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  • Sarah Sackman – 2025 Statement on Limiting Right to Jury Trials

    Sarah Sackman – 2025 Statement on Limiting Right to Jury Trials

    The statement made by Sarah Sackman, the Minister for Courts and Legal Services, in the House of Commons on 27 November 2025.

    This Government inherited an emergency in our criminal courts, with record and rising caseloads, leaving the victims behind each and every one of those cases facing agonising delays and waiting to see justice done, while some defendants hope that their accusers simply give up on justice.

    That is why the Government asked Sir Brian Leveson, a pre-eminent jurist and one of our most experienced judges, to undertake an independent review—a once-in-a-generation review—of our criminal courts. We have been carefully considering his recommendations and agree that a crisis of this scale requires bold action to get the system moving and to deliver swifter justice for victims. No final decisions have been made on exactly how to take forward the blueprint that Sir Brian and his expert panel have set down, and I suggest that the House waits for that response.

    Let me be clear: jury trials will always be a cornerstone of British justice. This Government will do whatever it takes to protect the fundamental right to a fair trial. The Great British justice system, with all its traditions, would never let victims wait, in some cases for four years, for justice. There is indeed a clash of ideas between those of us on the Government Benches and the Opposition. We are on the side of modernisation, defending our values, and swifter justice for victims, while they are prepared to watch the system rot, not offering any answers. The old adage rings true in the current crisis: justice delayed is justice denied. The system was simply not designed for a scenario where tens of thousands of victims are facing agonising delays for justice.

    The vast majority of cases in our courts are already heard without juries. Around 90% of all criminal cases are dealt with robustly and fairly by magistrates, with no jury. The country deserves meaningful reforms that back victims, modernisation and fairness over those gaming the system, and that speed up the courts and get victims the swifter justice that they deserve, resolving the court backlog and ensuring fair justice. As I have said, we intend to respond to the first part of Sir Brian’s review very soon, so I am afraid the House will have to wait a little longer for that response.

    Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)

    Or read the papers.

    Mr Speaker

    No more leaks just yet, please.

    Robert Jenrick 

    While this Government lurch from one outrage to another, yesterday the Chancellor shredded her promises and dropped a £26 billion tax bomb on working Britain. Meanwhile, we learned that the Justice Secretary is plotting to discard centuries of jury trials without so much as a by-your-leave—and where is the Justice Secretary to answer for this? Do we need to send out a search party to Saville Row in case he has gone suit shopping again this morning? Or perhaps he could not face up to the embarrassment that he is now destroying the very principles he once championed.

    Jury trials are

    “fundamental to the justice system…fundamental to our democracy. We must protect them.”

    Those are not my words, but those of the Justice Secretary himself. This time, he was right: there is wisdom in 12 ordinary citizens pooling their collective experiences of the world. Yet, now that he is in government, he is doing the complete opposite. He blames the court backlog, but if the courtrooms standing empty this year were used, the backlog would be down by 5,000 to 10,000 cases. He pleads poverty on law and order, but yesterday the Chancellor came here and found £16 billion more to spend on benefits.

    The truth is that the Labour party just does not think that ordinary people are up to it. It does not trust them with these decisions. Give away the Chagos islands, shackle us to the European convention on human rights, scrap jury trials—all because lawyers know best. And when the Justice Secretary is summoned here to the people’s House, what does he do? He cowers away. Well, the people who make up juries—the British people—will not wear it any more.

    I have one simple question for the Minister he sent in his stead. Will she protect what is fundamental to our democracy, or will she stand by as the Justice Secretary casually casts aside centuries of English liberty?

    Sarah Sackman 

    How extraordinary, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman claims to care about the rule of law; he claims to care about ancient legal traditions. This is the same shadow Justice Secretary who denigrates our independent judges and our legal community standing up for rights. I have already said it, and I will say it again: the right to a jury trial for our most serious cases will remain a fundamental part of our British legal tradition.

    Since he is so fond of quoting our ancient principles and quoting Magna Carta, let me remind him of what is our constitutional right. Magna Carta states:

    “to no one will we…delay right or justice.”

    The right to a swift and prompt trial is a fundamental ingredient of fairness. When we have the crisis we inherited from the Conservative party, with a backlog now of some 80,000 cases—and behind each and every one of those cases is an actual victim and somebody accused of a crime—in the current system, we are denying a fair trial. When victims and witnesses pull out of the process, as is increasingly happening, that denies fairness.

    I say this while wearing this pin, which shows that we stand in 16 days of activism against violence against women and girls: a woman reporting a rape today in London will be told that her trial may not come on until 2029-30. That is not justice at all, and it is a consequence of allowing the Crown court backlog to spiral out of control while doing nothing and offering not a single answer. That is not upholding the fundamental British constitutional right to a fair trial; it is exactly the opposite.

    I for one, certainly, and as part of this Government, am not prepared to sit idly by. That is why we have gripped the crisis, making record investment in sitting days, extending magistrates court sentencing powers, investing in legal aid and asking one of our finest jurists, Brian Leveson, to conduct an independent review to provide us with a blueprint for how we get out of this mess. The Conservative party likes to call itself the party of tradition and the party of law and order, yet it presided over a justice system in which the British public can no longer have confidence.

    I am afraid that I am not prepared to let victims down. This Labour Government are finally putting victims first. That is why we will carefully consider Sir Brian’s recommendations. It is why we will undertake to implement his blueprint, which takes as its fundamental premise this: the system is broken. There is no one in this House, no one in the community that represents victims and no one in the legal community—no judge, no one operating and working hard in the system to keep it going—who thinks that the system is not broken. We have to fix it.

    Sir Brian Leveson tells us that investment alone will not fix it. We need investment coupled with structural reform and modernisation. That is exactly the blueprint that this Government will bring forward, because, as I said, we believe in the right to a fair trial, we believe in British justice and, unlike the Conservative party, we will deliver swifter justice for victims.

  • Ed Davey – 2025 Response to the Budget Statement

    Ed Davey – 2025 Response to the Budget Statement

    The speech made by Ed Davey, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, in the House of Commons on 26 November 2025.

    We look forward to the Treasury Committee challenging the Government on the details of the Budget. This Government were elected on a promise to tackle the cost of living and grow the economy, and this is the second Budget in which they have failed to do either. For millions of people struggling with higher bills, all this Budget really offers is higher taxes.

    The OBR sets it out in black and white: disposable income and living standards are down thanks to this Budget. Surely the Chancellor should have learned from her first failed Budget that we cannot tax our way to growth. Under the Conservatives, the UK’s tax burden reached its highest level since 1948 and it hit the economy, yet under this Budget the tax burden will hit an all-time high.

    There is an alternative to all these Conservative and Labour taxes, and the shocking reality is that the Government know it: a new trade deal with Europe—a major new deal to cut the cost of living and grow our Toggle showing location ofColumn 410economy. The truth is that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal has cost the Treasury £90 billion a year in lower tax revenue. Imagine if the Chancellor had adopted our plan to reverse those Brexit costs. Imagine how much more we could be helping families and pensioners across our country with the cost of living. Imagine how we could be ending the cost of living crisis today.

    Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Madam Deputy Speaker

    Order. You are a senior Member of the House, and I made it very clear earlier that no interventions should be made on party leaders.

    Ed Davey

    I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman in the Tea Room afterwards.

    The Government know the damage that the Conservative-Reform Brexit deal has done to every family and business across our country, yet they choose to reject the single biggest policy for ending the cost of living crisis, turbocharging economic growth and boosting tax revenues without raising tax: a new trade deal with Europe. We need to properly fix our broken relationship with Europe, with a new customs union. We can grow our economy by freeing British businesses from the costs, barriers and red tape favoured by the Conservatives and Reform. Rather than trying to tax our way out of debt, as Labour is choosing to do, the Liberal Democrats would grow our way out of debt.

    To be fair to the Chancellor, she has recently spoken about the terrible damage that the Conservatives’ Brexit deal has done to our economy—a deal that promised to save us £350 million a week, but which ended up costing the taxpayer £1.7 billion every week. But where is the Chancellor’s urgency and ambition to fix the problem that she rightly identifies? Today she did not even mention the huge hit to the Treasury from Brexit. She is like a doctor who has diagnosed the disease but refuses to administer the cure. She is refusing to take up our plan for a brand-new deal with the EU—a much better deal for Britain than anything the Government have pursued so far, with a new customs union at its heart.

    Everyone but the most extreme Brexiteers now realises what a costly economic disaster the Brexit deal has been. Whether they are a young family struggling with ever higher food prices or a high street business just trying to survive the Chancellor’s latest new cost or tax, people are understandably looking for a credible economic policy to change their futures for the better, and it is crystal clear that only the Liberal Democrats are providing the leadership on our economy that people are crying out for.

    There are some measures the Chancellor announced today that we do welcome. At last, she has decided to tax the big online gambling firms by raising remote gaming duty, as the Liberal Democrats have been calling for. Problem gambling is related to hundreds of suicides every year, so of course online casinos and the like should pay more tax on their huge profits. Her decision to scrap the rape clause is an excellent one. I may not have heard the Leader of the Opposition, but I was not sure if she welcomed that. I hope the Conservative party will welcome it. The Chancellor’s decision to scrap the two-child limit is excellent. It was in our general election manifesto, and I am glad that she is Toggle showing location ofColumn 411now enacting Liberal Democrat policy. It is clearly the most effective way of lifting children out of poverty, and it will save taxpayers money in the long term.

    The biggest relief today for millions of families and pensioners is the action the Chancellor is taking to reduce energy bills, and we welcome it, but even after the Chancellor’s changes, the Budget will leave the typical household paying hundreds of pounds a year more on their energy bills than five years ago. More action will be needed, but we need action on energy bills that works.

    Reform and the Conservative party pretend that the answer to rising energy bills is to scrap our climate commitments and stop investing in renewables. They could not be more wrong. The Conservative-Reform energy policy would put up bills and make the UK even more reliant on imported fossil fuels, with their volatile and high prices. That would be a disaster for our economy, a disaster for our environment, a disaster for jobs and a disaster for people struggling with energy bills. A major winner from Reform’s energy policies would be Vladimir Putin, which might explain why the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is so keen on them. I urge the Government not to listen to the Conservatives or Reform, but to be more ambitious in cutting people’s energy bills and to take up our plan to cut energy bills even more right now and cut them in half within a decade, finally giving families and pensioners the relief they need from this cost of living crisis.

    While there are some things to welcome, as I have just done, there are quite a lot of measures in the Budget that will cause a lot of pain and unfairness, all of which could have been avoided if the Chancellor had gone for growth with Europe instead. Her plans to tax salary sacrifice will be hugely damaging to savings and pensions, and it looks like it is another NI hit on workers. Why, oh why, when the electricity vehicle market still needs a boost to get going, is she taxing electric vehicles? If she was not spending £1.8 billion on digital ID, many of these tax rises would not have been needed in the first place. Her failure to U-turn on the family farm tax is a huge error. If the Chancellor was really looking to tax those with the broadest shoulders, why not put a windfall tax on the big banks that are making billions at the taxpayer’s expense due to the side effects of quantitative easing?

    The worst tax hike of this Budget by far—the biggest tax rise in this Budget—is the Chancellor’s decision to repeat the Conservative policy of freezing income tax thresholds. Freezing these thresholds reduces the amount that people can earn tax-free and hits the lowest-paid the hardest. I have to say that hearing the Conservative leader criticising it now rings incredibly hollow—and I think the “Member for Bark-shire” was objecting to her comments. The Leader of the Opposition cheered Conservative Budget after Conservative Budget that did exactly the same thing as the Chancellor has done—raising taxes on the low-paid. The Conservatives dragged an extra 4 million people on very low incomes into paying income tax, and an extra 3.5 million people into paying the 40p rate. The OBR says that this Government are now planning to drag a further three quarters of a million low-paid workers into tax and nearly 1 million people into the 40p rate. Someone on the average salary is paying an extra £582 this year because of the Conservatives’ policy, and under the Chancellor’s plans they will pay an extra £300 a year by 2031.

    Contrast that with our record on income tax. We raised the personal allowance by £4,000. We cut income tax by £825 for millions of people, and took 3.4 million of the lowest-paid out of paying income tax altogether. It is clear that the Liberal Democrats are the only party that believes in cutting income tax for ordinary people; Labour and the Conservatives make them pay more.

