Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, but he will be aware that there is no plan to ensure that that 2030 target is met. At a time when we have short-term cuts in operational spending, the Secretary of State must feel a certain amount of disappointment that we do not have a firm plan in place, because if the Treasury do…”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Look, we are we are taking 70,000 businesses out of business rates.” Of course I welcome that, but it is inadequate in a high street that is falling and losing.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“And yet he comes forward with something this timid, this pallid and this lacking in inspiration, and gives a speech that entirely aligns with those qualities, and he is met with a near rapturous reception from Labour Members who have had to put up with the two previous Budgets, with their disastrous impact on the UK economy.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. Coastal communities are losing out, and savers are being hit by a £500 million increase in tax—again, I do not think that has come through clearly. Some Members talk about this being good for pensioners, but it is not.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Business taxes have not gone up by another £60 billion—praise the Lord—but they have gone up by over £2 billion through fiddly measures. On top of that, there is the ever-popular call of, “Let’s attack the banks to feed the Labour Back Benchers,” who are so divorced from economic reality.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not give way if the hon. Member will allow me. What is happening to business investment next year? According to the Government’s own figures, it is falling. What is happening to the debt of the nation as a result of today’s Budget, compared with the position earlier in the year?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
5,959 held · 5,855 searchable for Graham Stuart. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 10.
This is not an official version of UK Parliament proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one UK Parliament publishes.
“In 2010, just 12% of homes had an EPC C rating or above, so those homes were too cold and had bills that were too high. It was 60% by 2024 when we left power. Will the Minister share with the House the ambition and give us a number for the percentage of homes that we should expect to have that basic EPC C rating by the end of this term, which I hope will be the only one the Minister has, so he should make a difference while he can? [ Laughter . ]”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T6. I am confident that the Secretary of State loves the pub as much as you and I do, Mr Speaker, but the jobs tax and the slashing of business rate relief have delivered a hammer blow to pubs such as the Barrel in Walkington, owned by Thwaites, and to hospitality businesses such as the Beverley Arms hotel. Has the Secretary of State made representations to the Chancellor ahead of Wednesday to ensure that more landlords are not forced to call last orders?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister seems unable to say sorry, but does he at least regret that more than 90,000 more elderly people went to A&E last winter than did the year before, in the last winter under the Conservative Government?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Senior figures in the Catholic Church and the Church of England were found to have conspired to cover up child abuse by priests. Senior figures in the Labour party are now opposing local inquiries in places such as Bradford, London and Wales, and Ministers here oppose a national rape inquiry. We have also heard from a former Labour Member of Parliament, Simon Danczuk, that he was told not to raise the issue of the ethnicity of some of the perpetrators. When will Labour put aside its electoral interests and stand on the side of the abused?”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, will she meet one to one with the Prime Minister to express her clear opinion that what has happened is not acceptable? I would like specific answers to both those questions.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituents will wonder about a Government who promised to do things differently. They said that they would be transparent and be whiter than white—then they behave like this. One almost feels sorry for the Leader of the House, because she is trying to defend the indefensible. It is not enough to express regret that journalists were given access to the document in full before Privy Counsellors, the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, or that this trailing in full went on days ahead. What we need is action. Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), will the Leader of the House commit to looking into the issue, whether through a formal inquiry or not?”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I suggest an informal four-minute limit to allow all those who wish to speak to do so.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will call Anna Sabine to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. If anyone does not have that twin permission, they should not and may not speak. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have five Back-Bench speakers. I will call the Front Benchers at 5.23 pm, so I will let hon. Members make a judgment on that. We will start with the ever-succinct and effective Ed Morello.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Johnson’s of Hedon, a DIY store, has traded successfully for 56 years, but its owner Mike Brooke, who has run it throughout that time, says that the national insurance hike introduced by the Chancellor has finally made the business unviable. Was the cruel destruction of Johnson’s of Hedon, and the jobs that it provides, deliberate or an accident?”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need 15 billion barrels of oil and gas between now and 2050; we are currently expected to produce just 4 billion. New licences would support tens of thousands of jobs in this country and tens of billions in tax revenue. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the agreement on alignment on climate policies will not stand in the way of common-sense restoration of new licences in the North sea, so that we can produce the oil and gas we must consume in this country?”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Minister any sympathy with the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright)? The panel might struggle to get the evidence it needs to make a decision, and there is no mechanism to address a situation in which, in the absence of that evidence, the panel makes a decision, but evidence then comes forward that suggests that its decision was incorrect. Does the Minister have any workable ideas for addressing that issue?”
