Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“British citizens Ryan Cornelius and his partner have now been detained for 18—nearly 19—years, without due process, by the United Arab Emirates. The reality is that the UAE supports a huge amount of terrorism in Sudan, where it is responsible for huge loss of life.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I say to the Minister—I do not mean this personally—that I do not know what has happened to the Government. When they deploy British servicemen and women abroad, they should make a statement to the House, no matter what time of the day or night it is.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the right hon. Lady for her statement. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) that it is a remarkable statement and I commend Sir David Bell’s review. I also commend the response by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) from the Opposition Dispatch Box.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“We are faced by the growth of totalitarianism: brutal states like China, Russia and others, who will stop at nothing and who care nothing for human rights, nothing for the rule of law and nothing for freedom. These countries are growing in potency. Russia is invading a nation that is trying to become a democracy and fight for freedom. What we have to understand is that we are now under as big a threat as they were in the 1930s. We must understand that the preparation in the late ’30s is where we have to be today—I say that nodding to the Minister, who has served himself and will understand that fully. There are three lessons that we draw from this. First, we can never appease dictators. Dictators of brutal totalitarian regimes must be confronted, never appeased. The second is: never trade land for peace.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He said that these men would break down in tears in front of them because that was the end of their time—that was it; there were no further chances for them. He said, “That was the toughest thing you had to do; but, for the sake of the others, you made that decision, even though you hated doing it at the time.” Although they have become heroic figures, it is worth reminding ourselves that every day they were fighting for their lives and the lives of the people next door to them in the air. That is important. I want to finish by saying that the lesson they taught us, from the 1930s all the way through, is one that we are now faced with again.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I remember as a young boy, sitting in a back room with my brother while they had a drink together—that was normal in those days—when he came through and said to me and my brother, “Your father is a man without fear.” This troubled me for some time. When I eventually was in the Army myself, one evening over a drink, I said to my father, “Christopher Lee said you are a man without fear.” He said, “That’s not true. A man without fear is a dangerous man, because he cares not about anybody else. I was scared all through the war, but I controlled it because I could not let those around me down.” My father said that the toughest thing he ever had to do was to eventually deal with a pilot who had clearly lost it—who had broken. He had to send him down because he was a risk to the others around him.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It gave him breathing space to reconstruct, rebuild, and be ready for them a second time when they came back to the airfields, and that is exactly what happened. His leadership in all this was critical, for which he was not properly rewarded directly afterwards but was later on. As the commanding officer, Dowding was as important to this as Nelson was to Trafalgar or as Wellington was to Waterloo, and we should honour him and others who worked with him. My father got five gallantry medals during the war—two Distinguished Service Orders and three Distinguished Flying Crosses, which are all combat awards—but like many other pilots who were there, he did not ask questions about this. He became a very good friend of the actor Christopher Lee, who was the godfather to my brother.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Tewkesbury said, the Germans were never going to succeed, there was a period when they were pretty close, and that was when they were bombing the airfields endlessly. That meant that many squadrons were coming back to find their airfields destroyed and were having to be diverted to amateur airfields and everywhere else, where there was no support, no supply, no ammunition waiting for them and often no fuel. It would then take them longer to be ready, and by the time they were ready, it was almost too late. Dowding was within, I think, two days of ordering his squadrons north of London, because they were pretty much exhausted, as they were not able just to come back and fly again. At that point, Germany switched the bombing to London. That was a critical moment.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“1 was that this home chain should exist, and the system to run it through the tables, with the WAAF—Women’s Auxiliary Air Force—pushing all the details about individual squadrons coming across. The second bit, which was really important, was his argument with Churchill about not sending Spitfires over to France. That was critical because had we done that, we would not have been ready and prepared for what was to come next. That was a very big dispute. I think Churchill never really forgave him for standing up to him on that, but he was right to have done so, because we were ready and prepared with the right squadrons and the right aircraft. The other side of it was that although, as the hon.