The Commons seems to be spinning its wheels without direction or purpose. Impassioned speeches asking difficult questions are routinely ignored. Motions asking for urgent action are passed unanimously with no suggestion of any Governmental response. The Member for Makerfield has been absent from the benches, as has the Prime Minister. The train chugs on serenely towards the abyss.
Wednesday 8th July
With David Lammy (Tottenham, Labour) Deputy PM substituting for the PM while he sits on the naughty step at the NATO summit in Ankara, the end-of-term feeling in the Chamber was strong with the House rising for its Summer break next Thursday 16th July. Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley, Conservative) got the session off to a football themed start about substituting a left-winger for the red-carded PM to help Labour try to avoid the relegation zone. As even the Deputy PM conceded, it was quite a clever question.
Lt-Col Sir James Cleverly (Braintree, Conservative) Shadow Housing Secretary swapped in to serious mode by asking “Will he apologise to the victims of the rapists, sexual predators and paedophiles that he is planning to release early?”
A raspy-voiced Lt-Col Sir James Cleverly (Braintree, Conservative) Shadow Housing Secretary swapped in to serious mode by asking “Will he apologise to the victims of the rapists, sexual predators and paedophiles that he is planning to release early?”
Taking a leaf out of his absent bosses’ playbook – which any observer of the Commons might question the efficacy of – David Lammy responded by avoiding the question of the Government’s record and as ever, concentrating on the Tories’ legacy.
To be fair, Lammy’s version of “The Starmer Gambit” flowed better than the Man from Ankara, but still “he could have been doing this job every week if he was better with numbers” – while funny – seemed to misjudge the seriousness of feeling on the prisoner early release programme.
Perhaps she is considering spending mroe time with her family?
Sadly, someone in Rushworth Street has decreed that ministers should block all serious policy questions and simply refer to the Conservatives’ record. Not only is this “blame the Tories” now ineffective, but, it also suggests that the Labour front bench is also pointedly aware that the current government’s record does not provide any credible answer. Also, the Chancellor looks as though she has had some more disappointing personal news.
Tuesday 7th July
Questions to Ed Miliband, (Doncaster North, Labour) Energy Secretary, targeted community-owned renewables, large-scale solar farms and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Our future Chancellor (???) however, offered a weather forecast “more climate change coming”, although he does not explain how this underpins his preference for the UK importing Norwegian oil over extracting the remaining reserves in the British sectors of the North Sea.
During Opposition debates the House locked horns over two major motions.
- Summer Jobs: Gareth Davies (Grantham & Bourne, Conservative) Shadow MoS Business & Trade, opened the debate criticising the impact of employer’s National Insurance contributions and the Employment Rights Act on entry-level, seasonal, and hospitality work. This is a very real issue for 18/19 year olds looking to fund pre-University travels – which TWOP can attest has become very difficult to obtain!
- Early Release of Prisoners: a heated debate demanding that the government immediately amend the January 2026 Sentencing Act to explicitly exempt individuals convicted of serious sexual offences, rape and child grooming from automatic early release schemes. This has now come up in the Chamber every day since the announcement of Shabir Ahmed’s early release. The passion is not dissipating, but the Government dead-batted the issue by not opposing the motion, which consequently passed without anyone voting against. There was, however, no indication of any action in response.
Outside the Chamber, but directly connected to it, Nigel Farage (Clacton, Reform UK) announced that he would resign his seat and stand again in the consequent by-election in order to put himself before the electors in the light of the seemingly concerted campaign to rubbish his probity (not quite how he put it) about his failure to declare donations from Chris Harborne, Ben Peter Delo and George Cottrell.
More adjacently, Farage sounded very rattled about the publication of a photograph of his daughter’s home address (by The Times) and the subsequent (and denied) door-stopping of his daughter by Sky News amongst other journalists.