    As well as adding income tax pain to families struggling with the cost of living crisis, the Budget will add to the cost of doing business crisis facing Britain’s hospitality sector, on which the Chancellor went nowhere near far enough. Our high streets are suffering. Pubs, restaurants, cafés, caravan parks, zoos and even our beloved theme parks are struggling against higher business rates and the Government’s misguided jobs tax. The Liberal Democrats called on the Chancellor to help them with an emergency 5% VAT cut for hospitality for the next 18 months. That would have been a lifeline for some of our most beloved local businesses and for people’s jobs, boosting local economies across Britain, and it is very disappointing that the Chancellor has not listened to our calls.

    Finally, can I say how disappointed I am at how little there was for carers in this Budget? As a carer myself for much of my life, I am determined to speak up for the millions of carers less fortunate than I am—the millions of family carers and care workers who make enormous sacrifices looking after loved ones, the carers who keep our NHS going and the carers who keep our society going. They deserve far more support from the Government, and I will keep pressing their case.

    I do welcome the carer’s allowance review, but it confirms our argument that the carer’s allowance system is out of date and in need of urgent change, and we are yet to hear commitments to such changes. I welcome the decision to reassess cases where overpayment has caused huge hardship, but with those changes not coming into force for another year, the Government must instruct the Department for Work and Pensions to immediately suspend repayments during that delay and swiftly deliver compensation. More needs to be done to help family carers juggle their jobs with their caring responsibilities, and we urgently need the social care commission to actually start fixing the system on a cross-party basis and make sure that our loved ones get the care they need. The Chancellor cannot claim to be supporting our NHS properly, however much money she puts in, while she and Treasury officials keep blocking the social care reforms that alone can transform the health service across the country and boost our economy.

    A caring society, a growing economy and a plan to drive down household bills, boost high streets and go for growth with Europe—that is the vision the Chancellor should have set out today. Instead we got a low-growth, high-tax Budget from a Government who I fear are just not listening.

  • Kemi Badenoch – 2025 Response to the Budget Statement

    Kemi Badenoch – 2025 Response to the Budget Statement

    The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 26 November 2025.

    Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)

    May I congratulate the right hon. Lady on delivering her second Budget? I hope she enjoyed it, because it really should be her last. What a total humiliation—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker 

    Order. Can colleagues who are exiting the Chamber do so swiftly and quietly, so that we can focus on the Leader of the Opposition?

    Mrs Badenoch 

    It is a total humiliation. Last year, the Chancellor put up taxes by £40 billion—the biggest tax raid in British history. She promised that she would not be back for more. She swore that it was a one-off. She told everyone that from now on, there would be stability and she would pay for everything with growth. Today, she has broken every single one of those promises. If she had any decency, she would resign. At the last Budget, she said she was proud to be the country’s first-ever female Chancellor; after this Budget, she will go down as the country’s worst-ever Chancellor.

    Today—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker 

    Order. The Chief Whip in particular knows that we do not allow clapping in the Chamber.

    Mrs Badenoch 

    Today the Chancellor has announced a new tax raid of £26 billion, and Labour Members were all cheering. Household income is down. Spending policies in this Budget increase borrowing in every year. That smorgasbord of misery we just heard from her can be summed up in one sentence: Labour is hiking taxes to pay for welfare. This is a Budget for “Benefits Street”, paid for by working people.

    This Budget increases benefits for 560,000 families by an average of £5,000. The Government are hiking taxes on workers, pensioners and savers to pay for handouts to keep their Back Benchers quiet. These are the same—[Interruption.] They can chunter all they like. These are the same Back Benchers who cheered last year when the Chancellor taxed jobs and left more than 100,000 people without an income. They cheered because they did not understand the consequences of what they were doing, and they still do not.

    It has not been an easy time for the Chancellor. No one liked seeing her sitting on the Government Benches as it dawned on her that her own Back Benchers were going to do to her political career what she has done to our economy. She could have chosen today to bring down welfare spending and get more people into work. 

    Instead, she has chosen to put up tax after tax after tax—taxes on workers, taxes on savers, taxes on pensioners, taxes on investors and taxes on homes, holidays, cars and even milkshakes. There are taxes on anyone doing the right thing. She and this Government have lost what little credibility they had left, and no one will ever trust her again.

    What is amazing is that the Chancellor has the nerve to come to this House and claim that this is all someone else’s fault. She has a laundry list of excuses. Labour Members blame the Conservatives as if we have been sneaking into the Treasury under the cover of darkness to give pay rises to the unions. The Chancellor inherited an economy with inflation at 2% and record-high employment. She has tanked it in just over a year. She has endless excuses—she blames Brexit and Donald Trump, but she needs to blame herself.

    I have some news for the Chancellor—she did not seem to understand what the OBR was saying. Inflation is up, not down, and that inflation was stoked by her tax and spend decisions. The economic and fiscal outlook says that the OBR expects inflation to stay higher for longer. Everybody else has read the OBR analysis, but she still has not. She blames higher than expected borrowing costs. Where does she think they came from? [Hon. Members: “You!”] Those borrowing costs are driven by the Chancellor’s lack of grip. Labour Members are saying those costs came from us, but she is paying more to borrow than Greece. She is paying more to borrow than at any point under the 14 years of Conservative government—perhaps if Labour MPs read a book sometimes, they would know something—which included an energy crisis sparked by a war in Ukraine and a global pandemic. What is the Chancellor’s excuse? She is taking the public for fools, but they are under no illusions about whose fault this is.

    The fact is that the bad choices the Chancellor is making today—choices to break promises, choices to put up taxes, choices to spend more of other people’s money—are because of the bad choices she made at the last disastrous Budget. If you want growth, you need to start with knowing what kind of country you want to be and make a plan to get there. You need to create certainty for the people and businesses who will drive growth. There is no growth and no plan, because Labour focused on settling scores and scratching the itches it had while in opposition.

    The Chancellor promised stability. She delivered chaos. Just look at the circus around this Budget: first, the leaks—then more leaks to try to undo the damage; calling panicky press conferences and U-turning on her U-turns; rolling the pitch one day only to plough through it the next. She had the cheek to talk about stability, but she has become the first Chancellor in history to release the whole Budget ahead of time. This is extraordinary, and it tells us everything we need to know about her grip on the Treasury. She is making the UK a shambolic laughing stock to international investors, and if she does not resign for breaking her promises, she should sure as hell go for this.

    What have we got for all this chaos and disorder? There are 1 million more people claiming universal credit than there were at the time of the last Budget. Government spending? Up. Welfare spending? Up. Universal credit claimants? Up. Unemployment? Up. 

    Debt interest? Up. Inflation? Up. And what about the things that we want to go up? Growth? Down. Investment? Down. Business confidence? Down. The credibility of the Chancellor? [Hon. Members: “Down!”] Not just down, but through the floor.

    These figures are shocking. Does the Chancellor really think that anyone will be confused by the sleight of hand in her speech? Her speech today was an exercise in self-delusion. Today she had an opportunity to apologise and show some humility; instead, we have been fed puff pieces in The Times and the FT showing a woman wallowing in self-pity and whining about mansplaining and misogyny. Let me explain to the Chancellor—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)

    Order. Colleagues need most definitely to simmer down: just breathe a little and allow the Leader of the Opposition to be heard.

    Mrs Badenoch 

    All we have had is wallowing in self-pity and whining about misogyny and mansplaining, so let me explain to the Chancellor, woman to woman, that people out there are not complaining because she is female; they are complaining because she is utterly incompetent. Real equality means being held to the same standard as everyone else. It means being judged on results. Take the Chancellor’s bright idea: the Office for Value for Money. It has been closed down because it did not save a penny. In fact, it cost the taxpayer £1.6 million. You could not make this stuff up. I have identified a way to save taxpayers huge amounts of money, by sacking just one person: the woman sitting opposite me.

    The ex-chief economist of the Bank of England was not mansplaining when he said that the uncertainty around today’s Budget is

    “the single biggest reason growth has flatlined”.

    What did the Chancellor think would happen when she went on breakfast telly to do an emergency public service announcement: “I interrupt your Cheerios to bring you this frightening message about income tax”? Then, unbelievably, she changed her mind three days later. No wonder people are in despair. She says she wants people to respect her—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)

    Order. Conservative colleagues are drowning out the Leader of the Opposition’s speech, so just be mindful that nobody at home will be able to hear her.

    Mrs Badenoch 

    The Chancellor says that she wants people to respect her, but respect is earned. She apparently told Labour MPs this week, “I’ll show the media, I’ll show the Tories—I will not let them beat me.” Show us what? Making stuff up at the Dispatch Box, incompetent chaos and the highest tax burden in history? She said to them, “I’ll be there on Wednesday, I’ll be there next year, and I’ll be back the year after that.” God help us! She is spineless, shameless and completely aimless.

    Talk to any business and or anyone looking for a job—unemployment is up every single month since Labour has been in office. [Interruption.] Labour MPs do not want to hear it, but it is true. They are shouting and complaining, but they cannot create jobs. It is the worst year for graduate recruitment on record. Are they proud of that? [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker 

    Order. If you are on the Front Bench, I can obviously see you, Mr Kyle. There is no need for you to be chuntering this loudly. Everyone else can see and hear you as well.

    Mrs Badenoch 

    Labour MPs do not want to hear the truth, but I am speaking for all those people out there who are sick of this Government. Companies like Merck and Ineos are slashing investment plans. The construction sector has shrunk. How is that house building target going, by the way? I will tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Government are miles behind and will not even come close to what we achieved. Business confidence is at record lows. No wonder that today future growth was revised down for every year of the scorecard. The papers are reporting that one in eight business leaders is planning to leave Britain. Even one of Labour’s biggest ever donors, Lakshmi Mittal, has fled the country.

    What we have in front of us is a Budget littered with broken promises. The Chancellor stood on a manifesto that promised better returns for UK savers. Today she is putting up taxes on savings and on salary sacrifice even. She promised to give pensioners the security in retirement that they deserve. Today she slapped higher taxes on people saving for their pension. She promised to make Britain the best place in the world to invest and do business. Today she has raised the dividend tax rates. She and the Prime Minister had already broken their promise to freeze council tax, but today she has decided to go even further, introducing a new property tax clobbering family homes that will only raise small amounts. This is Labour’s Britain: people who work hard and save hard to buy their homes get taxed more, while those who do not work—those who, in some cases, refuse to work—get their accommodation paid for by taxpayers.

    To top it all off—because taxing your home, your car, your savings and your pension was not enough—the Chancellor has, by her own admission, broken her manifesto promise on income tax. In the last Budget, she said:

    “I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto, so there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax…thresholds”.

    She also said that

    “extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 821.]

    But today she has done exactly that. Why should anyone believe anything she has promised in this Budget?

    Where is the money going? There are small changes to rail fares and prescriptions. Those are distractions while the Chancellor steals your wallet. The real story is that Labour has lost control of welfare spending. Not only will working people have their tax thresholds frozen while benefits go up in line with inflation, and not only has Labour abandoned reforms that would have saved the taxpayer £5 billion after pressure from its own Back Benchers, but today Labour has added another £3 billion to the bill by scrapping the two-child benefit cap. We introduced that cap, because it means that people on benefits have to make the same decisions about having children as everyone else. Even Labour voters know that it strikes the right balance between supporting people who are struggling and protecting taxpayers who are struggling themselves.

    Just this summer, the Chancellor admitted that lifting the two-child benefit cap was not affordable, but that was before the Prime Minister accidentally fired the starting gun on the race to replace him. Now he and the Chancellor are buying the votes of their own MPs with taxpayers’ money. If she wants to reduce child poverty, she should stop taxing their parents and stop destroying their jobs. She congratulated herself on a new tax on landlords. Let me tell her this: hiking tax on landlords will only push up rents. It will push landlords out of the market, and the people who will suffer are the tenants. Then she talks about taxes on electric vehicles. Those changes will hit rural drivers the hardest, but we know that Labour does not care about rural people.

    All this Budget delivers is higher taxes and out-of-control spending. Nobody voted for this. The Chancellor must take responsibility. She chose to impose the jobs tax, driving unemployment higher month after month. She chose to abandon welfare reform, meaning that the benefits bill is spiralling. She chose to spend more and more money she did not have, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. She is out of money, out of ideas, out of her depth, and she has run out of road.

    The country simply cannot afford a Chancellor who cannot keep her own promises. Her position is untenable, and she knows it. [Interruption.] She is talking to the Prime Minister. Is he mansplaining to you, by the way? Is he mansplaining? Would you like some help? The Prime Minister should grow a backbone and sack her, but he will not, because he knows that if she goes down, he goes down with her, so we are stuck with them both, Laurel and Foolhardy.

    Does the Chancellor have any sympathy for the people facing Christmas without a salary because of her jobs tax, or for the retailers suffering sleepless nights because of their plummeting Christmas sales? People out there are crying. Last year, we had the horrors of the Halloween Budget. This year, it is the nightmare before Christmas. As for her, she is the unwelcome Christmas guest. Ten minutes through the door and she has eaten all the Quality Street.

