Mike Wood
MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Just like his predecessor, the Chancellor promises to bring borrowing down right at the end of the period covered by his fiscal rules, in this case with the hidden promise of 2.6% annual spending cuts, which includes those 2% a year cuts from mainstream schools every year, after the next general election.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, we are coming to the end of the debate. Those pubs, bars and restaurants are the No.1 place where young people get their first foot on the jobs ladder.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would have helped our British breweries, helped save community pubs and protected hospitality jobs for young people. Again, the Chancellor knows that: in opposition, he called for cuts in beer duty, but in the Treasury he is hiking the main beer duty rate.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He knew the Government were playing Treasury accounting tricks—tucking MI5, pensions, the Chagos Islands bills and even £200 million for doing up Barrow-in-Furness high street under the badge of “defence spending” to pad out a press release—but when we strip out those tricks, our armed forces are facing a real-terms cut in their day-to-da…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He speaks of fiscal discipline, but this is fiscal policy on the never-never. Nowhere is the reason for that fiscal timidity clearer than on welfare. All hon.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The disappointment of today’s Budget is that, having put on his running shoes for the media earlier this week, the Chancellor spent his statement running away from the big challenges facing the country and ducking each difficult decision.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Behind every statistic is a human face. For me, it is my senior parliamentary assistant, Dan Horrocks—a father, husband, a four-time cancer survivor and a brilliant colleague who has fought this disease for 14 years. We are incredibly proud of Dan’s strength and his tireless campaigning, for which he was deservedly awarded the British Empire Medal in the new year honours list. Dan’s journey began with persistent headaches. Three separate GPs missed it. It was only caught because of the keen eyes of a local optician at a free eye test. That is the first hurdle: diagnosis. Far too often, symptoms are dismissed as routine migraines, but the second hurdle is even more devastating. Once a patient is diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, they are offered the NHS gold standard of treatment: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.”
House of Commons15 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister was clear that the previous Defence Secretary asked him to remain in post; will he be equally clear about what exactly he disagrees with in the letter that the previous Defence Secretary sent the Prime Minister about the defence investment plan last Thursday?”
House of Commons15 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The previous Government launched the emergency alert system in March 2023 after almost two years of public testing. It was an important part of our preparedness for a national emergency, allowing Government and the emergency services to send a text alert to mobile phones in a situation where there is perceived to be an immediate risk to life. However, a ping on a mobile phone cannot be a substitute for robust national infrastructure, and strategic documents are meaningless if the core guidance for our frontline responders remains over a decade old. It is now time for the Government to move beyond issuing glossy action plans and start doing the hard foundational work of actually preparing this country for the realities of the modern threat landscape.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government committed to publishing further information on business impacts alongside the national risk register, including a dedicated business section on the Prepare website. Where are they? None of the commitments seems to have been fulfilled. If the Government expect the private sector to take a leading role in improving our preparedness, they must honour their commitments to support businesses in doing so. At a local level, local resilience forums are the absolute frontline of our emergency response, yet the foundational wider guidance detailing the fundamental role of those forums in emergency response was last updated in 2013. That means that we are asking our local emergency planners to combat the complex, cascading threats of 2026 using a conceptual framework that was drawn up in what may as well have been a different world.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ministers must urgently rectify this failure and explain to the House why they have failed to publish those expectations on schedule, leaving interdepartmental boundaries dangerously ambiguous. This failure extends to the Government’s promises to the private sector. The resilience action plan includes a commitment to use the critical national infrastructure knowledge base to map out the various resilience standards to which businesses in those vital sectors are held. While Ministers have confirmed that the interactive map of vulnerabilities has been completed, they have not provided any timeline on their progress in mapping out those resilience standards. Furthermore, businesses were promised a comprehensive package of support to help them to improve their own resilience.