House of Commons16 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members will have noticed that the in-Chamber clock is not functioning, but the time can be seen on the annunciator—time is probably not of the essence in this debate. I remind Members that if they want to speak, they should bob, but I do not think that applies either.”
House of Commons12 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know how on top of her brief the Minister is, so will she confirm that fewer than a third of council homes had an energy performance certificate C rating in 2010 compared with over 70% by last year? Less than 12% of homes in the UK had decent insulation in 2010 when Labour last left office and when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), who is chuntering from a sedentary position, was in power, and more than 50% did by the time we left office. Will she commit to a faster rate of improvement under this Government than we ever saw under the previous Labour Government?”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), but each child with special educational needs in the East Riding receives £968, whereas in Camden the figure is £3,564. I am sure she agrees that a child in Camden does not have four times the need of a child in the East Riding. Will she undertake to ensure, as part of the review, that in principle we will have fairer funding for children throughout the country with educational needs related to, for instance, dyslexia or autism at the end of that process, as opposed to where we sit now?”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State has been most generous in giving way. It is reported that Manchester United, Liverpool and others have advertised posts that exclude applications by white men. Will she say on the Floor of the House today that any such policy is illegal in that it infringes the Equality Act 2010, and will she give a clear message that any such policy must be reversed?”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend will be aware that the new chairman of the Labour football regulator gave £5,000 to the hon. Gentleman who has just chortled from his seat, the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith), and another £70,000 to other Labour Members, and will be getting a return of £130,000 per year for a three-day week—half a million pounds of personal return on that £75,000 investment over this Parliament. If the Secretary of State was sitting on the Opposition Benches, she would be able to smell the hypocrisy and the stink of corruption. That is why we cannot accept this appointment: it does not ensure the independence that this position certainly requires.”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is not a Labour-leaning businessperson who is generally independent but decided to support Labour; this is someone who was a director of LabourList until just a few weeks ago. This is someone who is absolutely embedded in the Labour establishment, who funded Labour Members including the Chancellor, now being given this half-a-million-pound boondoggle for the next four or five years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the regulator clearly is not independent and that Labour needs to think again?”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To be clear, is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the regulator should intervene on the issue of gambling ads rather than this House taking responsibility for doing so? I worry about the regulator’s reach spreading and about it forcing small clubs to engage with their communities over ticket prices and so forth; if there has to be a regulator, we must keep it highly constrained.”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not need to remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate. We are busily counting how many there are. To get everybody in would effectively allow a little more than two minutes each. I do not want to go below that, because it becomes a bit meaningless. We will try to keep everything short, and it would help if interventions were minimised.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will call Imran Hussain to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for her statement and her emphasis on the need for sensitivity and indeed good temper in dealing with this topic. In that spirit, may I ask her to salute the courage of J. K. Rowling, Sharron Davies and indeed the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield)?”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I assume that applies after the warning, Mr Speaker. We have a Government who, I believe, are shipping coking coal just off the Lincolnshire coast today from Japan, when it was perfectly possible to have the world’s greenest production of coking coal in Cumbria, with thousands of jobs. Is it not a disgrace that this Government turned their back on jobs in Cumbria and, indeed, in the North sea because they put ideology ahead of practicality and even ahead of the environment?”
House of Commons12 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government give themselves powers in the Bill to compensate steel undertakings, yet the Minister has told us nothing about the scale of that or the estimate of it. The Secretary of State tells the House that he has no trust or abiding faith in the company, but he is giving himself powers to give whatever sums he deems appropriate to the company. Do we not need more answers before we pass this legislation?”
House of Commons12 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is reported that Jingye management has been turned away by workers and the Humberside police today, so will the Minister tell the House whether the Government’s policy is to bar Jingye management from going on to the premises?”
House of Commons12 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The housing numbers for London were cut by 20% by the Government, but again and again we find in Hansard the Secretary of State asserting that 1.5 million homes will be built during this Parliament in England. Why did the Chancellor tell us a few days ago that only 1.3 million will be built across the whole of the UK, and will the Secretary of State please confirm that the 1.5 million target has gone?”
House of Commons7 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The President and Vice-President of the United States have made clear their detestation of countries freeloading on defence and security matters. We are not asking for the detail, we are not even asking for the quantum, but we do deserve to know in this House today whether the Government have asked the US to contribute to the base on Diego Garcia that is so vital to it—yes or no?”