    Let me tell the Chancellor something she has forgotten. Behind every line in today’s Red Book is a family, a home, and a lifetime of work and sacrifice. People are frightened, and they have every reason to be—the Chancellor has spent the last year terrifying them. Every decision that she and the Prime Minister make puts more pressure on the people who keep this country going. If Labour is the party of working people, why is it that every day under this Government, thousands more people are signing off work and on to benefits? It is the Conservatives who are the party of work. The Labour party should be renamed the Welfare party.

    The Government are making a mistake. The British public do not want higher welfare spending; they want people in work, providing for themselves. They want to live in a country where hard work pays—where what you put in reflects what you get out, and we agree with them. There is an alternative, and we Conservatives have set it out. This Budget could have saved £47 billion, including £23 billion from welfare. The Chancellor could have applied our golden economic rule, allocating half those savings to cutting the deficit and using the rest to cut taxes. [Interruption.] Oh, they are all pretending that they are not listening. It is the shame of the mess that they have made—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)

    Order. Mr Vince! And Mr Thompson, you are so enthusiastic that I was worried a moment ago that you would knock Mr Waugh off his seat. We need to calm down and breathe, and we need to ensure that we can hear the Leader of the Opposition.

    Mrs Badenoch 

    Even the dog is laughing at the Chancellor, Madam Deputy Speaker.

    The Chancellor could have abolished stamp duty on homes to get the housing market moving, and she could have abolished business rates on shops to breathe life into our high streets. She could have introduced our cheap power plan, which would save a lot more money than what she announced, and would bring down energy costs for homes and businesses. That is what she should have done.

    The Chancellor should be on the side of people who get up and go to work, people who take a risk to start a company, and people working all hours to keep their business afloat. She should be on the side of the farmer trying to hand something over to the next generation, and the investor deciding whether to spend their money in the UK or elsewhere. She should be on the side of the young person looking for their first job, the saver doing the right thing and putting money away for a rainy day, and the pensioner trying to enjoy a decent retirement. This country works when we make the country work for those people. Only the Conservatives are on their side, and our plan for them is simple: bring down energy costs, cut spending, cut tax, back business, and get Britain working again.

  • Rachel Reeves – 2025 Budget Statement

    Rachel Reeves – 2025 Budget Statement

    The statement made by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 26 November 2025.

    It is my understanding that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” was released on its website before this statement. This is deeply disappointing and a serious error on its part. It has already made a statement taking full responsibility for its breach.

    We are rebuilding our economy. Over the last 16 months, we have overhauled our planning system to get Britain building; forged new trade deals with the United States, India and the European Union; reformed our visa system to bring the brightest and the best to Britain; changed the fiscal rules that we inherited from the Conservatives; and raised public investment to its highest level in four decades. In last year’s Budget, I raised taxes on business and the wealthiest to close the £22 billion black hole in the public finances left by the Conservative party. We used that money to fund the biggest ever settlement for our national health service.

    Those were the fair and necessary choices. We faced opposition to them—from opponents to planning reform who will always demand that the future is built somewhere else, not in their backyard; opponents to trade who want to take us down the path of isolation and division; opponents to investment who believe that the only good thing a Government can do is get out of the way; opponents who insist that the only way to balance the books is to cut public spending; and opponents who say that we do not need to balance the books at all. But we made these choices for a reason: because after 14 years of Conservative Government, working people demanded—and deserved—change, with investment, not cuts, to our public services; stability for our public finances, which is the single most important factor in getting the cost of living down; and economic growth, which is the best means of improving wages, creating jobs and supporting public services. That is what our plan, this Government and our Prime Minister are all about.

    Today’s Budget builds on the choices that we have made since July last year to cut NHS waiting lists, to cut the cost of living, and to cut debt and borrowing. No doubt, we will face opposition again, but I have yet to see a credible or a fairer alternative plan for working people. [Interruption.] These are my choices: the right choices for a fairer, a stronger and a more secure Britain.

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. There is far too much noise. I expected so much better from you, Dr Luke Evans; you are meant to be a leader in your community. Simmer down.

    Rachel Reeves
    I am happy for them to shout as much as they like, Madam Deputy Speaker, as long as they do it from the Opposition Benches, where they cannot cause any more damage.

    I said that there would be no return to austerity, and I meant it. This Budget will maintain investment in our economy and in our national health service. I said that I would cut the cost of living, and I meant it. This Budget will bring down inflation and provide immediate relief for families. I said that I would cut debt and borrowing, and I meant it. Because of this Budget, borrowing will fall as a share of GDP in every year of this forecast. Our net financial debt will be lower at the end of the forecast than it is today, and I will more than double the headroom against our stability rule to £21.7 billion, meeting our stability rule, and meeting it a year early. These are my choices—not austerity, not borrowing, not turning a blind eye to unfairness. My choices are a Budget for fair taxes, strong public services and a stable economy. That is the Labour choice.

    Growth is the engine that carries every one of our ambitions forward, through stability, investment and reform. It is the platform from which British ambition can finally get moving again. Growth does not just appear out of thin air; it is built, patiently and stubbornly, by people who take risks; by founders who bet their savings on an idea; by firms breaking into new markets, developing new technologies and creating new jobs and new opportunities; and by the men and the women who work hard every day, in all parts of our country. Our job is not to watch from the sidelines, but to partner with them, backing them every step of the way, and to match private enterprise with public ambition.

    I thank my team of officials at the Treasury for their hard work in preparing this Budget. In the spring, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that our economy would grow by 1% this year. I said then that Britain would defy the forecasts, and defy them we have. The OBR has upgraded Britain’s growth for this year from 1% to 1.5%, reaching the same conclusions as the International Monetary Fund, the OECD and the Bank of England, which have already upgraded their forecasts.

    Today, the OBR has published the result of its review of the supply side of the economy. It is clear that this is not about the last 14 months; it is about the previous 14 years, the legacy of Brexit and the pandemic, and the damaging decisions by the Conservative party, which cut public spending, leaving communities and entire regions behind, starved our economy of investment, and weakened our public services.

    As a result of its review, the OBR is reducing its expectations for productivity growth by 0.3 percentage points to 1% by the end of the forecast. It says today:

    “Real GDP is forecast to grow by 1.5% on average over the forecast period…due to lower underlying productivity growth.”

    There is an impact on our public finances too. The OBR says that its productivity forecast will mean £16 billion less in tax receipts by 2030. Those forecasts are the Tories’ legacy, not Britain’s destiny. [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. It is very hard to hear the Chancellor over all the shouting. Mr Holmes, you promised me yesterday that you would be on your top behaviour in the first few minutes. I call the Chancellor.

    Rachel Reeves
    We beat the forecasts this year, and we will beat them again by boosting trade, not blocking it; by increasing investment, not cutting it; by championing innovation, not stifling it; and by backing working people, not making them poorer. Brick by brick, we have been building our economy—building roads, building homes, and getting spades in the ground and cranes in the sky.

    Growth begins with a spark from an entrepreneur. Half of new jobs in Britain are created by scale-up businesses, and we want those jobs created here, not somewhere else. Our job is to make Britain the best place in the world to start up, to scale up and to stay. We are widening eligibility for our enterprise incentives, so that scale-ups can attract the talent and capital that they need; expanding the enterprise management incentive, so that more companies can offer tax-relieved share options; re-engineering our enterprise investment and venture capital trust schemes, so that they do not just back early-stage ideas, but stay with companies as they grow; and introducing UK listings relief, with a three-year exemption from stamp duty reserve tax for companies that choose to list here in Britain.

    To continue this work, I am launching a call for evidence on how our tax system can better back entrepreneurs, and a targeted review with founders and investors at its heart, to make the UK an even more attractive place to grow a business. We are sending a simple message to the world: “If you build here, Britain will back you.”

    Our retail investment system should do the same. The UK has some of the lowest levels of retail investment in the G7, and that is not only bad for businesses, which need that investment to grow; it is bad for savers, too. Someone who had invested £1,000 a year in an average stocks and shares individual savings account every year since 1999 would be £50,000 better off today than if they had put the same money into a cash ISA. So from April 2027, I will reform our ISA system, keeping the full £20,000 allowance while designating £8,000 of it exclusively for investment, with over-65s retaining the full cash allowance. Thanks to our changes to financial advice and guidance, banks will be able to guide savers to better choices for their hard-earned money. Over 50% of the ISA market, including Hargreaves Lansdown, HSBC, Lloyds, Vanguard and Barclays, have signed up to launch new online hubs to help people invest here in Britain.

    At this Budget, consistent with the commitments in our corporate tax road map, I will retain our competitive corporation tax rate, the lowest in the G7, and retain our generous full expensing offer for business investment. I will also introduce a new 40% first year allowance, so that businesses can write off more of the cost of their investment up front, while reducing main rate writing-down allowances in line with fiscal constraints.

    Private investment is the lifeblood of economic growth, but growth needs public investment too. When faced with challenges, previous Chancellors have chosen to decrease, delay or cancel capital spending, but low investment is the cause of our productivity problems, not the solution. So my choice is not cuts, not stagnation, but to maintain the additional £120 billion of investment that I provided at the spending review: in transport to link our towns and cities; in energy infrastructure to power our businesses; and in housing, so that people can live near good jobs and growing businesses that pay decent wages. That is the Labour choice.

    I am grateful to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for his work in driving our growth agenda forward. As we allocate investment for the infrastructure that is the backbone of economic growth across our country, today I will commit investment for the lower Thames crossing, and we are continuing to drive investment in city region transport, in the midlands rail hub and the trans-Pennine route upgrade, along with our commitment to the northern growth corridor, including Northern Powerhouse Rail.

    It this Labour Government that have overhauled our planning system, and I will today provide further funding to increase planning capacity through a new skills offer, as has been called for by the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry. It is this Labour Government that have invested in nuclear power: in Sizewell C and in Culham. We are taking forward our commitment to slash electricity prices for thousands of manufacturing businesses, as Make UK and many others have called for. Today, I am pleased to welcome John Fingleton’s report—an ambitious plan to cut the red tape that has tied our nuclear industry in knots for decades—and within three months we will set out our plan for delivering his recommendations.

    We are proud of our industrial heritage and we are determined to build the industry of the future so that we buy, make and sell more here in Britain. That is why, as we increase defence spending, we are investing in Portsmouth, in Barrow and in Plymouth, and I am pleased to be supporting Team Derby, an initiative to drive growth in one of our defence industry hubs. It is why we stepped in to save British Steel in Scunthorpe and invested in Sheffield Forgemasters. It is why we have changed Government procurement so we can buy British when it is crucial to our national security. For steel, for shipbuilding and today for AI, we are driving innovation and building that great industry here in Britain.

    But it is not just what we invest in that matters; it is how we invest—putting money and power back in the hands of local and regional leaders. Today, we are devolving £13 billion of flexible funding for seven mayors to invest in skills, business support and infrastructure. I am extending the business rates retention pilots in the west of England, Liverpool city region and Cornwall until 2029, and providing £30 million for the Kernow industrial growth fund for sectors like critical minerals and marine innovation. I am establishing the Leeds city fund, a long-term agreement to retain business rates to fund local regeneration projects like the development of Leeds south bank, and I am allocating £20 million for the new Peterborough sports quarter and £16 million for a science centre in Darlington from the growth mission fund.

    The benefits of investment and growth must be built and felt in every part of our United Kingdom, so we are providing an additional £370 million for the Northern Ireland Executive, £505 million for the Welsh Government and £820 million for the Scottish Government over the spending review period through the Barnett formula. Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that from the SNP. Did they not show up? Perhaps they didn’t hear us: £820 million for the Scottish Government over the spending review period because Anas Sarwar asked us to. I am making targeted investments in our industrial strategy sectors across the UK.

    In Northern Ireland, I am providing £17 million to support businesses and strengthen the UK internal market, and backing advanced manufacturing through the Northern Ireland enhanced investment zone. Wales will be the host for two AI growth zones, creating more than 8,000 jobs supported by a £10 million investment in the semiconductors critical for that industry. We are building the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors with Rolls-Royce at Wylfa in Anglesey—two Labour Governments working together in Wales to deliver for the people of Wales.

    In Scotland, I am committing over £14 million for low-carbon technologies in Grangemouth, £20 million to renew infrastructure at Inchgreen in Inverclyde and £20 million to redevelop Kirkcaldy town centre and seafront with construction starting next year. That is on top of the UK’s biggest ever warship export deal with the Norwegian Government to build frigates in Glasgow, supporting 4,000 jobs. Investment opposed by the SNP, jobs opposed by the SNP, defence opposed by the SNP, but secured by this Labour Government.