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is now approaching the middle of the year, but there is seemingly no sign of those vital expectations. Why does that administrative failure matter? Take the grave case of a national power outage. The resilience action plan claims that the Cabinet Office would provide oversight, but experts at the Royal United Services Institute have explicitly warned that the current fragmentation of responsibilities between the Cabinet Office, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and arms-length bodies like the National Energy System Operator risks creating profound confusion. They warned that this fragmentation will fundamentally slow down central Government’s response during an acute crisis.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A Government who are actively hollowing out that macroeconomic foundation are inherently making Britain more vulnerable and far less equipped to absorb and recover from future crises. Turning to the machinery of central Government, the Amber Book, updated in April 2025, rightly makes explicit the leadership role of the Cabinet Office in the cross-Government response to national emergencies, yet its operational execution relies entirely on seamless co-ordination with lead Government Departments. Nearly a year ago, the Government explicitly committed to publishing refreshed lead Government Department expectations to clarify the exact role of the Cabinet Office and other Departments in planning and responding to crises. Ministers promised that we would have those by spring 2026.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster introduced the UK Government’s resilience action plan last year, he promised that it would assess the UK’s resilience, enable a whole of society approach and significantly improve public sector resilience. Almost a year later, however, what we find is a framework characterised by high-level bureaucratic ambition that is fatally undermined by deep structural fragility, broken promises and ministerial inaction. I must start with the foundational prerequisite for national resilience—the economy. I understand why the Government want to talk about resilience planning, but they ignore the elephant in the room: a collapsing economy locked in a doom loop of high spend, high debt and high taxes. True national resilience requires immense fiscal headroom and economic stability.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker, for this vital debate on our nation’s preparedness for national emergencies. We live in an era defined by profound and accelerating global volatility. The primary duty of any state is the protection of its citizens: we must ensure that the United Kingdom is as properly prepared to meet the threats of an unstable world as it is to respond to a domestic crisis. Our adversaries are becoming bolder. We have seen hostile state action inching closer to our shores, with alarming incidents such as Russian-flagged vessels anchoring mere miles off the UK coast and directly above the critical transatlantic telecommunication cables that underpin our digital economy.”
House of Commons2 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and allowing me to give one further example that I hope the reviewers will consider. Lloyds will this month close the last existing bank in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, leaving all of my constituents, whether urban or rural, without a proper bank. However, none of the villages are eligible for banking hubs because of the presence of building societies—sometimes part-time building societies —within the villages. Does he agree that while our building societies provide a fantastic service, they do not provide the range of services that my constituents, particularly those with small businesses, need that could be offered through a banking hub?”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last week, I tabled a written question to the Foreign Secretary, asking whether Jonathan Powell was subject to scrutiny vetting before or after he was appointed as the Prime Minister’s special envoy on the Chagos negotiations. I have not yet received a response. Given that Morgan McSweeney appeared to tell the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning that the vetting process began only after Powell was later appointed as National Security Adviser, how can I secure an official answer from the Foreign Office to this basic question before Parliament prorogues?”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The UK has become a global leader in agri-tech and particularly selective breeding, largely because of our flexible regulatory framework, including the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023. That would not have happened if we were still members of the European Union. The BioIndustry Association says that dynamic alignment would threaten UK leadership in biotech innovation. Will the Minister commit to securing a carve-out for precision breeding so that our success in this vital sector is not threatened by new or future EU legislation?”
House of Commons23 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think the House and the public outside will have heard that the Minister is refusing to give that commitment to the representatives of this vital sector. However, he will know that the high cost of fertilisers is one of the biggest pressures on British farming and food prices. Raising carbon prices to the level of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism is projected to add around £100 a tonne to that cost. At a time of high food costs and squeezed food security, does he really think that now is a sensible time to hammer British farming yet again?”
