment has been made of the value of procurement opportunities in the UK that will now be accessible to Indian suppliers under the agreement? On the flip side, can the Minister further lay out what reciprocal access UK businesses will gain to public procurement markets in India, and what practical support will be available to help UK firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to take advantage of those opportunities? Thirdly, could he clarify the expected timetable for the agreement to enter into force and, therefore, for these provisions to begin applying in practice? The regulations are, in many respects, technical in nature, but they form part of the broader implementation of the UK-India trade agreement and therefore could have significant implications for access to public procurement markets, both here in the UK and abroad, so it is right that the Committee carefully scrutinises how they will operate in practice. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 5 Mar 2026 · EU: Mutual Interests · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows very well that the choice was that of the biggest democratic exercise in UK history. His party promised to respect the result of that referendum but is instead seeking to row back on it. Members of the House and the wider public will have heard that the Minister clearly did not rule out the UK having to adopt new European Union legislation. The Minister will know from his time as shadow International Trade Secretary that we would never accept a trade agreement where the arbiter is an institution on one side, so can he at least rule out having the European Court of Justice as a body adjudicating in any disputes that follow from his reset?

• 5 Mar 2026 · EU: Mutual Interests · Hansard source

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  After at least 15 major U-turns, it is helpful to check which promises the Government still intend to keep. On 22 July 2024, when I asked the Prime Minister whether he could promise that he would not accept the automatic application of EU rules unless they had been specifically approved by this Parliament, he answered simply, “Yes.” Can the Minister say that it is still the Government’s position that we will not be required to adopt new European Union legislation?

• 5 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  For many of my constituents, a daily postal delivery is a fiction, with post sometimes taking weeks to arrive. That includes letters about hospital appointments and other important appointments, which often arrive after the appointments have happened. Can we have a debate in Government time on the performance of Royal Mail and its responsibilities under the universal service obligation?

• 3 Mar 2026 · Spring Forecast · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor claimed to be cutting debt, but she will know that paragraph 5.9 of the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” says that “Public sector net borrowing is forecast to increase” public sector net debt “in each year, by an average of £92 billion”. To avoid misleading the House, will she correct the record?