    A growing economy needs strong foundations of economic stability, with borrowing and inflation down and investment up. That is good for business, and it is good for working people so they have more money in their pockets. Economic stability, safeguarded by iron-clad fiscal rules, is our best defence against rising prices and the best way to improve living standards.

    We have all seen the alternative. Three years ago, in their clamour to cut taxes for the richest, the Tories under Liz Truss crashed the economy, sent mortgage rates spiralling and brought pensions to the brink. [Interruption.] They are being so loud, and yet I can’t even hear them now. I know that the leader of the Green party is a keen hypnotherapist, and believes that he can achieve remarkable things using only the power of his mind. Unfortunately, the only things getting bigger under his approach would be the deficit and the rate of inflation.

    For all the damage that the Conservative cuts did to our schools and hospitals, they also doubled the national debt. Our net financial debt this year will be £2.6 trillion, 83% of GDP, meaning that today £1 in every £10 the Government spend is on debt interest—not on paying down that debt, but just on paying the interest on the debt we inherited from the Conservatives.

    My fiscal rules will get borrowing down while supporting investment: the stability rule—that day-to-day expenditure must be met through tax receipts—and the investment rule, which allows me to increase investment while getting debt on a downward path. Those fiscal rules are non-negotiable. I met them at the Budget last year, I met them in the spring and I have met them today.

    While the current Budget balance is in deficit by £28.8 billion in ’26-27 and £4.6 billion in ’27-28, it moves into a surplus of £3.9 billion in ’28-29, £21.7 billion in ’29-30 and £24.6 billion in ’30-31—more than doubling our headroom against the stability rule and meeting that rule a year early, too. Our net financial debt is 83.3% in ’26-27, 83.6% in ’27-28, 83.7% in ’28-29, falling to 83.0% in ’29-30 and 82.2% in ’30-31. I said we would cut the debt and we are, with debt down by the end of the forecast. Going forward, to support our commitment to a single fiscal event and to further strengthen our economic stability, I will follow the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund by assessing the fiscal rules just once a year at the Budget.

    Despite the challenges we face on productivity, the path of our deficit reduction remains broadly the same as in the spring. Public sector net borrowing is due to be £112.1 billion or 3.5% of GDP in ’26-27, 3.0% in ’27-28, 2.6% in ’28-29, 1.9% in ’29-30 and 1.9% in ’30-31, ending at £67.2 billion, translating into an increase in the net cash requirement next year of £4.2 billion, taking the total to £133.3 billion. According to the IMF, we are due to reduce borrowing more over the rest of this Parliament than any other G7 economy.

    The Conservatives crashed the economy; we are protecting it. The Conservatives lost control of debt; we are getting debt down. The Conservatives let inflation and interest rates go through the roof, but since Labour took office the Bank of England has cut interest rates five times. I have made my choices: not reckless borrowing, not dangerous cuts, but stability for our economy, security for our public finances and security for family finances, too. Those are the Labour choices.

    Tory austerity left classrooms crumbling and waiting lists sky high, weakened our productivity and choked our economic growth, and now the Conservatives propose a further £47 billion of cuts to our public services. That is the equivalent of cutting every police officer in our country twice over. Then there is Reform, which promises more than £100 billion of cuts with no detail on where those cuts will come from or who will pay for them—a recipe for devastating damage to our public services.

    People voted for Labour because they want roads that are not full of potholes, police on our streets, and an NHS that is there when they need it. We are delivering that. Waiting lists are down by 230,000, and we have already delivered not just the 2 million additional appointments that we promised, but an additional 5.2 million appointments since the general election.

    I joined the Labour party almost 30 years ago because I could see that the Conservative Government I grew up under did not care much about schools like mine. Textbooks were rationed—[Interruption.] I know that many of you were not at schools like mine. [Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. There is far too much noise, far too much excitement. People need to calm down a little.

    Rachel Reeves
    The Tories do not want to hear what they did to schools like mine, but I will tell them. Textbooks were rationed, libraries closed and kids herded into portacabins in the playground. I came into politics to change that. The money that I allocated at the spending review will fix the crumbling classrooms that the Conservatives left behind, and build the schools they promised but never delivered.

    Today, thanks to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), I will provide £5 million for libraries in secondary schools, building on the £10 million commitment to ensure that every primary school has a school library within this Parliament. Thanks to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen), I am providing £18 million to improve and upgrade playgrounds across England. Let there be no doubt that this Government are on the side of our kids and will back their potential.

    I will not allow the legacies of Conservative neglect to stain our society. Last year, I made changes to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme to ensure that its members receive the fair pensions that they are owed. This year, with thanks to the Minister for Pensions for all his work on this subject, I can go further. I have heard representations from Labour coalfield MPs, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (Jo White), for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) and for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), and I can today announce that I will transfer the investment reserve fund of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme to its members, so that the men and women who worked in our coal industry get a fair deal in their retirement, too. And there is more. Having heard representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Sean Woodcock) and for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), I will index for inflation on pensions accrued before 1997 in the pension protection fund and the financial assurance scheme, so that people whose pension schemes became insolvent—no fault of their own—no longer lose out as a result of inflation.

    Last year, I also provided funding to compensate the victims of the infected blood scandal, after the previous Government failed to budget for the costs of compensation. This year, I have listened to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) and for Edinburgh South West. I thank the Minister for Employment for her representations over many years on this subject. As a result, I will exempt all payments from the infected blood scheme from inheritance tax, regardless of the circumstances in which those payments are passed down. That is how we should be spending taxpayers’ money: on dealing with injustices and building strong public services, not on waste and inefficiency.

    At the spending review, I set out an ambitious target for £14 billion of efficiencies per year by 2029. I am grateful to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for driving that work forward, realising savings through artificial intelligence and automation, and by scrapping NHS England and reducing back-office staff by 18,000. At this Budget, I will find a further £4.9 billion of efficiencies by 2031, by getting rid of police and crime commissioners, cutting the cost of politics and local government, and selling Government assets that we no longer have any use for.

    These savings will be required across Government, but for our national health service, I will invest all those savings back into the care that people rely on—more nurses, more GPs and more appointments, restoring the services that faltered under years of Conservative decline and investing in the future of our national health service. Today, I am announcing £300 million of investment in technology to improve patient service, and 250 new neighbourhood health centres, expanding more services into communities so that people can receive treatment outside hospitals and get better, faster care where they live. More than 100 of those centres will be delivered by 2030, including in Birmingham, Truro and Southall. The Labour party founded our national health service, and we will renew our national health service.

    I will take the same approach for defence spending that I take for NHS spending, reinvesting savings back into our national security. In our age of insecurity, Britain will continue to stand with our allies, working in collaboration to secure a sustainable ceasefire for Ukraine, and maintaining our commitment to NATO, with the UK set to spend 2.6% of GDP on defence by April 2027.

    The public rightly expects that we stamp out fraud, error and waste, and put that money to good use in our schools, hospitals and other frontline services. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already announced that she will claw back excess profits from the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, as we phase out the use of those hotels entirely. And we will consult on reforms to indefinite leave to remain and access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

    The introduction of digital ID will break the link between illegal migration and illegal working, and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the fair work agency will crack down on the illicit businesses that blight our high streets and undercut legitimate firms, enforcing the minimum wage, investigating dodgy businesses and increasing scrutiny of the gig economy, as well as tracking down fraudulent business owners who vanish without paying their taxes. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for their representations on this subject. I will take further steps to prevent and track down unpaid tax. Together, these reforms will raise nearly £10 billion a year by 2030, including through new powers for HMRC to pursue the promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

    I am building on our successful use of targeted checks on welfare claims to root out fraud and error and to prevent public money from being paid to people who are not entitled to it. I thank Tom Hayhoe, the covid corruption commissioner, for his work in helping to chase down nearly £400 million from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts. Tory contracts handed out by Tory Ministers to Tory peers and Tory friends—[Interruption.] That money belongs in our schools, in our hospitals—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. It is so noisy in here we can barely hear the Chancellor. Everybody needs to calm down.

    Rachel Reeves
    I would not want any hon. Member to miss this. We are chasing down that money and have almost £400 million back from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts. Tory contracts handed out by Tory Ministers to Tory peers and Tory donors. That money belongs in our schools and in our hospitals, and we are getting it back.

    Finally, we are ramping up sanctions on Russia and freezing known Russian assets. Let me be clear, I do not mean the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). Under the Conservatives —[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    Order. We do not need commentary from the Back Benches. Mr Dewhirst, you are so loud; it is remarkable how far your voice carries.

    Rachel Reeves
    Under the Conservatives, the cost of our welfare system increased by nearly 1 percentage point of GDP—equivalent to £88 billion in just five years. The broken welfare system that we inherited wrote off millions of people as too sick to work. We will reform that system, so that it is a system that does not count the cost of failure, but rather one that protects people who cannot work and empowers those who can.

    We have brought back face-to-face assessments for disability benefits—those are the face-to-face assessments that the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), got rid of when he was Work and Pensions Secretary. Our changes to universal credit will get 15,000 people back into work—a figure confirmed today.

    The former Heath Secretary, Alan Milburn, will review the causes of rising youth inactivity, and we are already taking action. I am grateful to the Federation of Small Businesses and Small Business Britain for their representations on apprenticeships, and today I am announcing funding to make the training for under-25 apprenticeships completely free for small and medium-sized enterprises. I am funding our new youth guarantee, providing £820 million over the next three years to give the young people who were let down by the Conservatives the support and opportunity they deserve, guaranteeing every young person a place in college, an apprenticeship or personalised job support. After 18 months, 18 to 21-year-olds will be offered paid work, not benefits.

    The Motability scheme was set up to protect the most vulnerable, not to subsidise the lease on a Mercedes-Benz, and so I am making reforms that will reduce generous taxpayer subsidies. Motability have confirmed that it will remove luxury vehicles from the scheme, getting the scheme back to its original purpose of offering cost-effective leases to disabled people.

    Taxpayers’ money should not be spent on pensions for people abroad who only lived here for a couple of years and may never have paid a penny of tax. The Conservatives allowed thousands of people living abroad to buy their way into the state pension for as little as £3.50 a week, debasing the purpose of our pension system. I will abolish access to class 2 voluntary national insurance contributions for people living abroad, increasing the time that someone has to live or work in Britain to 10 years, and increasing the contributions they must pay. These reforms improve our welfare system: they support our young people; protect those who need it most; and put an end to Conservative waste and unfairness.

    To break the cycle of austerity we need a fair and sustainable tax system, one that generates revenues to fund the public services we all use, and supports investment to grow our economy. That does mean that today I am asking everyone to make a contribution. The previous Conservative Government froze personal tax thresholds from 2021 until 2028. Today, I will maintain all income tax and equivalent national insurance thresholds at their current level for three further years from 2028—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. The noise is far too high.

    Rachel Reeves
    The Leader of the Opposition supported these freezes when her party made them; she might want to forget about that, but the British people never will.

    At the same time, we are ensuring that people only in receipt of the basic or new state pension do not have to pay small amounts of tax through simple assessment from April 2027. I will also keep the plan 2 student loan repayments threshold at its 2026-27 level for three years.

    I know that maintaining the thresholds is a decision that will affect working people. I said that last year and I will not pretend otherwise now. I am asking everyone to make a contribution, but I can keep that contribution as low as possible because I will make further reforms to our tax system today to make it fairer, and to ensure the wealthiest contribute the most.

    The Conservatives knew that our tax system did not work. Time and time again, they ducked the necessary reforms, leaving a system unfit for a changing economy, with unfairness that they refused to address. Currently, a landlord with an income of £25,000 will pay nearly £1,200 less in tax than their tenant with the same salary, because no national insurance is charged on property, dividend or savings income. It is not fair that the tax system treats different types of income so differently, and so I will increase the basic and higher rate of tax on property, savings and dividend income by 2 percentage points, and the additional rate of tax on property and savings income by 2 percentage points. Even after these reforms, 90% of taxpayers will still pay no tax at all on their savings.

    I also believe that, as well as narrowing the gap between the tax on income from assets and income from work, a fair society is one where the wealthiest pay their fair share. The reforms I made last year will raise an additional £8 billion a year by 2030 from wealth. I increased taxes last year on private equity, private schools and private jets, and I abolished the non-dom tax regime. This year I will make two changes to cap trust charges and prevent avoidance. I reformed inheritance tax on agricultural and business assets and this year—[Interruption.] This year I am aligning those reforms with wider inheritance tax rules by allowing the transfer of the 100% relief allowance between spouses, balancing the taxation of these valuable assets with the realities of family life.