House of Commons23 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What assessment has the Minister made of the EU’s emerging “Buy European” policies? Is that not a protectionist barrier by the European Union? Finally, if social value is now mandatory at 10%, what assessment has been made of the risk that it adds cost and complexity, particularly for SMEs? I know that the House will want clear answers.”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On prompt payment, how many suppliers have actually been excluded from major contracts for failing to meet the required standards? If this strategy is truly about value for money, why have the Government still not resolved the fragmentation, poor-quality frameworks and poor use of data and technology that were identified by the National Audit Office? On national security, contracting authorities are now required to assess risks not just from prime contractors, but from associated persons and subcontractors. How many procurements have been referred for national security consideration, and how many suppliers have been excluded or challenged as a result? What assurances can the Minister give that public contracts are not still flowing into supply chains with links to hostile states?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) on securing this urgent question—I know how rare it is for a Government Parliamentary Private Secretary. [ Interruption. ] She is not any more—I apologise. I welcome the Government’s ambition to modernise public procurement, but ambition, as ever, must be matched by delivery. There are a number of questions that the Minister must answer today. The Government promised transparency through a new online register of commercial agreements. When precisely will that register be live, and will it be comprehensive from day one? Ministers often speak of backing small business. Will the Minister publish in a single, accessible place every Department’s SME target, its latest outturn and whether it is on or off track?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, and most importantly, what contingency plans has the Minister put in place in case it becomes necessary to terminate Capita’s contract for the CSPS, just as he has today terminated its contract for the Royal Mail scheme?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will he confirm that his Department has delivered the standardised mitigation letter that CSPS members can share with lenders to explain their temporary financial difficulties? That was promised last month; has it been delivered? I understand that there will be a commercial session on 28 April to discuss the penalties that Capita is facing, and what officials have called the “wider commercial position”. Will the Minister be attending in person? Will he commit to updating the House at the earliest opportunity, following that meeting? Will he elaborate on exactly what his officials mean by Capita’s “wider commercial position”?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all agree that it is in everyone’s interests that the operational stability of the CSPS be restored as quickly as possible. After all, Capita won the contract because of the failure of the previous MyCSP contract, and clearly a further change would mean more disruption, causing further harm to those who have already been so badly impacted. Ministers must ensure that Capita meets its contractual obligations consistently, and that any penalty clauses in the contract that can be enforced are enforced, to allow compensation to be paid. The Minister has some questions to answer. For those who are missing out because of Capita’s failings, will the Minister unequivocally commit to delivering a functioning service in the timeframe that he has set himself?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Committee called on the Cabinet Office to fully develop contingency plans before making a final decision about whether Capita should take over administration on 1 December last year. The Minister’s Department confirmed that—four months after the transition was completed—Capita had still not met three transition milestones, while one was only partially met It is only at this point that the Minister has brought forward the contingency plans—the same contingency plans that the Public Accounts Committee recommended months before—but the warning signs were there, and they should have been clear and obvious. Despite that, last November, a full year and a half after the Government took office, they wrote to trade unions, confirming that Ministers were pressing ahead with Capita’s contract..”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sadly, the constituents and others from around the country who have contacted me about Capita simply would not recognise the Minister’s claim of answer times being down to two minutes. This is not the way to reward a career of dedicated public service. Last year, the National Audit Office highlighted that Capita had failed to meet three of the six key transition milestones that had been due by March 2025. All those milestones related to scheme design and operational readiness. In October last year—two months before Ministers had to make a final decision on the transition to Capita—the Public Accounts Committee noted that Capita had missed milestones to deliver its IT systems.”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is clear that the current situation, as the Minister said, is the culmination of a series of entirely unforced errors by Capita. Its failure to adequately administer the CSPS has caused significant financial distress to thousands of former public servants, such as my constituent Chris. He has found himself without the pension he was relying on at just the time that his wife has had to step back from work after a cancer diagnosis. These people worked hard and planned responsibly for retirement, on the basis that the CSPS would be there for them when they needed it. Capita’s failures have left them anxious, frustrated and, in many cases, desperately out of pocket, but in all too many cases that I am aware of, Capita has been utterly unresponsive.”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I begin by paying tribute to our fantastic public servants, civil servants and postal workers. The vast majority give so much in service of our country and the general public. This week, perhaps more than any other, is a reminder that it is Ministers’ responsibility to provide the political leadership so that those workers can deliver. The Minister’s decision to terminate the Royal Mail statutory pension scheme is enormously consequential and will be welcomed by many in this House, but more so by our many retired postal workers. While I appreciate being given advance sight of today’s statement, it does seem that the Minister, particularly in regard to the civil service pension scheme, has come to the House with more of a plan than a statement.”