House of Commons2 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. I will bring in an informal guide for Members: if everyone speaks for about four minutes, we can hopefully get everybody in.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will call Anna Sabine to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister—that is often forgotten. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have only closely scrutinised the Bill today, so I am just bringing myself up to date on this. It appears to give the Secretary of State the power to ban any product he wishes for whatever reason. We make law in this place not for when we are dealing with a Minister of the moral calibre of the right hon. Gentleman, but on the basis that we might have someone who lacks such qualities; that is who we legislate for. Is it true that this Bill would give the Secretary of State the power to ban literally any product, and that all that would have to be done is to notify this House?”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will be brief. Forget the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; what about the Secretary of State’s colleague, Lord Leong? He said in the House of Lords that he did not think the Bill was right. In what way does it need to be improved? Will the Secretary of State look carefully at the extent of these powers? Even from this short debate, it is clear how wide-ranging and over the top they are.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he, like me, hope that the Liberal Democrats, despite their hobby-horse love of the EU, do not allow the EU flavouring of the Bill to blind them to the frankly illiberal Executive-enhancing, legislature-diminishing aspect of the Bill? If they genuinely aspire to being His Majesty’s Opposition, they will join us this evening in voting against Second Reading.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can the hon. Gentleman give a single instance of a Government at any time in the past decade not being able to take action on a seriously risky product? I cannot think of one.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is it the hon. Lady’s understanding that the existing regulations on lithium-ion batteries are insufficient? There is a British standard, and there are environmental and disposal regulations. There is a swathe of regulations relating to lithium-ion batteries, but if there is a failure to enforce them, that should not give Ministers carte blanche to decide on a whim what products, in this area or any other, should be available for sale in the UK without any recourse to Parliament.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I shall survive. Given the time that she has spent in this House, I am surprised that, like some newer Members, she may have been taken in by the Government’s wording. The Bill gives Ministers such blanket powers. Sure, they can align more with EU regulation, as she desires; equally, another Government or Minister could go the opposite way and do all the damage she is talking about—needlessly differing from Europe purely out of ideology—and the House would have no say in it. Surely, the hon. Lady must be more like the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and share with her colleagues the need to restrict Ministers’ powers.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is making a brilliant speech and he has focused on some of the key issues in ways that not every speech has. He makes a powerful case, but why does he think that those arguments have not persuaded, in three different attempts in three different reports, the cross-party Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which provides expert insight into precisely such proposed legislation?”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She said that we need common-sense alignment, but these powers would allow a super-ideological future Minister to come in and seek, entirely for ideological reasons, to stop any alignment with the most sensible of EU regulations purely to have some Brexit difference. That makes no sense whatsoever.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“–– [ Official Report, Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Public Bill Committee, 1 February 2018; c. 305.] The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) is not here, so I will try to be more polite than I would have been if she was, but if Brexit derangement syndrome is a condition, it is one that affects not only people who are maniacally in favour of Brexit, but those who seem unable to think rationally from the other side. The point that I tried to make to the hon. Lady in an intervention—I would make it again—is that giving such untrammelled power to Ministers is frightening, regardless of whether we prefer closer alignment with the EU.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner). He did not like my praise of his speech in so far as it disparaged in any way anybody else’s, but he faced up to the issues directly. He did not just say, “Well, there are these problems with products and product safety, and here’s a Bill that could do something about it.” He dealt with the fact that the Bill gives enormous power to Ministers. As colleagues across the House have pointed out, the purpose of this honourable House is to hold the Executive’s feet to the fire, hold them to account and hold them in check, and ensure that we champion the will of the people who sent us here. As has been said, not only the Minister but, back in 2018, the Secretary of State warned the House that “the use of delegated powers carries a risk of abuse by the Executive”.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. We have had excellent speeches from across the House. I think the whole House agreed on the brilliance of the speech made by the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), and—perhaps I would say this—great speeches have come from Opposition Members in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) got to the heart and the nub of the critique of the Bill. We have also heard many good speeches, including the last one, about issues of product safety and the need to have a system that can keep up. The speech that addressed both that issue and whether the Bill is appropriate—it was the outstanding speech by a Government Member—was made by the hon.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Businesses are struggling to cope with all these things already, and now we will have greater business uncertainty caused by the fact that Ministers can, on a whim, choose which products can and cannot be sold. This will provide the exact opposite of the certainty that Labour Members suggested the Bill could bring, in a way that has no logic behind it.