    In this Budget, I will take further steps to deal with a long-standing source of wealth inequality in our country. A band D home in Darlington or Blackpool pays just under £2,400 in council tax, nearly £300 more than a £10 million mansion in Mayfair, and so from 2028, I am introducing the high value council tax surcharge in England, an annual £2,500 charge for properties worth more than £2 million, rising to £7,500 for properties worth more than £5 million. This will be collected alongside council tax, levied on owners, and we will consult on options for support or deferral. This new surcharge will raise over £400 million by 2031 and will be charged on less than the top 1% of properties.

    Reliefs in our tax system cost the taxpayer billions of pounds a year, but many of them no longer serve their original purpose. The Government rightly provides generous tax relief for people paying into a pension, relieving income tax on all contributions and on the investment itself, as well as national insurance relief on employer contributions, at a cost of over £70 billion a year to the Exchequer. This Budget makes no changes to those reliefs or to the tax-free lump sum.

    However, salary sacrifice for pensions, which was intended to be a small part of our pensions system, is forecast almost to treble in cost to other taxpayers, from £2.8 billion in 2017 to £8 billion by 2030, with the greatest benefit going to the highest earners, or to those in the financial services sector putting their bonuses into pensions tax-free, while those on the minimum wage or whose employers do not offer salary sacrifice do not benefit at all. That is not sustainable for our public finances, putting pressure on the tax that everyone else pays.

    I am therefore introducing a £2,000 cap on salary sacrifice into a pension, with contributions above that taxed in the same way as other employee pension contributions. It is a pragmatic step so that people, especially on low and middle incomes, can continue to use salary sacrifice for their pension without paying any more tax than they do now.

    To give individuals and employers time to adjust to these new arrangements, these changes will come into effect in 2029.

    The coalition Government introduced 100% relief from capital gains tax on business sales made to employee ownership trusts, creating a route for gains to go completely untaxed when businesses are sold. I will reduce that relief to 50%, retaining a strong incentive for employee-owned companies. As we work towards doubling the size of the co-operative economy, the Department for Business and Trade will launch a call for evidence on how we can better support co-ops to grow. As a result of the changes that I have made to capital gains tax this year and last year, receipts are forecast to increase from £14 billion this year to £30 billion by 2030.

    To support our high streets, I am announcing a package of regulatory changes, as called for by UKHospitality and the British Retail Consortium. I will support the great British pub through our new national licensing framework, encouraging councils to back our pubs and to back late-night venues with greater freedoms. For business rates, I will introduce permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties—the lowest rates since 1991, paid for through higher rates on properties worth more than £500,000, such as the warehouses used by online giants. Alongside this, I will introduce a package of support worth over £4.3 billion over the next three years for a property of any size seeing a large increase in their bill. To support a level playing field in retail, I will stop online firms from undercutting our high street businesses, by ensuring that customs duty applies on parcels of any value.

    I will reform our motoring taxes, exempting search and rescue vehicles from vehicle excise duty, as called for by my hon. Friends the Members for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) and for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister). All cars contribute to wear and tear on our roads, so I will ensure that drivers are taxed according to how much they drive, not just by the type of car they own, by introducing the electric vehicle excise duty on electric cars. That will be payable each year alongside vehicle excise duty at 3p per mile for electric cars, and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids, helping us to double road maintenance funding in England over the course of this Parliament.

    Alongside that, I am providing support to boost our British car industry: increasing the threshold for the expensive car supplement on electric vehicles to £50,000, saving over a million motorists £440 a year; providing £1.3 billion additional funding for the electric car grant, extending it to 2030, taking total funding to £2 billion; and delaying changes to the employee car ownership scheme. In addition, we are investing a further £200 million to accelerate the roll-out of EV charging, as well as 100% business rates relief for EV charge points for the next decade, with thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) for his representations on that policy.

    I will improve competition in our taxi industry by ending ride-hailing companies’ use of a discount scheme intended for coach tours, as called for by Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association: legislating to restrict access so that everyone pays fairly, and protecting £700 million of tax revenue each year.

    I am responding to our consultation on landfill tax, and listening to representations particularly from our house building industry. I will not converge towards a single rate, but I will prevent the gap between the two rates from widening, to balance the need to address tax avoidance in the current structure. I will today publish Ray McCann’s report into the loan charge, along with the Government’s response, setting out a new settlement opportunity that will finally allow people to finalise their position and draw a line under this long-standing issue. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for her representations on this subject.

    I will continue with the planned uprating for tobacco duties that I set out last year, and uprate alcohol duties by inflation, alongside our plans to introduce a vaping products duty in 2026, and the changes to the soft drinks industry levy announced by my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary yesterday. I thank the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury for his work on all the tax measures in this Budget.

    I will also reform gambling taxes in response to the rise in online gambling. Remote gaming is associated with the highest levels of harm, and so I am increasing remote gaming duty from 21% to 40%, with duty on online betting increasing from 15% to 25%. I am making no change to the taxes on in-person gambling or on horseracing, and I am abolishing bingo duty entirely from April next year. Taken together, my reforms to gambling tax will raise over £1 billion per year by 2031.

    As a result of the tax reforms I have made today, I can confirm that I will not be increasing national insurance, the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT. I have kept everyone’s contribution as low as possible, through reforms to make our tax system stronger, closing loopholes, ensuring that the wealthiest pay their share, and building a tax system that is fairer for the future as our economy changes.

    On the day I became Chancellor, I said that I would judge my time in office a success if I knew that ordinary children from working-class backgrounds were living more fulfilling lives—their horizons expanded; their potential realised. I joined the Labour party, I came into politics, because I believe that every child has equal worth and deserves an equal chance to achieve their promise. The biggest barrier to equal opportunity is child poverty, because for every child that grows up in poverty, our society pays a triple cost.

    The first and heaviest is to the child: going to school hungry; waking up in a cold home, or in another B&B. While other children enjoy the advantages of parents with time to help with homework, or a quiet space at home to work in, too many go without. There is also the cost of supporting a family in poverty, which ends up in the lap of overstretched councils that can do no more than shunt them into temporary accommodation, at huge cost to local taxpayers. Then there is the future cost to our economy and our society, of wasted talent, and a welfare system that bears the cost of failure for decades to come: young people with so much to contribute, but whose potential is suffocated early by limited life chances and missed opportunities, struggling to make their way in a society that did not look out for them.

    I do not intend to preside over a status quo that punishes children for the circumstances of their birth and demands that we all pay three times over for it. Since last July, we have rolled out free breakfast clubs in schools, and we are expanding free school meals to half a million more kids, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty as we do it. We have passed the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, and we have extended the childcare offer.

    I am proud of all that, but it is not enough, because there is one policy that pushes kids into poverty more than any other. It was introduced by the Conservatives. They said it would save money, and that it would bring about “behavioural change”, disincentivising poorer families from having more children. Even on its own terms the policy failed: the welfare bill has continued to rise, and there has been no difference in the size of families. What it has done since it was introduced is push hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. They said they were punishing parents’ choices, but it is the kids who have paid the price.

    They have paid the price for the policies of a party that opted for cynical gimmicks over real savings in our welfare system.

    I understand that many families are finding times hard, and that many have had to make difficult choices when it comes to having kids. There are many reasons why people choose to have children and then find themselves in difficult times: the death of a partner, separation, ill health, a lost job. I do not believe that children should have to bear the brunt of that.

    And neither can I in good conscience leave in place the vile policy known as the rape clause, which requires women to prove their child has been conceived non-consensually, to receive support. I am proud to be Britain’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer and I take the responsibilities that come with that seriously. I will not tolerate the grotesque indignity to women of the rape clause any longer. It is dehumanising, it is cruel and I will remove it from the statute book.

    So because I am tackling fraud and error in our welfare system, cracking down on tax avoidance and reforming gambling taxation, I can announce today, fully costed and fully funded, the removal of the two-child limit in full from April. [Interruption.] It is amazing what people get so angry about. We have seen the Conservatives’ true colours today—the thing they get angry about is lifting children out of poverty—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. Our constituents want to hear the Chancellor.

    Rachel Reeves
    I think our constituents have heard all they need to from Conservative Members today. We on the Labour Benches do not believe that the solution to a broken welfare system is to punish the most vulnerable. We are lifting 450,000 children out of poverty with the end of the two-child limit. Combined with other actions that we are taking, this Labour Government are achieving the biggest reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since records began. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making.

    I know how worried families are about the cost of everything. They are worried that their money will not stretch to the end of the month—

    Nigel Huddleston
    (Droitwich and Evesham) (Con)
    Just increase tax.

    Rachel Reeves
    I think if you have a house that is worth £5 million, then you can probably afford it, but Conservative Members get more exercised about reducing child poverty than they do about the richest paying more.

    Under this Government, wages have risen by more since we were elected than in 10 years under the last Government, with lower interest rates already saving families £1,200 a year off a typical new mortgage. Compare that to when Liz Truss was Prime Minister. But I know that people still face pressure on their budgets, day to day and week to week, and where there is more we can do to provide relief, we are doing it: extending the bus fare cap, cracking down on rip-off price hikes, freezing prescription charges and freezing rail fares for the first time in 30 years.

    I am increasing the basic and new state pension by 4.8%, an increase of £440 per year for the basic state pension and an increase of £575 per year for the new state pension, in line with our commitment to the triple lock. At the election, we promised a genuine living wage and we are delivering it. At the Budget last year, I increased the national minimum wage and the national living wage, and I am doing the same this year too. I am accepting the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission in full and increasing the minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds from £10 to £10.85 per hour, and increasing the living wage from £12.21 to £12.71 per hour.

    Under current plans, the temporary 5p cut to fuel duty that was introduced during the pandemic will come to an end in April and fuel duty will be uprated in line with inflation. But I know that the cost of travelling to and from work is still too expensive, so I am extending the 5p cut until September 2026. Because I know that changes in wholesale prices are not always passed on to motorists, I am bringing in new rules to mandate petrol forecourts to share real-time prices through a new fuel finder, empowering drivers to find the cheapest fuel, calling out rip-offs and strengthening competition, saving the average household £40 a year.

    One of the greatest drivers of the rising cost of living is energy prices. The cause of high energy bills must be tackled at source, and so we are investing in energy security—in nuclear and renewable energy—and in insulation through the warm homes plan, but that is not enough when people are struggling with energy bills today. The Conservatives’ energy company obligation scheme was presented as a plan to tackle fuel poverty. It costs households £1.7 billion a year on their bills, and for 97% of families in fuel poverty, the scheme—get this—has cost them more than it has saved. It is a failed scheme, and so I am scrapping it, along with taking other legacy costs off bills.

    As a result, I can tell the House today that for every family we are keeping our promise to get energy bills and the cost of living down, with £150 cut from the average household bill from April next year—money off bills and in the pockets of working people. That is my choice, not to neglect Britain’s energy security, like the Tories did, and not to leave working families to bear the brunt of high prices, like the Tories did, but to get energy costs down now and in the future. That is the Labour choice.

    And, Madam Deputy Speaker, one more thing: because of our action on bills and on prices, as a direct result of this Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed today that inflation is coming down faster and will be a full 0.4 percentage points lower next year. That is the benefit of a Labour Government cutting the cost of living.

    This Labour Government are changing our country. In the face of challenges on our productivity, I will grow our economy through stability, investment and reform. I have met my fiscal rules and built our economic resilience for the future. I have asked everyone to contribute—yes—for the security of our country and the brightness of its future, but I have kept that contribution as low as possible by reforming our tax system, making it fairer and stronger for the future.

    I have protected our NHS, maintaining public investment and driving efficiency in government spending. I have taken action on our broken welfare system, rooting out waste and lifting children out of poverty. And I have cut the cost of living, with money off bills and prices frozen, all while keeping every single one of our manifesto commitments—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker
    (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
    Order. Mr Rankin and Ms Morton, your voices carry right across the Chamber—try to take a breath every so often.

    Rachel Reeves
    Those are my choices, not austerity and not reckless borrowing, but cutting the debt, cutting waiting lists and cutting the cost of living. Those are Labour choices, promised and delivered by this Budget—promised and delivered by this Labour Government. I commend this statement to the House.

    Provisional collection of taxes

    Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 51(2)),

    That, pursuant to section 5 of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968, provisional statutory effect shall be given to the following motions:—

    (a) Stamp duty reserve tax (UK listing relief) (motion no. 60);

    (b) Rates of tobacco products duty (motion no. 65).—(Rachel Reeves.)

    Question agreed to.