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister dissembles over what he knew about Sistema and Mandelson, but the Cabinet Office due diligence report sent to the Prime Minister on 11 December 2024 stated: “Mandelson served as a non-executive director of the Russian conglomerate Sistema, which is itself the majority shareholder of RTI, a defence technology company…Mandelson remained on the board until June 2017, long after Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.” Will the Prime Minister finally confirm that he knew that Mandelson was a director of Sistema long after the invasion of Crimea, but appointed him anyway?”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They have suffered for far too long in ways that we can barely begin to imagine, and no compensation scheme can ever reverse the horrific harms needlessly done to them. I hope, however, that the universal acceptance of the conclusion of the reports and the determination of us all to do what we can to make changes that will stop others suffering in future will bring them some comfort.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“516.] I also asked him how and when the inquiry might be drawn to a close so there could be a degree of policy certainty. I did not hear him refer to that in his statement, so will he confirm that, with the implementation of the key recommendations from the additional report and Sir Brian’s letters, the public inquiry has now drawn to a close? Once again, I thank Sir Brian Langstaff and his team for their diligent and comprehensive work over the past eight years to help deliver some justice after decades of scandal and suffering. Most of all, I again pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of the many victims and their families who were infected or affected by the infected blood scandal.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We welcome that pragmatic step, but can he clarify whether the removal of the 25% deduction for past care will be applied automatically to all existing offers, or will those people who have already received offers need to reapply to have their awards adjusted? As the Minister said, the compensation scheme must “embody their stories”. Justice delayed is justice denied, and we must ensure that the new supplementary awards do not become a secondary bureaucratic hurdle for a community that has already given so much testimony and waited so long. Before I close, I turn to a matter that seems to be missing from the Minister’s statement: the inquiry. When he last updated the House before Christmas, I raised the need to “move from a period of review to one of rectification and delivery.” —[ Official Report , 30 October 2025; Vol. 774, c.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Regarding the 50% increase to the core autonomy award for those infected at age 18 or under, will he confirm that that will also apply to those infected through their mothers in utero? The Government rightly aim to minimise the administrative burden and the demand for evidence. We welcome the £60,000 lump sum for those with clear potential to earn but who lack evidence of earnings, but how will the Infected Blood Compensation Authority define “clear potential” without falling back into the lengthy, individualised assessments that the Minister says he wants to avoid? Finally on the compensation scheme, the Minister announced that for past financial loss, the Government will use whichever calculation is “most financially beneficial” for the recipient.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that the infected blood inquiry’s additional report was published back in July last year, will he reassure the House that the legislative timetable will not lead to further agonising delays for those in declining health? Will the first quarterly feedback summaries, which he has promised will come in July, provide a hard deadline for when those new level 2B severity awards and backdated supply chain management payments will actually reach bank accounts? If not, does he have an expectation of when those payments will be made? I think the Minister mentioned increased core injury awards for bereaved parents whose children died before the age of 18. Can he provide greater clarity on the justification for excluding parents whose children were infected when they were young children but turned 18 before the time of their death?”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We therefore commend the Minister for the specific increases to the unethical research awards, and in particular the uplift to £60,000 for the survivors of Treloar’s school and the expansion of the scheme to include those treated as adults. Those are necessary recognitions of a truly outrageous chapter of the scandal. However, while the Minister spoke of tangible, systemic change, many victims and their families will be looking at the fine print with a degree of trepidation. I therefore have a number of questions regarding the delivery and scope of these announcements. The Minister noted that further legislation will be required later this year to enact these substantial changes.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for his statement and for providing an advance copy. We naturally welcome the progress reported today. The fact that 3,273 people have received offers totalling more than £2 billion is a significant milestone in a decades-long struggle for justice. I thank the Infected Blood Compensation Authority for its work to speed up the payments. As Baroness Finn said in the other place, “what we call the scandal was, in truth, the infliction, collectively, of grievous harm upon thousands of people by the state.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 4 November 2025; Vol. 849, c. 1821.] Nowhere was that more egregious or more shocking than in those cases where victims were infected as a result of deliberate experimentation in the name of science.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Hospitality adds nearly £2 billion to Northern Ireland’s economy, supporting more than 75,000 jobs, but last year more than 2,000 hospitality workers in Northern Ireland lost their jobs. Does the Secretary of State agree with Unite the union, of which I know he is a member, that this is the result of the Government’s disastrous national insurance rises?”