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He said, “I used to tell my pilots that you have to abandon all that you have learned and understand only one thing: you don’t get into this aircraft; you strap it on—it becomes an extension of you. If you learn that, this aircraft will never let you down. It can always go as far as you want, and it will test you, but you will always come out of it.” That stayed with him all the time, and his pilots, I think, had very good records as well. It is worth reminding ourselves that of course it was the pre-war planning that enabled us to have enough time and warning to put the fighters up in the air to take out the bombers. Sir Robert Watson-Watt and others developed the chain of radars. The Germans never understood fully what that was about until too late. And of course there was Dowding’s two-pronged determination. No.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He said, “We bore”—how can I put it?—“the imprint of a disgruntled set of pongos, who I remembered all the way through the rest of my life.” But he went on to qualify as a fighter pilot. Most fighter pilots were not trained massively. There was a rush to get them done, so they had no real combat training. What they had was basic training on the aircraft to go solo, a few fighter runs and feints, and then they would be sent off to their squadrons, so the first time they would understand how to fly the aircraft properly was in combat. My father talked about what he used to say to his pilots when he later became a squadron leader and eventually a group captain.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Almost the first story that my father told me was about when he was just finishing off his training—somewhere up near Liverpool, I think—and he and a couple of others were in a pub that night. This was just after Dunkirk, and a bunch of soldiers who had returned from Dunkirk saw these RAF figures sitting by the bar and immediately came and attacked them under the stupid belief—it was not their fault, because the information was not given to them—that the RAF had not turned up at Dunkirk, because they could not see the aircraft overhead. The truth is somewhat different, because the fighter pilots had gone inland to break up the bombers long before they got anywhere near the beaches. If they got near the beaches, it was too late.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I cannot think of anyone I would rather have chairing this debate, so it is of course a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on raising this matter. In the time that I have been in this place, I think this is the first debate we have had about the battle of Britain. I ask myself why we have not had one before—I am rather guilty in that regard myself. I rise simply to make some comments about the fact that my father was a fighter pilot throughout the second world war. He flew almost constantly in Spitfires and came in during the latter stages of the battle of Britain, so I grew up with stories about what happened.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I just wanted to make the small point that I was fortunate enough to sit next to Jock Colville, who was assistant private secretary to Churchill throughout the war. They were visiting Uxbridge on 15 September, when a huge armada gathered. Churchill was watching as, one by one, the lights went up, until everything was up. He said to the air officer commanding, “What are you going to do now? Where are your reserves?” The officer said, “We have no reserves, Prime Minister.” Churchill asked, “What will you do?” The officer said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to pray.” Jock Colville told me that, with that, Churchill stayed silent for three hours, something he never did, but that when he got into the car, he turned to him and said, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.””
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The United States is the one country that can really impress upon him that if the Russians carry on with these attacks, they will be sanctioned dramatically and the weapons that the Ukrainians desperately need will flow to them like water. I wonder whether the Government could say to the President, behind closed doors, “It is time to follow your words with actions and not keep on prevaricating.””
House of Commons1 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A few weeks ago I returned from Ukraine with some others who had been delivering trucks and medical aid to the Ukrainians for use on the frontline. I have made a number of such trips alongside other Members whom I can see across the Floor, united, as the Government are united, with the Opposition and the other parties. However, having watched the brutality stepped up by President Putin in recent weeks, and following the Alaskan conference in Anchorage, I must say that I am fundamentally still very disappointed. Yes, the Government are right that they are bringing together a coalition of the willing, but the least willing of all at the moment seems to be the White House, and my concern is that without the White House’s commitment to showing Putin that his actions have consequences, this will continue to drag on.”
House of Commons1 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We surely owe people like that a debt of honour and gratitude for their work, so I simply ask the Secretary of State to look at what might replace the schemes that he has got rid of, which were inflexible, very narrow and often left out those who really did this Government a service. I would be grateful if he came up with some flexible idea that allows some of these people to seek succour here in the United Kingdom.”