• 2 Mar 2026 · Public Right to a Vote of No Confidence · Hansard source

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  I, too, thank the more than 120,000 people across the United Kingdom who signed the petition. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) in acknowledging the many organisations that have engaged constructively on this issue, many of which have already been named. They include Unlock Democracy, whose chief executive Tom Brake is a former Member of this House, the Hansard Society, the Electoral Reform Society, and many others that have worked on an independent basis to review our constitutional arrangements. Members’ views on this proposal will differ in line with their views on the effectiveness of this Government, but the number of signatures demands that we treat the petition with the utmost seriousness and respect. The petition understandably calls for a further mechanism that would allow the public to remove a Government who no longer command public confidence. My hon. Friend read an excerpt from the petition, in which the petitioners said that they feel they have seen the opposite of what the Government promised before the election. Many people across the country in all our constituencies will recognise that sentiment. The Government have seemingly lurched from error to error and from crisis to crisis. Decisions that have been made have damaged the economy, undermined business, driven up unemployment, increased debt, and left communities and public services struggling. Above all, they have hit confidence in the Government, because people were promised so much but have seen so little delivered. Whether it is veterans being dragged through the courts or sovereign territory being conceded, the public are not getting what they expected—indeed, they are not getting what the Government said only months ago, in some cases, before the 15 major U-turns. Commitments made before the election have been abandoned: the promise of no tax rises on working people was broken and pensioners were left struggling after cuts to winter fuel payments. My hon. Friend raised many other examples in his opening speech. The crux of the debate comes down to perhaps the biggest promise that the Prime Minister made before the election: his pledge to deliver the highest standards in public life and “a Government of service”. Instead, the Government have delivered scandal after scandal, many of which were of their own making. Only this weekend, the inquiries Minister had to resign after being investigated by his own Department. It is no surprise to see members of the public signing petitions such as this one to try to regain an element of control from a Government who were elected with an enormous majority but are failing to deliver what they promised. While the public’s frustration is clear and understandable, we must look carefully at the proposal itself. Any new mechanism must work in all circumstances. The previous Government introduced a recall mechanism for Members of Parliament who were found guilty of certain criminal offences or who seriously breached the standards of this House. That allowed their constituents to decide whether they wanted those Members to continue. I am not necessarily against looking at whether that principle could be expanded to a national level. We want our political systems to be more responsive to the electorate, but we need to look carefully at how that could be done within a parliamentary rather than a presidential system, because that is the existing system in many countries where the public have the ability to trigger elections or recalls at a national level. It is the electorate who choose us and it is the electorate who remove us, if they wish, at a general election. Under our parliamentary system, a Government hold office because they command the confidence of this House. That is a fundamental principle on which our system and our democracy rely. As the Cabinet manual explicitly states, a Government’s authority flows from their ability “to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk said in his speech, that confidence can be tested at any time through a vote of confidence or a vote of no confidence. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, that option is available for those Members of Parliament whose constituents feel that we need a general election. I urge all constituents who feel that way to make sure that their representatives in Parliament are aware of the strength of that feeling, because the conventions of parliamentary democracy have served us well. Introducing a direct recall mechanism for removing a Government or triggering a general election before the parliamentary term is due to expire would raise significant practical and constitutional questions, some of which have already been highlighted, such as whether a successful public vote of no confidence would automatically trigger a general election, or simply require a change of Prime Minister to form a new Government within the existing Parliament, and whether such a change in personnel would suffice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk noted, it is unclear what threshold should demonstrate genuine national support that would suggest that a Government have irretrievably lost the confidence of the British people, and are not merely going through what might be temporary unpopularity at a time when they need to make difficult but, perhaps, necessary choices. Would it be at the level that has been set for recall petitions for individual MPs, which has tended to be very low? In almost all such cases, once a petition has been triggered, the threshold has been met. That would lead to some instability. Alternatively, would we be looking at a higher threshold? Would we require 50% of registered voters, or more voters than a Government secured at the previous general election? As has already been mentioned, if the threshold were too low, we risk well-funded groups being able to repeatedly attempt to destabilise any Government of any political party. We would have to seriously consider the risk of that including outside actors with their own motives before making any constitutional changes of this significance. On a national level, how could we be confident that a signature is verified? Where we have postal votes in a parliamentary or local council election, there is something to compare them against, but unless we are requiring signatures alongside voter registrations, which would go against the direction that I know the Government are setting out in this evening’s legislation, there would be unlikely to be any definitive database against which any signature on a petition could be compared. Furthermore, how could we prevent petitions from being launched back to back, creating permanent instability? These are just some of the questions that might be asked. They are not minor details, and it is fundamental that we consider them before we look at major constitutional change. We have seen the consequences of poorly considered constitutional reform in the past, such as in the case of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. It was, genuinely, introduced with the noblest of motives, but we then saw its impact at a time when there was no consensus or majority in Parliament to dissolve Parliament and allow for a fresh election. It seems it was not properly considered. Although we should be cautious about rewriting the constitution, we cannot ignore the clear message sent by petitions such as this one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk said, it is only weeks ago that more than 3 million people signed a petition calling for a general election. That was just one of a number of petitions expressing similar sentiments. Such a level of public anger should concern every hon. Member. Whether or not they happen to agree, in this case, that this Government are not delivering, it should be a concern across the political spectrum that people feel unheard and ignored. I urge those who signed this petition, and others seeking an early election, to make sure that their representatives are aware of their view and to encourage those representatives, if appropriate, to pursue that constitutional route because Governments that lose the confidence of the House have, historically, either resigned or sought a general election. I do not think that Governments can continue for too long when a majority of their Members have constituents who have lost confidence in the Government. After the promises made at the last election it is no wonder that so many of our electors feel let down. That is why this petition matters; it sends a clear signal from the public to Parliament. The message is simple: people want accountability, honesty and the ability to take back control, even where the Government have a very large majority, as this Government do. Above all, the public want competence and a Government who deliver. This Government are fast running out of road and the sooner that the country is given the chance to choose a new direction, the better. Ahead of the next general election we will certainly look at what mechanisms might be appropriate and effective to allow voters to retain control in between general elections. We would be reluctant to rush into committing to specific mechanisms until we have had a chance to properly consider what the consequences, intended and unintended, of such mechanisms would be.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Public Right to a Vote of No Confidence · Hansard source