House of Commons25 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If I may just speak very personally—this might be a word for the hon. Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley—perhaps, in the longer term, the Government may wish to consider whether it is still appropriate that Members of the Whips Office should continue to be paid at a rather lower rate than Parliamentary Under-Secretaries. That is obviously a discussion for a different day and not one on which I think my party, nor the Minister’s, has a collective view. I have only one question. As the entitled salaries are increasing while the claimed salaries continue to be frozen, will the Minister tell the Committee how that affects pension entitlements? Are they calculated according to the salary to which Ministers are entitled or the salaries that are actually paid?”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am in the rather fortunate position of being able to stand here as an Opposition Whip and shadow Minister who does not receive a ministerial salary, so I cannot be accused of having any conflict of interest in supporting the Government in what appears to be a sensible and, as the Minister said, technical measure that brings the de jure rules into line with practice over the past few years. It makes sense to exclude the salaries of permanent secretaries, as the previous review concluded, not least because permanent secretary salary bands are so broad as to make a mid-point measurement largely meaningless anyway. As the Minister says, we understand that the pay freeze that has been in place, certainly for the 15 years since the reduction at the start of the coalition Government in 2010, will continue.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Farmers in Kingswinford and South Staffordshire have contacted me in recent days about the steep rise in the price of key inputs such as fertilisers and straw. Current events are likely to make these pressures even more acute, with serious implications for farm viability and domestic food production. Could we have a debate in Government time on the rising costs facing British farmers and the long-term resilience of UK food production?”
House of Commons12 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although many of the provisions are technical in nature, they will nevertheless shape how the new procurement framework operates in practice. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could provide reassurance that the central digital platform is ready to support the expanded responsibilities under the regulations, and that the contracting authorities and suppliers, particularly smaller organisations and enterprises, have been given sufficient guidance to adapt to these changes. I look forward to the Minister’s response.”
House of Commons11 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“You can never have too many procurement SIs in a week, but for those who did not have the pleasure of Monday afternoon’s Committee, I will spare them some of the background information and just say that the Opposition support the draft regulations. As the Minister says, they will give effect to important provisions introduced by the previous Government’s Procurement Act 2023. The details required to be published for contracts over £30,000 are particularly important, as are the measures to ensure transparency for some sub-threshold contracts. Understandably, the Government have again not produced a separate impact assessment for the draft regulations, relying instead on the broader impact assessment that accompanied the Procurement Act and the associated reforms in 2022-23.”
House of Commons11 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Until the Government can answer that question convincingly, the British public will view this proposal in exactly the same way that they view most grand Whitehall technology schemes: with deep suspicion, a modicum of mild amusement and a firm determination to keep their identity exactly where it belongs—in their own pocket, not floating somewhere in the Government’s cloud.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The OBR did not change that figure in last week’s projections, so we can assume that £1.8 billion remains the best estimate. And for what? Britain has managed perfectly well for centuries without a peacetime national identity system. Society functions without citizens having to authenticate themselves to the state every time they wish to open an app or go about their daily lives. Before we rush headlong into constructing the world’s most elaborate digital clipboard, the Government should recognise some serious concerns. If their system fails, it will be expensive; if it is hacked, it will be dangerous; and if it expands, it will be intrusive. So what exactly is the overwhelming crisis in British life that requires us to take all three risks?”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Computer says you no longer exist.” It is no wonder that even the Health Secretary wants nothing to do with this particular headline. Of course, the Government tell us not to worry because the system will be secure. This is the same Government who cannot even keep their own Budget secret. How much confidence can the public really have that their personal data will not be misused, when the Minister who was responsible for the scheme this time last week had to resign following reports that he hired a firm to spy on journalists who had written negative stories about his organisation? In November, the Office for Budget Responsibility put the cost of this boondoggle at £1.8 billion over three years, which is more than the cost of building and operating a new Type 45 destroyer—and nearly as dangerous if not used properly.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Desperate for an announcement to shove Andy Burnham off the front pages before a tricky Labour conference—look how that turned out—the Prime Minister dusted off this scheme with no clear idea of how it would work, what it would cost or what the consequences would be. After one of the Government’s many U-turns, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister now assures us that this digital ID will not become compulsory. Nothing is ever compulsory until it suddenly is. We know how this story goes. At first, it is voluntary, then it becomes strongly encouraged. Then, you discover you need it to open a bank account and see your GP. Before long, your phone battery dies while you are in the queue at Costa, and you are essentially a non-person: “Sorry, sir, no flat white for you.