House of Commons15 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the Secretary of State’s statement. I will not dwell on the past, because I am sure that the Defence Committee and other Select Committees will have a look at that. I want to ask him about where this goes in future. All these schemes are closing, but there are still people out there who do not recognise the statement in the report that there is no longer a widespread campaign of targeting individuals. I have one case in my mind. The Minister for the Armed Forces knows exactly who I am referring to: Sami Atayee, who has fled and is in hiding in Pakistan, and whose brother has been arrested during the pursuit. He was not directly employed by the British Government—he could not have been, for security reasons—but the testament of General Olly Brown and others all say that he saved lives for British servicemen and servicewomen.”
House of Commons15 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my right hon. Friend marvel at the remarkable restraint shown by British soldiers, no matter where these officers or personnel were from across the UK, in dealing with this and never once stepping over the mark in regard to these cases?”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to make one thing very clear: the vexatious pursuit of veterans is the key here. Some never finally made it into court, but they were pursued; some died before they got to court. It is not a good comparison to say that only one was actually found guilty, when so many have been pursued vexatiously from start to finish. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman understands how it feels to be pursued—to have to go to Northern Ireland, to have to come back, to be arrested by the police and then taken away. That is what was wrong with the legislation that existed previously.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even if they are not prosecuted and eventually found guilty, the persecution and the chasing of people who served their country ruins their lives and makes them worry for the rest of their lives.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have to tell anybody with the idea that there is some kind of equivalence here—that if we cannot proceed against IRA terrorists we have taken them out of the equation—to go back and find out about when we pursued IRA terrorists through the court. There is no evidence. There were no records kept. They know that very well. If anyone thinks they will get 400 witness statements from people who know they are protected by the lack of evidence, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) said, they must be living in a different world from the one that I am living in. The reality is that the only people who will be prosecuted, unless this Government do something to end that process, will be the veterans.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for South Ribble demeans himself by attacking people on that personal basis. [Emma Lewell in the Chair ] This is an issue about inconsistency, and it covers all previous Governments. The problem is that we were originally involved in the law of armed conflict, which settled these issues, and we have had a collision with the Human Rights Act 1998, which has changed everything. The real point is that there is no moral equivalence between people who set out to kill, maim and destroy in a democracy, which happened in Northern Ireland, as the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) laid out, and the British servicemen who were ordered to go to Northern Ireland. They went out of their duty to protect the citizens of Northern Ireland against a violent and destructive insurrection.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful for your tolerance, Mr Mundell. I start by saying to the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster), and one or two others on the Government Benches, that to accuse people like myself who served in Northern Ireland of supporting the legacy Act and then demeaning ourselves by apparently attacking others is utter nonsense. We are after one purpose and one purpose only: to find a way to protect veterans who have been pursued through the courts in a vexatious manner and had their lives destroyed in their latter years. That was the sole purpose of my support for the legacy Act. Even though I had my doubts about it, I supported it for that reason. There was nothing else on the table to provide support for those veterans, so I really take it ill, and the hon.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I lost a very good friend in Northern Ireland. It is pretty awful, really, when I think back to what actually happened. Robert Nairac was kidnapped. He was tortured for a long time. We know not what happened to his body, although we may guess. He was executed after having escaped—that much we do know. No one from the IRA who committed that atrocity will ever, I suspect, be held to account in any court of law. That is the injustice of this process. His parents died never knowing where his body was, and his family today still do not know. Talk about injustice—that is injustice.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) said, what was coming around the corner next. We put up with all that in the United Kingdom. It is a unique experience—it is not like going abroad to fight a war. Being on the streets of the United Kingdom, carrying a rifle and trying to protect those who are also under attack from those who would will their destruction is something very peculiar, yet my soldiers and many others acted with the most phenomenal restraint. Provocation was there all the time, but they acted with the utmost restraint. I know of no other country whose soldiers would have ever done that, no matter what their background was. I am immensely proud to have been one of them. We should stop demeaning each other about politics in this. This is about protection, and we should be talking about that.