The involvement of unconnected family members does seem to cross a line, but although the by-election will go ahead, it can not prevent and rather only delay the progress of the reference to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. Farage’s calculus must be to spike the Commissioner’s guns, and the by-election process is bound to draw some coverage directly to him over the Summer, but of course the main parties are unlikely to field candidates in order to spike Farage’s guns. It’s all rather exhausting, but Farage’s anger at his daughter’s treatment by the media seemed very real.
Monday 6th July
Back from their weekends, Monday’s business commenced (at 2:30pm) with Major Dan Jarvis (Barnsley North, Labour) DefSec trying to dismiss criticism of the lack of funding clarity beneath last week’s much-delayed Defence Investment Plan. James Cartlidge (Conservative) Shadow DefSec, majored on the Russian threat, saying “Today’s reports of Russian provocation illustrate the scale of the threat from Putin, but they also show why Britain needed a defence investment plan that was fully funded, instead of one with a £5 billion IOU for the next Prime Minister.”
The Defence Secretary adopted what will never become known as “The Starmer Gambit” by suggesting that it was all the fault of the previous Conservative administration. This manoeuvre is beyond its sell-by date. MPs pressed the Defence Secretary on readiness for drone warfare and the details of the Defence Investment Plan. To be honest, the minister’s heart did not seem to be in it – and perhaps his enthusiasm will remain “tapered” until the Member for Makerfield makes his Cabinet selections more widely known. The other “gambit” the Government seem to place a lot of trust in is merely repeating a very large number as their commitment to defence spending “£298bn over the next four years, alongside £15bn of additional resources for the DIP.” Large number good. Larger number better. Must be right then. Really this wouldn’t get past a CBeebies interviewer.
Samantha Dixon (Chester North & Neston, Labour) Communities Minister also made a statement outlining the Government’s response to Philip Rycroft’s Review into Countering Foreign Financial Influence and Interference in UK Politics (which was delivered in March, but brought more urgently to MPs attention by Chris Harborne, George Cottrell and Ben Peter Delo. She confirmed that the Government would introduce a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas and a minimum UK residency period of one calendar year before that cap can be lifted.
Shadow Minister Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley, Conservative) opposed these measures on general terms, saying: “This is a Government who talk about defending democracy while trying to cancel local elections for two years in a row; who amended the electoral system for mayors for partisan advantage and who changed the laws on election pilots in complete secrecy. They are now gerrymandering local government boundaries” but sadly he offered the Opposition’s co-operation with their introduction.
This left it to the as-ever ascetic figure of Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire, Conservative) to point out that “although I am no apologist for the Reform party, this looks very much like something of a stitch-up, which does none of us any good.”
Thursday 2nd July
Sir Keir Starmer delivered a prominent official state apology on behalf of the British government regarding the historical role of the state in forced adoptions with some of the mothers involved watching from the Gallery. The almost now-unbelievable practice of compelling the adoption of the babies of unmarried mothers effected far more people than could sit in the Commons Gallery with estimates, to which Members referred, that 185,000 babies had been taken away from their mothers between 1946 and 1976.
“What happened to them, and to tens of thousands of mothers, children and families, should never have happened. It is a stain on our history. Mothers—many young, vulnerable and without support—were coerced, bullied or misled into feeling they had no choice but to have their children taken from them. What a thing to do.”
Concluding his remarks, Sir Keir said: “Today, finally, I say on behalf of the state and the nation as a whole: we see you, we hear you and we are truly sorry.”
During Business of the House questions Paul Waugh (Rochdale, Labour) asked Sir Alan Campbell (Tynemouth, Labour) Leader of the House “Does the Leader of the House agree that the Home Office and the Foreign Office should do everything possible within their power to make sure that people like (Shabir) Ahmed are deported and that their victims never ever have to face them again?” Sir Alan agreed that Shabir Ahmed should be deported, but offered no material suggestion of how the Government might achieve that. This response seemed to underestimate the strength of feeling in the House about Grooming Gang members’ early release from prison.
Thank you for reading and please check out our instagram @theworldofukpolitics,
Alex
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