  • Andy Burnham – 2025 Comments on Tourist Tax

    Andy Burnham – 2025 Comments on Tourist Tax

    The comments made by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, on 25 November 2025.

    It’s great news that the Government is committing to giving regional mayors the powers to introduce a visitor levy – a measure we have long called for. Greater Manchester already has a thriving visitor economy, and a visitor levy will help us sustain good growth over the next decade.

    I’m proud that nearly two million people from all over the world choose to visit Greater Manchester every year. The money they spend contributes about £9 billion annually to our economy, supporting over 100,000 jobs. The levy will allow us to invest in the infrastructure these visitors need, like keeping our streets clean and enhancing our public transport system through later running buses and trams, making sure every experience is a positive and memorable one.

  • Dan Jarvis – 2025 Speech on Cyber Threats

    Dan Jarvis – 2025 Speech on Cyber Threats

    The speech made by Dan Jarvis, the Security Minister, in London on 24 November 2025.

    It’s great to be here with you all today. 

    I’m also really pleased that the invitation for today’s conference actually reached you, and didn’t fall into your email’s junk folder. 

    But if you are here because you picked up this invitation in your spam, I just want to be crystal clear – we are not giving away a free Lamborghini at today’s event.

    Hopefully everybody is connected to the wifi, and if you’re not, the password is very simple to remember.

    It’s the full text of the Magna Carta in Latin.

    Anyway, it’s great to be able to welcome you all to the House of Commons. 

    But at first glance, it may seem like Parliament and Cyber are two mutually exclusive concepts. 

    Our democracy has – historically – been very wary of new technologies.

    There was a Parliament Technology Gap from when an innovation was created until it was introduced in Parliament. 

    First, the printing press.

    From the 1480s, printing became more common in this country. Thomas Hansard began printing Parliament’s debates independently in 1811 and it took a select committee in 1909 to adopt Hansard’s innovation as a legitimate part of their service. 

    A Parliament Technology Gap of about 400 years. Not a great start.  Next, broadcast cameras and microphones, which came into use in the early 1900s.

    Initially, the BBC couldn’t broadcast anything said in either House until two weeks after it had been discussed.  But eventually, cameras entered Parliament by 1989. A Parliament Technology Gap of about 90 years – so something of an improvement.  

    Finally, the personal computer and the internet – which became commonplace from the late 1970s. Parliament was again slow to take up the benefits of IT. 

    One MP, during a debate in 1988, said “the technological revolution – of which we are so proud in Britain – seems to have passed Westminster by”.

    From 1994, every MP with a personal computer was given internet access. A Technology Gap of only 20 years – the best yet. 

    And what about the technology of the future?

    Now, much like Steve Jobs and black rollnecks, Parliament and tech are now becoming inseparable.

    Parliament is more proactive. Its ‘Information and Technology Strategy’ faces the future stating how Parliament must continually adapt to the evolving landscape. 

    This is exactly the right approach to take. 

    The pace of change is only accelerating and the speed in which new technology is introduced and adopted is becoming shorter and shorter. So, we must protect ourselves against the threats of tomorrow. 

    Because cyber-attacks taking place across the world are only getting worse.

    If cybercrime were a national economy, it would be the third largest in the world.

    Microsoft’s Digital Defence Report said that – by 2027 – scams are expected to cost the world $27 trillion a year.

    As a joint Minister between the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, I have heard from my policing colleagues about the sometimes unseen cyber offending. Some that are central to truly awful online crimes.

    Like those that hack into accounts to steal and then trade intimate images mostly of women and children. 

    Or the community groups that blur boundaries between cyber and violence in the most despicable way. 

    These are growing trends and of deep concern, all of which show that our collective exposure to serious impacts is growing at an unprecedented pace.

    This is especially true when it comes to our world-leading business sector. It is essential for every organisation to operate in a way that minimises the risks of a cyber incident.

    The mindset for businesses should not be ‘if’ we get attacked but ‘when’ we get attacked. That means our cyber defences and technical resilience must evolve to cope with the threat.

    Which is why we’re doing more than ever before to keep our businesses and society safe from cyberattacks and cybercrime. 

    And we’re doing that through the building we’re all in today.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill was introduced to Parliament.

    It will boost cyber protections for the services that people and businesses rely on every day. And it will ensure any breaches in cyber security are dealt with quickly.

    This is a vital piece of work, as is our Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan.

    Because we know that Parliament is also a target, which is why we are taking this decisive action against foreign interference and espionage operations.

    The Action Plan will strengthen our legislation to disrupt the threat, help those who work in politics to recognise, resist and report the threat, and help break down the ecosystem of proxy organisations used by foreign powers to target our democratic institutions.

    We’re also giving more direct support to businesses to make sure they remain safe.

    The new tools we have created through the National Cyber Security Centre will help every kind of business, from the SME with a handful of employees, to larger corporations with hundreds of staff. 

    Our ‘Cyber Action Toolkit’ that we launched last month is designed to empower sole traders and small businesses to take their first steps toward cyber protection. 

    Our ‘Cyber Essentials’ certification proves your organisation is protected against common cyber threats.

    And over 13,000 organisations are part of the free ‘Early Warning’ service, giving them exclusive access to information on potential cyber-attacks. 

    All of this work will be enhanced next year when we publish the new National Cyber Action Plan. 

    It will outline how we will continue to build resilience and combat the technological threats facing us to secure economic growth.

    And, of course, it’s vital that the police, National Crime Agency, and our security services continue to work together so we can ruthlessly pursue and disrupt these cyber threats. 

    These criminals need to know we will use all of the tools at our disposal to counter their activity.

    We must support our businesses in any way we can. But businesses cannot be protected by the government alone. 

    Which is why last month, a letter was sent to the CEOs of the FTSE 350 companies that implored those business leaders to recognise the threat that is facing them.

    Now, today I’m talking to some great leaders from our tech sector – a sector that knows the importance behind rigorous security. 

    And I believe we are staring at a potential win-win situation for us if our business leaders increase their cyber security, working alongside the innovative UK cyber industry that brings in over £13billion in revenue. 

    Because this should be a priority for everyone driven at board-level, and I implore any business leader who thinks they may be exempt from gripping cyber risks to think again.

    Perhaps the Parliament of the past was right. 

    They could more or less evade utilising technology and, by doing so, they could keep their discussions mostly private and keep the country running. 

    That is not an option open to any of us today. Technology enhances everything we do. 

    It keeps our democracy transparent, it keeps our businesses successful, it keeps people connected and safe. 

    But this interconnection between technology and society can be exploited by those who seek to cause us harm.

    Many of you in this room lead by example.

    Our tech sector is one of the most crucial chips in the economy’s motherboard. One that takes its cyber security seriously.

    I hope that, through Government support and their own initiative, that the rest of our business leaders follow in your footsteps. 

    Thank you very much.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2025 Speech on the 25th anniversary of the Women Peace and Security Agenda

    Yvette Cooper – 2025 Speech on the 25th anniversary of the Women Peace and Security Agenda

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, on 24 November 2025.

    Can I just welcome all of you here today. You will have already seen on the video that we’ve seen before some of the inspiring women on whose shoulders we now stand in the work around Women, Peace and Security.

    And can I particularly welcome Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh and to say thank you to you for being here today but also for the immensely powerful work that you have been doing across the world, shining a light on the experiences of women in some of the most challenging circumstances – thank you.

    And can I thank so many of you here today who have also been involved for many years in important and powerful work to champion women’s voices, to speak up for women and to challenge some of the most devastating circumstances that women can face across the world and the work that you do is hugely important. So thank you for being part of this event today and thank you for the important work that you do.

    Because today we mark an important anniversary…

    It is enabled by women who refused to be silenced in the face of war. 

    Because twenty-five years ago, the international community listened to those courageous women. 

    Listened and acknowledged that not only are women victims of war, women must be the architects of peace… 

    And have recognised that women are too often denied a seat at the table when it comes to resolving those very same conflicts that do such damage to women’s lives… 

    Accepted the clear evidence that when you exclude women then peace is more likely to flounder and violence to resume. 

    Because the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was a genuine milestone.

    It was the first time that the world’s highest security body put in black and white what we know to be true… 

    That women’s roles, women’s experiences, women’s insights and contributions must be central to the world’s approaches to conflict. 

    Whether that be in our responses during war or our decision-making in order to build peace. 

    So I am very proud that twenty-five years ago, the UK played a leading role alongside civil society to secure Resolution 1325, and in the progress that  it helped to catalyse.

    I’m glad that the UK has carried forward that ambition reflected in 1325 in the years that followed.

    Be it as penholder, ensuring that the UN Security Council discussions uphold women, peace and security principles.

    And supporting women peacebuilders in the most challenging of contexts.

    So we adopted our first UK national action plan under the last Labour government almost twenty years ago and have carried plans through to this day.

    But of course, global progress does not rest simply on governments. 

    It rests on grassroots women’s rights organisations, on campaigners, on community networks, researchers, humanitarians, businesses, peacebuilders and above all on harnessing efforts across different countries, different communities and stakeholders too.

    It rests on you all of you here today who have played your roles in pushing for change. 

    Two and a half decades on, we have seen women play important roles in stopping violence and creating a more just peace for all. 

    Women like Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sagar in Northern Ireland who campaigned for women’s voices to be heard in ending the troubles in Northern Ireland. 

    Or Leymah Gbowee who led a non-violent movement to end Liberia’s civil war. 

    Or the many women of Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres who helped broker the peace deal that ended Colombia’s protracted conflict.   

    These are so many examples to learn from and to build on. We’ll have an important discussion and I look forward to hearing from people today and women today and their views on the road ahead.

    Because the situation now is more challenging than ever. 

    We have women represented barely a sixth of those at the table in peace talks last year, and in many cases, were excluded entirely. 

    And at a time when we are living through an era of acute instability. 

    There are more countries engaged in violent conflict now than at any time since the Second World War. 

    And that has devastating consequences for all civilians. But too often the impact falls most heavily on women and girls. 

    And if we look at what is happening now in Sudan. 

    In El Fasher where rape is being used systematically as a weapon of war. 

    And where we have seen some of the most terrible stories.

    Women and teenagers and children subject to brutal sexual violence and torture.

    And the UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher recounted to me last week some of the unimaginable experiences of women survivors that he had met fleeing what he described as an epicentre of global suffering.  

    And suffering that we have seen most acutely in Sudan but more widely too.

    The number of women who live in or close to conflict has almost doubled in the last 15 years.  

    And from Syria to Sudan and from Yemen to Ukraine, it is estimated that in conflict zones up to 30% of women and girls have experienced sexual violence – including some appalling ordeals of rape, or abduction or sexual slavery. 

    And those are the kind of ordeals that can carry lasting stigma and trauma that reverberates for generations. 

    And so, as we have seen conflict getting worse, we have also seen progress stall and going backwards.

    And that is why it is now time to bring new momentum to the commitments captured in Resolution 1325 a quarter of a century ago.

    And as Foreign Secretary, I am determined that we must renew that global focus and ambition around women, peace and security and put it at the heart of UK foreign policy.

    First, by radically stepping up efforts to end impunity for sexual crimes in conflict. 

    Already, the UK is providing expert technical support to Ukrainian police, prosecutors and judges to support war crimes investigations. 

    We have funded specialist sexual investigators to assist in UN fact-finding missions not only in Ukraine, but in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Myanmar. 

    Just over a week ago, the UK secured international consensus at the UN Human Rights Council for an urgent UN inquiry into alleged crimes in El Fasher.  

    And the UK-built International Alliance for preventing sexual violence, currently chaired by Ukraine, will rally further support for tackling the silence and stigma faced by survivors of sexual violence.  

    Second, we need to ensure our humanitarian work goes further to address the particular impact of crises on women and girls.  

    In Gaza, pregnant and breastfeeding women are suffering from acute malnutrition and have lost access to critical reproductive health services.

    We have provided £3m to the UN to support pregnant women and new mothers.  

    And I want us to work with Jordan to ensure that the neonatal field hospital that they have can be moved into Gaza as well as part of opening access for humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    And essential wider provision needs to include safe shelter, adequate healthcare and support for survivors of sexual violence to help them recover.

    And third, by amplifying women’s voices and participation in building peace.

    And that’s why we have worked to support women peacebuilders including in Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, and will press for their inclusion in peace processes, such as in Syria and Sudan.

    And will initiate a no-tolerance approach to reprisals, working with the UN to condemn acts of violence against women, simply for speaking out. 

    So with these priorities and collective wider efforts, we can bring new energy to the commitments that were captured in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 all those years ago.

    Here at home in the UK, this government has set an unprecedented mission to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls including a mission to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade.