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my hon. Friend: that is what is really hanging over us. If nothing is done and the existing Act is repealed, we are left with the single problem we started with: how do we protect veterans from the vexatious persecution that has been going on? I have lots of respect for many Government Members, particularly the Veterans Minister. He knows very well that that is their interest. I say to them simply that they cannot repeal the Act without replacing it with protection for the veterans who served their country. I served in Northern Ireland. I did not ask to go to Northern Ireland. I went out with my regiment, the Scots Guards, and we served, I think, pretty well in Northern Ireland, but we did not want to be there—to be spat at by people in the United Kingdom and wonder, as my hon.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was attacking equivalence. The reality is that if we get rid of the legacy Act right now, we will go back to a one-sided process where veterans will be pursued but nobody in the IRA will come in front of the courts. Many of them have these ridiculous letters of comfort given to them, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said. That equivalence is a distraction. I want to see those people prosecuted, but are we going to get witness statements from people who have run to and hidden in other countries? I doubt it very much.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we cannot find a solution, it is ours and the Government’s duty not to tamper with what exists, for fear of destroying the one protection we have given those veterans.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we cannot give them that—if the Government cannot legislate for that—then there is no purpose in getting rid of the existing Act. That has to be the point. The Government may not like it, but they must face this reality: there cannot be pursuit of veterans if previous inquiries, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington said, have cleared them of whatever the charge was before. This repeat process that has been taking place, on absolutely no evidence whatever, is what has caused all the worry for our veterans. If we care about our veterans, we should not rush to change the existing legislation until we can confirm protection for these brave men and women who served their country so loyally, on behalf of civilians in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was going to come to that point. My right hon. Friend guessed what was on my mind—not that it was that deep for him to get to it. That was the whole reason why, in the end, even though we had our doubts, we supported the legacy Act: because we thought that, on balance, there was at least the likelihood of getting to the bottom of many unexposed cases, and of the deaths and violence that took place, knowing full well that those from the IRA will never be prosecuted for it and we will never know otherwise. The Government cannot proceed unless they are able categorically to clarify that legislation will protect veterans from the vexatious pursuit that has been so much in their minds and worries throughout this period.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 outlawed foreign Government ownership of UK media organisations, setting a limit of 5% on that process. The Government have now moved that from 5% to 15%, which is considerably higher. However, there has been only a marginal debate in a Statutory Instrument Committee. My concern—it has only just been passed—is that that is a major change. It would have been fair if the Government had set about having a proper debate on it here in the Chamber of the House of Commons, because newspaper ownership is a very significant issue. The other place will potentially get a much larger debate, yet we are the elected House. I ask your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how we may raise the issue again?”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A huge number of global attacks are rooted in IRGC money and training. It has high levels of activity in the UK, such as propaganda to try to build arrangements here, sometimes in plain view—there are even links on Facebook. It could be trapped, but it does it openly because nothing can be done to it at all. Of course, the IRGC supports Hezbollah, which is also proscribed. If we keep following this chain around and around, we come back to the IRGC. That should be the subject of the debate today. That should be the decision. That should be considered on the Floor of the House. The IRGC should be proscribed, because it is at the root of all terrorism that exists here and in the middle east. If we do not do that, it prompts the question of what we are doing here with these other three organisations.”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It supports Hamas and Hezbollah and has supplied them with huge amounts of weapons. On whichever side of the arguments one sits, the fact is that this terrible killing would not have happened had that not been the case. The IRGC was heavily involved in that. It is sanctioned but not proscribed. Sanctioning does not give us enough powers to deal with its proxies and those who work for it. When in opposition, the Government campaigned to proscribe the IRGC. I remember quite happily working with various Members who were then on the Opposition Front Bench to do that. The Foreign Office endlessly says that we would lose all possibility of forming diplomatic relations or getting through to Iran, but how is that going? How has that gone over the past year? Not at all well. One cannot reason with these characters.”