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  To be clear, can the Minister confirm that the Government will not be spending 2.5% on defence this year?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Post Office Green Paper · Hansard source

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  Kingswinford is the largest town centre in my constituency, but it has been without a post office since the Midcounties Co-operative closed the store in which the post office was located. That loss has become even more significant since Lloyds bank announced this month that it was closing the only bank in the town centre. The Minister has spoken about retaining a minimum post office network, but what will the Government do to help re-open post offices in town centres that do not currently have a post office, such as Kingswinford?

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  More than seven in 10 voters in my constituency voted to leave. That was not an accident, it was not confusion, and it was not because they were lied to. Having spent seven happy years working in the European Parliament, I was not unfamiliar with the EU’s strengths, as well as its faults, but if there was one thing that caused me some hesitation before I decided to campaign for leave, it was knowing that it would be a huge undertaking. Unpicking 50 years of legislation and regulation would clearly be disruptive for many businesses, including many in my constituency, and would use up a lot of Government time for at least a decade. Of course, a global pandemic, a once-in-a-generation energy crisis and the shockwaves of war in Europe have added to the disruption. But to attribute every headwind to Brexit, as some Members have done, may be politically convenient, but it is economically simplistic. Some Members have spoken about a £90 billion hit. The reality is that, since Brexit, UK GDP has grown at about the same rate as Italy’s, and above that of France and Germany.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  I will very quickly.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Last summer, the Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland said that two thirds of the SMEs in Northern Ireland that moved goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland had ceased to do so because of the way EU checks were being conducted. The Northern Ireland protocol says that if the UK experiences diversion of trade, we can take unilateral action. If two thirds of small businesses does not count as diversion of trade, what does? As the record shows, exports to the EU grew more in the five years since we left in 2021 than they did in the six years before the referendum. The Opposition have set five clear tests for any renegotiation with the European Union: no return to free movement; no new payments to the EU; no loss of fishing rights; no dynamic alignment with EU rules; and no compromise on NATO’s primacy in European defence. Those tests are not ideological; they are the minimum requirement for respecting the 2016 mandate. Dynamic alignment may sound technical, but it means accepting rules that we no longer shape. Budgetary contributions may be dressed as programmes, but they mean sending money back without membership—often far more than can be fairly attributed to the costs caused by our participation. A customs arrangement that restricts our trade autonomy undermines the very sovereignty that voters endorsed. Brexit was never about isolation: it was about independence. It was about being outward looking on British terms. We now have the ability to strike trade agreements globally. We have joined the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, helping to open access to markets in 11 high-growth economies, from Canada to South Korea and Australia. Many of the bilateral trade deals that we have signed go far beyond the proceeding EU trade agreements, with deeper digital trade and data chapters that are important to so many of the sectors in which Britain is strongest. Financial market reform has reduced the risk margin for life insurers, meaning that we can promote long-term growth and divert more to long-term infrastructure and green technologies. In agriculture, the UK has moved to environmental land management schemes, based on the principle of public money for public good, to support environmental outcomes instead of just paying landowners to own land. Our duty is clear: to honour the mandate, to defend the sovereignty the people voted for, to work with our allies as equal sovereign partners where we can, and to protect our country’s ability to take its own decisions in our nation’s interest.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  No, I only have five minutes. For that £90 billion to be credible, one would have to imagine that we would have vastly exceeded the growth of every large European country if only we had stuck to what we were already doing, closer to the framework that those countries with lower growth are still in.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for the statement, which we received at 3.38 pm. I gently suggest to him that the 45 minutes referred to in the ministerial code is a minimum, rather than a target. On 4 February, this House voted, cross party, for a Humble Address to be presented. That is not a polite suggestion; it is a formal command from Parliament to the Executive, but three weeks later, the Government have moved with the urgency of a tired sloth on a bank holiday Monday. Before the recess, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) sent a comprehensive list of questions to the Cabinet Office. He received nothing back—not a letter, not a postcard, not even an out-of-office reply, so let us try for some verbal clarity today. The Prime Minister previously staked the integrity of this process on the personal oversight of the Cabinet Secretary—and then he sacked him. Has the change in Cabinet Secretary caused a scoping delay, or are the Government simply using the handover as convenient long grass to kick this into? Reports suggest that a secret investigation into Lord Mandelson’s conduct took place last September. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar asked about this on the Floor of the House, and again in writing, but there has been silence. Can the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister tell us if that report exists? If so, who wrote it, and will the Government stop playing hide-and-seek and publish it? The Government call this an urgent review, yet the terms of reference remain as elusive as a coherent Treasury forecast. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward) promised my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar in the debate on 4 February that he would write with answers, yet there is still nothing. Can the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister tell us whether the scope includes the £241 million Ministry of Defence contract awarded to Palantir following Lord Mandelson’s off-diary meetings? Does it cover Global Counsel? Or are we looking only at bits of the noble Lord’s Rolodex that are not politically explosive? The Intelligence and Security Committee is being asked to help, yet its secretariat consists of Cabinet Office civil servants. As the ISC itself warned last May, an oversight body should not be beholden to the very organisation it is supposed to be overseeing. If this is a genuine audit, what steps are being taken to ensure that the committee can operate without conflicts of interest, when Cabinet Office staff are considering material that relates directly to decisions taken by the Cabinet Office itself? Mr Speaker, you could not have been clearer: “the police cannot dictate to this House.” —[ Official Report , 4 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 375.] Yet the Government remain coy about the legal basis for withholding documents. We need an unequivocal commitment today that once the police are finished, every withheld page will be published—no excuses, and no redactions by stealth—and that in the meantime, any documents that are withheld from publication at the request of the police are handed to the ISC immediately, as you indicated after the debate, Mr Speaker. Finally, will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister commit to a Keeling-style register of all withheld documents? If the Government have nothing to hide, they should have no problem listing exactly what they are keeping from us, and why. The Opposition have acted in good faith. We have been patient, but careful work must not become a euphemism for managed delay. This House gave a constitutional instruction on 4 February. It is time the Government stopped treating Parliament like an inconvenient interruption to their schedule, stopped giving every impression that their priority is working out whose back to cover, and started providing some actual answers, so that we can start to get to the bottom of this murky matter.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration · Hansard source