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now, the Cabinet Office seems to be suggesting that it might just help to reduce hold times in Government call centres. This great undertaking has gone from promising the elixir of eternal youth to the equivalent of, “Well, you never know, it might help if you have a slightly upset tummy.” The public know snake oil when they are offered it. We should not be surprised, because this never was a thought-through policy; it was always a distraction stunt. For years, officials have been looking at the ID file on the shelf, hoping for a Government desperate enough to pick it up, and last September they finally found one.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for the briefing a short time ago. It is said that in 1720, gullible investors were invited to put their money into “a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. Today, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister appears to be reviving that proud tradition. For months, his Department has insisted that digital ID was absolutely essential, and until a few weeks ago, it had to be mandatory—even for babies. However, after months of insisting that the scheme was indispensable, the Government are now asking the public to tell them just what it is indispensable for. There was a time when this was supposed to be the magic bullet to tackle illegal migration.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The regulations are, in many respects, technical in nature, but they form part of the broader implementation of the UK-India trade agreement and therefore could have significant implications for access to public procurement markets, both here in the UK and abroad, so it is right that the Committee carefully scrutinises how they will operate in practice. I look forward to the Minister’s response.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, what assessment has been made of the value of procurement opportunities in the UK that will now be accessible to Indian suppliers under the agreement? On the flip side, can the Minister further lay out what reciprocal access UK businesses will gain to public procurement markets in India, and what practical support will be available to help UK firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to take advantage of those opportunities? Thirdly, could he clarify the expected timetable for the agreement to enter into force and, therefore, for these provisions to begin applying in practice?”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In practice, that means that economic operators benefiting from the agreement will be entitled to the same treatment as UK suppliers in procurements carried out under framework agreements, dynamic purchasing systems or qualification systems that remain subject to the previous rules. The amendments will apply only to procurements commenced after the UK-India agreement enters into force; procurements already under way will not be affected. The Government have indicated that a full impact assessment has not been produced on the basis that the regulations are not expected to have a significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors. Given the scale of public procurement in the United Kingdom, it would be helpful if the Minister provided some clarity on a few points.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If a supplier fails to deliver for the public, it can be held to account and potentially barred from future work. Given those positive changes, it makes sense to apply the new system to procurement covered by the UK-India trade agreement. Of course, due to the transitional provisions currently in place, some procurements continue to be governed by earlier legislative frameworks, including the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016. That is one of the reasons why we agree that the regulations before us, which will ensure that the procurement chapter of the UK-India agreement can also apply to procurements still conducted under those earlier regimes, are necessary.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Instead of the rigid focus on the lowest price under the previous EU-derived rules, under our new procurement framework we can consider value more holistically, including social and local benefit; instead of restrictive procedures, there is more competitive flexibility, so that buyers can design the process; and instead of it being difficult to exclude bad actors, as was the case under the previous system, robust powers are in place to debar suppliers on national security grounds. I am sure that the Minister will confirm that those powers will still apply under the regulations. Importantly, buyers can now give significant weight to bids that create jobs in their specific region or the sector for which they are responsible, and for the first time, public bodies are publishing key performance indicators for major contracts.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are proud of many of the changes brought in by the last Government through the Procurement Act to boost the UK economy, including the move from the EU’s most economically advantageous tender system to our own, broader, most advantageous tender system. That subtle change of language has massive real-world implications. It lets contracts reflect real value and not just price.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Desmond. The Minister will be aware that we have some concerns about part of the UK-India agreement, but those concerns do not apply to the provisions on public procurement, and as such we support the measures in the regulations. In effect, the regulations add the UK-India agreement to schedule 9 to the Procurement Act 2023 introduced by the previous Government. That will mean that suppliers from India that fall within the scope of the agreement will be entitled to participate in relevant UK public procurement processes on the same basis as UK suppliers.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