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do have concerns about the last of the three organisations covered by the order, in relation to the application of the criminal law. There might be another way of doing it, but I support the Government’s position. However, this debate has cast into light the fact that we have taken no action to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Given all the elements that we are discussing today, this question sits like the elephant in the room: why are we not proscribing the IRGC? Why have we resisted doing that? That would have a huge impact on terrorism, or aspects of terrorism. Let us look at it carefully. The IRGC deliberately exports the Islamic revolution. It uses proxies and has been sponsoring terrorism—as has been demonstrated without dispute all over the world.”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes—without interest. I agree with my right hon. Friend. I also agree about something else, which is that people do not realise that the really big global multinationals, for example Amazon, do not really make their profits on what they sell. They hold your data and that is what they really sell, subsequently. That is where they make their money and their profit. You derive no income from that data, but they make a lot of money off the back of it. To try to break that process down and make things more local, we have to start with what we have all been complicit in, which is the idea of getting something for nothing. It is not for nothing—there is a cost.”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I need not detain my right hon. Friend for long, but I very much supported the unions’ position on this, as I thought this was wrong at the time. Without straying into the issues of the bids, we should consider organisations such as CK from China. It now has links with and control over UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities, and Eversholt Rail. The network it has now is intriguing, which is hugely around the power and communications networks. All of those are now falling into the hands of conglomerates that have nothing to do with the UK, but that are linked to Governments of a different country. This is the big problem we face: it is not that we do not like big businesses; it is just that so often now they operate from outside our legal empowerment.”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To what degree do three paragraphs satisfy the idea that China should surely be in the list of threats?”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Before the most recent election, the Intelligence and Security Committee produced a very comprehensive report on China, making it very clear that it considers China to be one of our greatest threats. I am therefore astonished that, in the whole of today’s strategy, there are three paragraphs that deal with China, and that it raises one or two issues and then proceeds to take a different decision. It talks about there being a problem with human rights—which is genocide—and the cyber-security attacks on the UK, as well as China’s espionage, interference in our democracy, sanctioning of people like myself and undermining of our economic security, and its being guilty of transnational repression. China also ships arms to Myanmar, keeping that brutal regime in charge, at the same time as building the largest navy.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has trashed the Sino-British treaty on Hong Kong, arrested Jemmy Lai and placed sanctions on UK MPs, and it thieves all the intellectual property from private companies. What a record! And what would we balance against that? Some potential trade? This question has already been asked, in a way, but it is worth repeating. On the embassy decision, it was said clearly in the media that China would not apply again after the refusal from Tower Hamlets unless it received assurances from the UK Government. Can the Foreign Secretary tell me that China has not received any assurances? Or has it received private assurances from the Government that it will get what it wants, and will get this embassy?”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First of all, before we go to the political knockabout, let me say that I have spoken critically on this issue no matter who was in government; let us settle that before we go on. I want to give the Foreign Secretary a quick audit of exactly what should have been said. China threatens Taiwan, has invaded the South China seas and is having massive disputes with the Philippines. There is genocide, slave labour, organ harvesting and transnational repression. There have been attacks on Hong Kong dissidents here, and Hong Kong dissidents are constantly under threat. There have been cyber-attacks on the UK. China supports Myanmar’s repressive military regime and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also supports North Korea and Iran.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. While the Foreign Secretary is sitting here, I thought it relevant to record that we have just heard that the American Government have put in a second disapproval, for security reasons, to the granting of a Chinese embassy in the proposed location.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In fact, in Committee they got weakened, not strengthened, and that is the problem in all this.”