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“1 mission of this Government is growth, yet his Ministers, not satisfied with taking the fastest growing economy in the entire G7 and bringing it to a shuddering halt, have introduced what may be the most tediously named but potentially dangerous Bill in the history of Parliament. We can look at what the Government have done for business so far. They have ended the rate relief for hospitality, made part-time workers too expensive to hire, hiked the cost of employing people through next week’s jobs tax, strengthened the trade unions and made it impossible to fire new workers. I would not want to exaggerate this Bill’s role, but in a crowded field, it takes the biscuit in many ways.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a massive power to give to the Secretary of State. I say this to the many new Labour Members: I am not very keen on any Government, even the one of which I was a member. It was Lord Acton who said: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Well, there is an element of absolute power in this Bill, but we have an opportunity both to recognise the powerful case made by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield for an appropriate system and by his colleagues talking about different challenges, and to make sure that we limit and reduce those powers as the Bill goes through the House. I know that my cycle example is a little extreme, but it is also true. It would not require the Government to return to this House; they would be able to do it. The Prime Minister has told us that the No.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have heard about dangerous and often unpopular electric bikes and scooters, but the powers in the Bill allow a future Secretary of State—we have had some eccentric ones in the past—to decide to ban bicycles because he considers them to be dangerous. He might look at the figures on that. After publishing a statement, he could instruct anyone he likes to enter the house of every bike owner and every bike shop to seize every bike in the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State could effectively end cycling in the UK without coming to Parliament. He could create legions of cycle inspectors who could enter people’s homes or businesses and seize their property before disposing of it. And the Government want to hide this act under the innocuous name of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure the Secretary of State is an excellent judge of things such as the safe operation of a laptop, say, for a trainee solicitor, but he will now have the power to regulate any product for sale in the UK on the basis of safety or functionality. The immense power given to him will allow him to decide what is and is not sold in the UK, without consulting this place and by merely providing a written statement. The Bill goes further, with Ministers acquiring the power to give inspectors the right to enter somebody’s home to seize any product that the Minister has decided, on the basis of non-compliance. That can be imposed on manufacturers, marketers, installers, importers or people who run an online marketplace, the definition of which, by the way, can be altered on a ministerial whim and at any point.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Walthamstow, and I think it is fair enough to say, “Look at the way that Henry VIII powers and delegated powers were taken by the Government in the last Parliament.” Quite rightly, people questioned it, but that was about implementing Brexit; it really was something enormous that had to be done at a reasonable speed. Those of us involved were cognisant of the fact that we did not want it to set a precedent; we did not want Government to take the unique conditions of implementing Brexit and take it as a new way of governing. To the comment from the hon. Member for Erewash about rebuilding the world that the ancient Egyptians had, they were very good at centralising authority and I do not think that that is an entirely good thing. That is exactly what the Bill does, so I agree with him on that.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know the Minister and the Secretary of State are decent people, and I hope that we will see, as the legislation proceeds through this House, ways to curb some of the powers while allowing us to have a regulatory system that can speedily respond to inappropriate products. None of us wants to see parliamentary pride getting in the way of an effective system; we have to find a way of making things work. This Bill, however, goes too far the other way. That is why the cross-party experts on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee have looked at it and said that they do not feel that the case has been made to justify such massive powers. Some parallels were raised by the hon.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We on the Opposition Benches can make the arguments, but what we must really do is engage Government Members and get them to recognise that they are not here just to back the Government. They need to question these things, and not just ask whether the powers could be used for good. The hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield gave a brilliant speech with examples of the speeding up and pace of technological change—I think he spoke about the drones in Ukraine. Even though Opposition Members may maintain that the system that we had worked perfectly well, he made the case that perhaps we need something speedier going forward, and I can see that he made a strong argument. None the less, is the answer just to hand to Ministers, in this skeleton Bill, all the powers in the world? I suggest that it is not.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was a Minister for eight years, and such is the complexity of the devolution settlement now that even with thousands of civil servants working on primary legislation, Ministers can come to the House and suddenly it gets pointed out to them that they are in breach of the Sewel convention and ignoring how Northern Ireland has a slightly different environmental or energy regulatory environment from Scotland or Wales. They find that the situation is more complex than they first thought. Now, we are giving powers to Ministers who will not have to go through any of that rigmarole. They will not get to find out how they are trampling on the devolution settlement, and that is a serious issue.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will press on a little, but I may come back to the hon. Lady. I understand that, following the loveless landslide that brought the Government to power, the Government, and Government Members, have done an about-face. They now delight in more powers for the Executive, so much so that the Bill’s very first subsection gives the same Secretary of State I just referenced the power to make regulations anywhere in the UK, without consulting Parliaments in Westminster, Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont, on more or less anything he likes. I was so pleased that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim raised the devolution question.”
House of Commons1 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