    As Foreign Secretary, I am determined to ensure that mission is reflected in our foreign policy too – standing with women across the globe in resisting violence, expanding opportunity and boosting political participation.  

    We will step up our international collaboration to address these horrific harms that should have been consigned to the history books.

    Because we know there cannot be peace, security or prosperity without women playing their part, free from violence and free from fear.

    Thank you very much.

  • Hilary Benn – 2025 Statement on the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

    Hilary Benn – 2025 Statement on the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

    The speech made by Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the House of Commons on 18 November 2025.

    I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

    On 11 June 1966, a 28-year-old storeman, John Patrick Scullion, was shot dead on the doorstep of his home in west Belfast by the Ulster Volunteer Force. It is regarded by many as the first sectarian killing of the troubles. By 10 April 1998 and the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, the death toll from this horrific period of violence in our country had risen to over 3,500, including almost 2,000 civilians and over 1,000 people who were killed while bravely serving the state, and 90% of those who lost their lives were killed by paramilitaries.

    Some of the incidents—Warrenpoint, Bloody Sunday, the Kingsmill massacre, the Miami Showband killings, the Birmingham pub bombings—are, sadly, all too well known. Many others are less well known, although for each family, their grief, privately borne, has been just as strong and just as painful—fathers and brothers, mothers and daughters, children, people from all walks of life—and each one is a tragic and needless loss of a loved one. I say “needless” because there was always an alternative to violence, an alternative made real when the Good Friday agreement was signed.

    Some found that agreement, which included the early release of prisoners convicted of troubles-related offences, very hard to accept, but over 70% of voters in Northern Ireland backed it in a referendum, because they knew that this was the moment to lay a foundation for peace that could give hope to citizens right across these islands for a future free of violence.

    Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)

    I think it is appropriate that the Secretary of State opened his speech in the way that he did, but he should recognise that when he gave dates for when the troubles started and concluded, he finished on 10 April 1998. He knows well that that means he did not include the largest atrocity of the troubles, which occurred four months later in the town of Omagh, and he knows that nothing in this Bill will make provisions available for those families. Although an inquiry is ongoing into the Omagh atrocity, that does not answer the questions relating to the Irish Republic. Will he consider extending the dates to include the largest atrocity from the troubles?

    Hilary Benn

    I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which we have discussed in the House before. As he has acknowledged, there is currently a public inquiry, set up by the last Government, into the terrible events that occurred at Omagh. I think the right and proper thing to do is to let that inquiry proceed with its work and, I hope, provide the answers that families are looking for.

    Northern Ireland is now a largely peaceful place, but many people—including those I have had the privilege of meeting and who have shared with me their grief, their pain, their anger and their loss—still live with the effects of those decades of violence. Far too many have still, all these years later, been unable to find an answer to the simplest of questions: what happened—how did my loved one die?

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), the Republic of Ireland Government and the Garda Síochána have to respond on the things on which they fell short. For instance, when my cousin was killed and others were killed, the killers crossed the border to sanctuary and safety. There was collusion between the Garda Síochána and the people responsible for those murders. Those are some of the things we need within this process. Can the Secretary of State assure all of us, on behalf of our constituents, that the justice we all seek will happen through this Bill, because I am not quite sure of that at the moment?

    Hilary Benn

    I say to the hon. Member, for whom I have enormous respect, that I hope very much that that is the case, because one of the consequences of the agreement reached between the British and Irish Governments, which was published on 19 September, is that the Irish Government will move once our legislation has been put in place. They will move from their current position, which is that they will not co-operate with institutions that we know have failed—I shall come on to that point in a moment—to the fullest possible co-operation with the Legacy Commission and, by doing so, will open up the possibility of people seeing information they have not seen for too long.

    The architects of the Good Friday agreement knew that the suffering of victims and survivors needed to be addressed, but they were not able to do so. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that this unfinished business falls to us—to all of us—because time is running out. I want to say directly to all the families—some are here in the Gallery today, and others are watching our proceedings—that we have heard their call, as I hope has the whole House, for us to do more to help them get the answers they seek.

    What is this Bill aiming to do and why is it needed? It seeks to put in place a means of dealing with legacy that can actually command broad public support in Northern Ireland, in particular for families who have been trying to find answers for so long. It is needed because the previous Government’s legislation—the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023—whatever its intentions, fundamentally failed. It failed because it has been found in many respects to be incompatible with our international obligations, so creating a legal quagmire of uncertainty.

    Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)

    How confident is the Secretary of State that his provisions for preventing compensation for interim custody orders will withstand challenge in the courts, and would the Government’s case be undermined in any way by their decision not to challenge the original ruling in the High Court?

    Hilary Benn

    If the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall come to his question a bit later.

    Crucially—this is something that the House has to recognise—the 2023 Act failed because it did not command any support in Northern Ireland among victims and survivors, or the political parties. That was no basis for progress or reconciliation. That point has to be acknowledged. One of the principal reasons for that lack of support was the Act’s attempt to offer immunity from prosecution, including to terrorists who had committed the most appalling murders. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who is intervening from a sedentary position, needs to go back and read the legislation that his Government passed. I have it here. Immunity was a false promise. It appeared to offer soldiers something that was completely undeliverable. The measures were never implemented, and were struck down by our courts. Families who had endured unimaginable suffering through paramilitary violence were simply not prepared to see those responsible given immunity.

    Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)

    I have spoken to many veterans in my constituency who are understandably concerned about the repeal of that law, and the vacuum that it leaves. Can the Secretary of State set out how the Bill supports our veterans?

    Hilary Benn

    I shall do that. If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I shall come to that directly.

    Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)

    On what I hope is a non-contentious point, will the Secretary of State explain to Members in all parts of the House something that not everybody realises, which is that the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 means that no matter how heinous the crime, and no matter whether it was committed by a member of the armed forces—unlikely, but possible—a republican terrorist or a loyalist terrorist, no one will serve more than two years in jail? People need to realise that. Compromises have had to be made—and they have to be made by those on both sides, equally, if international law is not to strike them down.

    Hilary Benn

    The right hon. Gentleman is indeed correct. That was, in part, the basis on which the Good Friday agreement was reached, and 71.7% of the people of Northern Ireland gave their support to it. Compromise, of course, is essential in the interests of peace.

    There was anger from many of those who served in Northern Ireland, who saw immunity as an affront to the rule of law that they had sought to protect, and as implying some sort of moral equivalence between those who served in our armed forces and terrorists. There is no moral equivalence whatsoever between those members of our armed forces who acted lawfully in carrying out their duties, and paramilitaries who were responsible for barbaric acts of terrorism. We owe our Operation Banner veterans an enormous debt of gratitude. I say to those watching, and to those in the Gallery: your service and your sacrifice will never be forgotten. We have a duty to care for all those who served. That is precisely why we are putting in the legislation new measures that are designed specifically to protect veterans, and why the Ministry of Defence always provides legal and welfare support to any veteran asked to participate.

    The safeguards that we are supplying have been designed specifically for veterans, following close consultation with veterans. Some will necessarily apply to others, including former police officers, while others will apply only to veterans. Veterans will be protected against repeat investigations. Part 3 places a duty on the Legacy Commission not to do anything that duplicates any aspect of previous investigations or proceedings unless it is essential. That is a very high threshold. If a veteran is asked to give evidence publicly to an inquest, or in the commission’s inquisitorial proceedings, they will not be forced to travel to Northern Ireland. They will be able to do so remotely.

    Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)

    Will the Secretary of State just clarify: essential for what?

    Hilary Benn

    The commission is an independent body established—

    Dr Evans

    Ah.

    Hilary Benn

    The hon. Gentleman says “Ah”. It was established by the previous Government’s legislation. They argued very strongly that the body had to be independent. “Essential” is a very high bar. It is for the commission to make that judgment.

    Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)

    I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for clarifying a number of issues already, but I think that the veterans I have spoken to will be looking for clarity that they cannot and will not be placed on trial simply for carrying out orders.

    Hilary Benn

    I shall come on to this point, but decisions about prosecutions are made by prosecutors independently—that is the absolute foundation of our independent legal system—based on the evidence. If one looks at the facts, in the 27 and a half years since the Good Friday agreement, one veteran has been convicted for a troubles-related offence; going back to the point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that veteran received a suspended sentence.

    If asked to give evidence to an inquisitorial proceeding, any veteran will be entitled to seek anonymity, as is already the case for public inquiries and inquests. The commission and coroners will have to consider the health and wellbeing of elderly witnesses, and whether it would be appropriate for them to give evidence at all. A new statutory advisory group will provide an opportunity for victims and survivors of the troubles, including those from a service background, to be heard during the commission’s work. This group will, of course, not include anyone who has been involved in paramilitary activity.

    Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)

    The Secretary of State says that the group will not include any former paramilitaries, but where in clause 8—or elsewhere—is there a prohibition on such participation? The clause is about victims and survivors, and those terms are undefined. Under our current iniquitous definition, a victim could be somebody who made themselves a victim by blowing themselves up with their own bomb. According to the clause, such a person could serve on the advisory panel.

    Hilary Benn

    I would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to reflect on what I have just told the House: anyone who was previously involved in paramilitary activity will not be appointed to the victims and survivors group. I am giving the House that assurance as the Secretary of State.

    These measures will be complemented by other commitments to ensure, for instance, that no veteran is cold-called. The Defence Secretary and I will continue to work with veterans, the Royal British Legion, the Veterans Commissioners and others to ensure that we get this right.

    Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con) rose—

    Hilary Benn

    I will give way, and then I will make progress.

    Ben Obese-Jecty

    Whereabouts in the Bill does it say what the Secretary of State said about the victims and survivors group? If it does not say what he told us, will he amend it to ensure that it does?

    Hilary Benn

    I have given the House a very clear assurance on this point. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that nowhere in the legacy Act, which is the previous Government’s legislation, is there such a prohibition. Indeed, nowhere in that legislation does the word “veterans” appear.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Hilary Benn

    I will make progress.

    There are those who have claimed, wrongly, that this legislation will somehow lead to a huge increase in prosecutions of veterans, or that it is only veterans who have been prosecuted in recent years, or that on-the-run letters have given IRA members an amnesty—an issue we have discussed in the Chamber. None of those things is the case. As I have just said to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), just one soldier has been convicted since the Good Friday agreement, and the majority of those who have been convicted, and indeed of those facing live prosecutions, are paramilitaries, including republicans. As for the on-the-run letters, Prime Minister David Cameron could not have been clearer when he said in 2014:

    “There was never any amnesty or guarantee of immunity for anyone, and there isn’t now.”

    What is more, the legacy Act also shut down more than 1,000 police investigations into unsolved troubles-related killings, including the deaths of 264 members of our armed forces who were murdered by terrorists. A great many families have spoken of the distress that this caused them. Mary Moreland, who was widowed when her husband John, a reservist in the Ulster Defence Regiment, was killed by the IRA nine days before Christmas in 1988, says:

    “As a veteran and war widow I strongly believe in accountability and the rule of law for all and take pride in the fact that the British Armed Forces are the finest in the world. Like many others I have always been opposed to the Legacy Act. It was legislation that was fundamentally flawed. I tentatively welcome the process of repealing and replacing the Legacy Act…the new legislation must be balanced, fair, rights-based and capable of delivering meaningful outcomes for victims and survivors.”

    I agree. Or there is Paul Crawford, whose father was murdered in 1974 by the UVF. He says:

    “I understand that British Army veterans are an important constituency, but so are we…victims and survivors of the conflict. Our voices matter too. Our experiences of loss, pain and trauma are very real. Many of us have been waiting for more than fifty years for truth and justice and none of us are getting any younger. The legacy of the conflict needs to be addressed, and this legislation needs to be passed.”

    I agree.

    Or there is Paul Gallagher, who shared his response with WAVE, which does such important work supporting victims, survivors and families. In January 1994, Paul was 21 years old. He was a civil servant. There was a knock on the front door of his family home, and paramilitaries took him and his family hostage. He was shot six times as they left, and has spent the rest of his life using a wheelchair. He is a campaigner who I have had the privilege of meeting several times. WAVE writes:

    “What the party opposite proposed in 2023 enraged Paul. He is not naïve. He knows that securing a prosecution against the people who did this would be difficult. But offering an amnesty to these people so they could walk forever free. That to Paul is a moral outrage. How can someone like Paul, who has been betrayed by the system, believe once again in the rule of law.”

    The troubles Bill seeks to right the wrongs of the legacy Act, so that together with the remedial order, which we have laid before Parliament under the Human Rights Act 1998, the Bill returns us to the broad principles of the 2014 Stormont House agreement negotiated by the last Conservative Government. It seeks to achieve greater confidence among communities across Northern Ireland. As for those families who have already approached the commission for help, their cases will transition seamlessly under the new arrangements, when the troubles Bill hopefully becomes law.