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  No. The hon. Gentleman is obviously trying to hide from the fact that his party was part of the Government that awarded that contract in 2012 to the mutual joint venture. He may wish to look at his own party’s part in that if he thinks that it was a mistake. Sadly, the information provided by the Minister for the Cabinet Office to the House last week fell well short of what is required. It failed to address the fundamental question of how the Government allowed Capita to take over the contract in December despite the repeated warnings and the signs that it had clearly failed in its key milestones.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration · Hansard source

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  I must continue, because I have only a short time; I have given way twice. We know that in November 2023, Capita was awarded the contract to administer the civil service pension scheme, but we also know that the previous administrator, MyCSP, had its contract extended until December 2025 specifically to allow for a two-year transition period that was meant to reduce risk, not create it. The National Audit Office investigation report published in June 2025 made it clear that MyCSP had failed to meet agreed service levels in the final year of its contract, with complaints more than doubling towards the end of that contract. That is a large part of the reason why the contract was awarded elsewhere. If I may briefly refer to the tragic case of Philippa—not a constituent but someone who I had the pleasure of meeting because she was the long-term partner of a member of staff of one of our colleagues.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration · Hansard source

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  I have already given way twice and I may give way later, but I need to get through my speech so that the Minister can reply, because I know that hon. Members will want to hear her response. Philippa retired in May and suffered a nervous collapse triggered by pension delay. Tragically, Philippa died on Boxing day, so that is the very real human cost. Of course, the National Audit Office report did not stop with the failings of the final years of MyCSP’s contract. It also highlighted that Capita had failed to meet three of the six key transition milestones that were due by March 2025, all relating to scheme design and operational readiness. In other words, the warning signs were there in black and white. Ministers were on notice of the potential for serious problems, and of the consequences that those problems would have for pensioners, for at least the final half of 2025.