House of Commons20 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who moved the motion, knows that I have a high regard for her—I have worked with her on other things—but I honestly have to say that I simply cannot see how we in this House can pass this piece of legislation through to the other House, in the vague hope that somehow it will do better than us and make changes such that it will become a workable piece of legislation, and that is because this is a private Member’s Bill. If a Government were to introduce a Bill like this, we would see a great deal more input and a huge amount more checking with all those bodies. For example, we were told on Second Reading that the safeguards and protections we were sending to Committee would somehow become the most robust and strongest in the world.”
House of Commons20 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have not spoken so far in these debates, but I have listened and attended on pretty much all occasions. I am moved to speak today because I am concerned. This is the point that the hon. Member for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft) made, but what is this debate today about? This debate is not about the principle of what we believe in when it comes to assisted dying—whether we are opposed to it or in favour of it. We had that debate on Second Reading. As the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), made very clear—in what I must say was an excellent speech—and as others have too, today’s Third Reading debate is about what we are about to pass on to the House of Lords, which will become law. And the single question we have to ask ourselves is: is this genuinely workable now? The hon.”
House of Commons20 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I understand that many others want to speak, so I am going make a bit of progress if she does not mind. The other important point, when we think about what our vote today is all about, is the behaviour of the professional bodies that have been consulted on this, which have come out for the most part very strongly opposed to this legislation.”
House of Commons20 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have seen what has happened elsewhere internationally—Canada, Oregon and various other places—where legislation slides and slides again as more and more amendments have to be made because these things are not workable. To those who have any doubt, I simply say this. This is Third Reading; it is not Second Reading—it is not an “in principle” debate. We had that debate, and now we have to decide whether we should send this unworkable piece of legislation to another place, which is unelected, to make the decision for us because we cannot come to a conclusion. We cannot let this go through.”
House of Commons20 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The introduction of assisted dying would create new and demanding requirements for palliative care services and hospices in particular. It is therefore vital, whether or not the current legislation is passed, that the government takes urgent action to resolve” this matter. That is the case today. We cannot just say, “Well, that’s not our problem. Palliative care can be changed.” The trouble is that we have been unable to make the necessary changes to palliative care because we take such parti pris positions. That is the problem we face. I will end with this. I will vote against the Bill, mostly because I believe it is fundamentally unworkable and will lead to huge problems.”
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“There have been many more since, but children’s hospices, as we know, are really badly treated by Government spending, pretty much no matter who is in power. They have less than anybody else. Haven House, which I helped to set up and raise money for, has given a very strong quote, which I think represents much of what most of those hospices have said: “We would fully agree that a change in the law would have very significant consequences for the delivery of palliative care services and would be challenging given the existing resource pressures that we face. The hospice sector is experiencing significant financial pressures and the exceptional palliative care services we provide are not financially sustainable.”
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“The one big important area here—I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour the Health Secretary on this—is that we talk a lot about choice in dying, but how is that choice informed if palliative care in the UK is simply not good enough? Again, the Mother of the House spoke about this, and there are so many people affected: the most vulnerable; the people furthest away from institutions; and the ones who understand least how to work the health service or their local authority, and who rely mostly on us to try and break through. They will be faced with this problem more than almost anybody else, because they look in fear on these institutions. I helped to set up a children’s hospice, which I think was the first in London.”
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“I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady on that reading. The professional bodies are completely divided, and most have come out in opposition to the nature of this legislation. It is all very well for her to say that, and I appreciate her right to say it, and I hope she gets to speak later, but I just do not agree with it. As was said earlier in the debate, the whole issue of mental capacity is not dealt with properly in the structure of this Bill. The hon. Member for Spen Valley talked about this earlier, and she was absolutely right. Even the amendments that were proposed were not always accepted, and we are left now with some areas that will be deeply troubling. We simply cannot accept that the Lords must make these changes for us, for we have to make them first. That is the key.”
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“I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing. However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