    We announced a joint framework in September. The Irish Government have made important contributions to that, including by co-operating fully with the reformed commissioned by sharing information that, for far too long, far too many families have not been able to see. Let me be clear, however, that it is simply untrue for anyone to suggest that the Irish Government have been given any control or veto over the work of the Legacy Commission.

    I turn to the contents of the Bill. The first part provides for the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery to be renamed the Legacy Commission. It also repeals part 2 of the legacy Act in its entirety, and confirms the meaning of “the troubles” and other terms. Part 2 outlines the structure of the Legacy Commission, its principal functions, and how appointments will be made. It will establish an oversight board, led by an independent non-executive chair, to hold the commission to account, and the Secretary of State will consult when making appointments. There will be two co-directors for investigations, of equal standing, one with experience of conducting criminal investigations in Northern Ireland, and one with experience of conducting such investigations elsewhere.

    Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)

    May I raise the issue of the Birmingham pub bombings? The Secretary of State says that the reformed Legacy Commission will have greater fact-finding powers. Can he set out why the families, including those who are part of the Justice 4 the 21 campaign, should have confidence in the reformed commission to get to the truth of the Birmingham pub bombings?

    Hilary Benn

    My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. It is for the simple reason that the commission has the power to see all the information and evidence—everything. It is already investigating the Guildford pub bombings, the M62 coach bombing, and the Kingsmill massacre, and I hope that others—

    James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)

    Warrenpoint.

    Hilary Benn

    And Warrenpoint, indeed. It is already investigating those terrible incidents, and I encourage anyone who is looking for answers to approach the commission and see the changes that we will make.

    I shall now finish my description of what is in the Bill and bring my remarks to a close. All public appointments made by the Secretary of State must follow consultation with relevant persons, a list of whom will be published before the beginning of the appointments process. Part 2 will fulfil our commitment to create a fairer disclosure regime, ensuring that the commission has access to any and all information it requires and is able to publish as much of that as possible, subject to proportionate safeguards, which are necessary because even historic information can pose a direct risk to life and safety today or threaten our national security. However, the Bill ensures that any decision to prevent public disclosure is subject to a balancing exercise—with reasons given where possible, akin to the Inquiries Act 2005—and can be legally challenged. Part 2 also includes provisions on reviews into the performance of the commission’s functions, and for the winding up of the commission.

    Part 3 deals with the conduct of both criminal and fact-finding investigations, and expands the referral process to enable family members, surviving victims and certain public authorities to request investigations. In all cases, following a case review, the director of investigations will decide whether the investigation is to be carried out as a criminal investigation or a fact-finding investigation. The commission will be able to refer any relevant conduct to prosecutors, as is already the case with the legacy Act, so there is no change in that respect. In the conduct of its investigations, the commission must comply with the statutory conflicts of interest duties set out. Each investigation will conclude with a report produced by a judicial panel member.

    Under part 4 of the Bill, inquisitorial proceedings will be established to handle cases that would otherwise have been inquests but are transferred to the commission. These proceedings will draw on the Inquiries Act. They will be chaired by a judicial panel member and be able to consider evidence in public. Crucially, unlike inquests, these proceedings can also consider sensitive information in closed hearings. With that in mind, the Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power to direct inquisitorial proceedings in respect of the small number of cases that were halted prior to 1 May 2024 due to the exclusion of relevant sensitive information.

    Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)

    If the Bill is as good as the Secretary of State would have the House believe, why have nine very senior four-star officers—eight generals and one air chief marshal—written to The Times and described it as

    “a direct threat to national security”?

    Hilary Benn

    I do not agree with that assessment. There is nothing in this Bill that can be described as a direct threat to national security. I also note—[Interruption.] It would be good if the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge this point. I note that those generals did not call for immunity. Maybe those on the Opposition Front Bench would like to reflect upon that.

    Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)

    Will my right hon. Friend give way?

    Hilary Benn

    No; I am going to have to finish, because many people want to speak.

    Part 5 makes provision for the inclusion of personal statements, allowing families to describe what the death meant to them. The commission will have the power to refer troubles-related criminality by police officers to the ombudsman for Northern Ireland. Part 6 puts in place the necessary provisions to set up, on a pilot basis, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, as originally proposed in the Stormont House agreement. This will be an international body established jointly with the Irish Government to give families an additional means of retrieving information. Any information disclosed by individuals to the ICIR will be inadmissible in criminal and civil proceedings. Part 6 also includes provisions to ensure that the work of the ICIR does not impede on criminal investigations.

    The Government have long been committed to restoring the troubles-related inquests that were halted by the legacy Act, which is why, under part 7 of the Bill, the inquests that were in progress prior to 1 May 2024 but subsequently halted will resume. Inquests that had been directed by the Attorney General but were not in progress will be subject to an independent assessment by the Solicitor General as to whether they are most effectively progressed in the Legacy Commission or the coronial system, and the Solicitor General will have regard to three statutory criteria.

    I turn to part 8 and to the point raised earlier about interim custody orders. In short, these provisions seek to address the interpretation made by the UK Supreme Court in R v. Adams, regarding the application of the Carltona principle, with which this Government—and indeed the previous Government—disagreed. That principle is vital for Government, and it is right that it should be protected, including by dealing with what are considered incorrect inroads into it. Clauses 89 and 90 put it beyond doubt that the Carltona principle applied in the context of interim custody orders, by stating that any order made by a Minister of State or Under-Secretary of State is to be treated as an order of the Secretary of State. I refer the House to a written ministerial statement that I have today laid in Parliament setting out in greater detail the Government’s position on that matter.

    The Bill will leave in place part 4 of the 2023 Legacy Act, meaning that the important provisions relating to oral history, academic research and the memorialisation of the troubles remain intact. Those measures stem from the Stormont House agreement and have been widely supported in principle. Part 8 of the Bill will also require the commission to produce and publish a historical record.

    Separately, part 8 also allows any conduct that does not meet the definition of serious or connected troubles-related offences in the Bill to be investigated by the relevant police force. As a result, potentially serious offences, including sexual offences, will always have a route to investigation should evidence come to light.

    Part 9 deals with general matters in relation to the Bill such as various definitions and its commencement.

    I will bring my remarks to a close. I am acutely conscious that, for many families in Northern Ireland, time is running out. With every year that passes, memories fade, witnesses are lost and crucial evidence grows weaker. That is why the Government have to fix the mess that we inherited. But what is this really about? It is about those who continue to live with the pain of what happened to them or to someone they loved. We know that the overwhelming majority of those who were killed died at the hands of paramilitaries, and, as the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) so powerfully reminded us just over a month ago, the people who died were not in the wrong place at the wrong time; it was the terrorists who were in the wrong place doing the wrong thing.

    We must be clear that terrorism is always wrong. Although we must recognise that the vast majority of those who served in Northern Ireland did so with distinction and bravery, in the words of apology offered in this House by the former Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis following the Ballymurphy inquest,

    “it is clear that in some cases the security forces and the army made terrible errors too.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 277.]

    I believe that this legislation represents our best and possibly final chance to fulfil the unrealised ambition of the Good Friday agreement. I accept that nobody will like everything contained in the Bill, as is inevitable given the differing views held by many. If fixing legacy was easy, we would not be discussing it 27 years later.

    Let me read from a letter that the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland has sent me about our approach, which he says has been received

    “with cautious optimism by victims and survivors.”

    He goes on to say that we—he is talking about all of us—should

    “get a move on rather than waste more precious time”,

    and encourages all of us as parliamentarians

    “to continue to show courage and determination to deliver for victims and survivors.”

    It is no wonder that he refers to caution, because victims and survivors have been let down so many times before. That is why it is now our responsibility to take this forward.

    I will continue to talk to victims and survivors, veterans and others, and colleagues in all parts of the House, during the passage of the Bill to consider where amendments might further improve it. Equally, I hope that all who seek a fair and effective way forward will recognise that the Bill represents a fundamental reform of current arrangements, and that it should be given a chance to succeed. I commend the Bill to the House.

  • Calum Miller – 2025 Speech on Gaza and Sudan

    Calum Miller – 2025 Speech on Gaza and Sudan

    The speech made by Calum Miller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester and Woodstock, in the House of Commons on 18 November 2025.

    I thank the Foreign Secretary for advanced sight of her statement, which I welcome.

    The Foreign Secretary is right that the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan is horrendous, as are accounts of systematic murder, rape and torture, often targeted at civilians from specific ethnic groups, and, in particular, the widespread use of sexual violence towards women and girls. The UK has a special responsibility as the penholder for Sudan at the UN. We must be relentless in pursuing true protection for civilians, so will the Foreign Secretary update the House with her assessment of the role of external actors in supporting the warring parties? Will she lead efforts at the UN to secure and implement a country-wide arms embargo? How will the UK ensure that the UN inquiry that she referred to can gather evidence, so that those actors, both inside and outside Sudan, who are responsible for these atrocities are held to account?

    Turning to the middle east, last night’s UN Security Council resolution marks an important step forward, and I hope that it will reinforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza. However, vital details are missing from the resolution. What will be the remit and scope of the international stabilisation force? How will Hamas be disarmed? How will those responsible for atrocities in Gaza be held accountable, and how does the Foreign Secretary envisage that a Palestinian committee will ensure that Palestinian self-determination is respected?

    The resolution focuses on Gaza, but we desperately need a clear road map to securing a two-state solution. That requires an end to illegal settlements in the west bank and East Jerusalem, and reform of the governance of the Palestinian Authority. How is the UK supporting reforms to the PA, and will the Foreign Secretary today commit to banning all UK trade with illegal settlements?

    Yvette Cooper

    I welcome the response by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. I agree with him about the importance of an arms embargo around Sudan, and about ensuring that it is properly implemented. It is deeply disturbing that weapons are still being supplied to the RSF, despite the atrocities, and that there are still weapon flows to all sides. That means that there are immensely serious issues, including around borders, access and routes, that we need to continue to pursue through international pressure.

    The hon. Gentleman raised a point about the investigations. The UN Human Rights Council resolution that the UK drafted with partners provides for the UN-led investigation of these atrocities, but that will be scant comfort to anyone if there is not also the urgently needed action to prevent further atrocities. There must be accountability, but there must also be urgent action to prevent atrocities in the first place.

    On Gaza, work is under way to constitute the International Stabilisation Force. Some countries are prepared to come forward and contribute, and crucially the mandates were provided last night. The ISF must operate in line with international law. Further details of how the new Palestinian committee will operate need to be developed, and we want it to be constituted as rapidly as possible. Also, we must see an end to illegal settlements. We need to rebuild the connections between the west bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, so that we can have a Palestinian state, in which people live in peace and security, alongside the Israeli state. That is the only way that we will get to peace for both.

  • Sarah Champion – 2025 Speech on Gaza and Sudan

    Sarah Champion – 2025 Speech on Gaza and Sudan

    The speech made by Sarah Champion, the Chair of the International Development Committee, in the House of Commons on 18 November 2025.

    This morning, Members received a private briefing on Sudan, at which one of the academics stated:

    “El Fasher is a slaughter house. Our low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.”

    That would make it the biggest atrocity crime since the 1990s. These are civilians, not soldiers, and this is not about conflict; it is about genocide. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been briefed on the likelihood of a mass-casualty event for years. In November 2021, the FCDO was publicly warned of a likely genocide. The recent Independent Commission for Aid Impact report concluded that last year, officials took “the least ambitious option” on civilian protection. I say to the Foreign Secretary that scrutiny and diplomatic surge can slow down this slaughter, so are we leading the 25 states who signed the joint statement on 11 November to work together to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates? Why has our atrocity prevention team not been surged? Tawila now needs to be our focus of our protection. What are the evacuation plans to protect up to 650,000 people from genocide? The Sudanese civilians need a champion. As UN penholder, will that be us?

    Yvette Cooper

    I thank my hon. Friend for her work and that of her Committee on this issue. She is right to point out the truly horrendous nature of what is happening in Sudan and the atrocities that we have heard about. People have been executed in the middle of a maternity hospital and lives are being lost at scale, and the fact that so few people are emerging from the area makes it deeply troubling to consider what more we may discover. Because I am so deeply concerned, I have raised the issue not just at the Manama dialogue, but at every international discussion that we have been having with foreign ministers, and directly with all members of the Quad, including the UAE and the US, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as we need urgent action. I agree with my hon. Friend that this is also about preventing further atrocities, which are at risk of happening at any moment if we do not have that urgent action.