Ms Marie Rimmer
MP for St Helens South and Whiston · Labour · United Kingdom
“I was thinking to myself about coming to this debate and what is going on in the world now. I was thinking about religion and belief and why people are fighting when they should not be. Every single religion is in this book and is represented with beads on this bracelet.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirdly, because the evidence before us shows that China’s repression is becoming more systematic, more legalised, more normalised and more exportable.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should condemn the persecution of Uyghurs as what it is—a genocide. We should press for transparency in administrative and criminal detention, an end to secret detention practices, proper access to lawyers and families, and due process consistent with international standards.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It shows how the law in China is drafted in deliberately vague terms to condemn believers, vaguely accusing them of “harming national interests”, “disrupting social order”, “resisting infiltration” or “extremism.” Such phrases are not carefully bounded legal concepts; they are instruments of selective enforcement.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It means that every religious tradition must first be made subordinate to the ideology, priorities and authority of the Communist party. The goal is not merely to make religion Chinese, but to ensure that religion is stripped of its independence and made to serve the party’s political project.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The so-called Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a state-sponsored form of Chinese Christianity, is presented by the authorities as the legitimate framework for Protestant worship. This is not simply a matter of registration; it is a matter of subordination.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The reported abuse of Uyghur and Turkic Muslims is a significant breach of the values of our country and our Government, and we must seek to lead the way to ensure that our trade restrictions become freedoms for the Uyghur and Turkic Muslims. It has been less than 16 hours since I sat and listened to two Falun Gong people—a woman and a man—in Room G off Westminster Hall last night. One had been imprisoned in Xinjiang for over 20 years—taken in and brought out, taken in and brought out, for years, and tortured. She is now here in this country. I listened to her. It was harrowing. It was horrifying. A younger man was also there; he had been in a number of times and escaped—got out. I have met a doctor who escaped and is now living in this country.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister introduce a presumptive ban on imports from Xinjiang, akin to the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, so that unless a business provides clear and convincing evidence that goods sourced in Xinjiang were not made with forced labour, they will be prohibited? We need to further review our modern slavery legislation. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 needs to be more robust. Can we please review it so that companies and their supply chains can be held to account? Should companies be found in breach of cleaning up their supply chains, significant penalties should be applied to the perpetrators. We need a serious trade framework making it explicitly clear that the UK will cease all trade if there are traces of forced or slave labour.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Britian has been a soft touch and now we need to be in touch with the reality of these atrocities. The evidence is there—from submissions to The Hague to inside reports—that these crimes are being committed. Today it is estimated that 40% of the UK’s solar industry and 45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon supply are connected to the Uyghur region of China. That means that 97% of the world’s solar panels could contain polysilicon made in the Uyghur region of China, which has credibly been reported as being at risk of association with Uyghur forced labour. As Labour progresses with its green energy sprint, it is vital that clean energy means clean procurement. Similar breaches have been exposed in the batteries for electrical vehicles.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We must not stand by when Uyghur and Turkic Muslims are exposed to slave labour, torture and re-education programmes. As the Minister knows, I have been challenging the UK’s approach to trade with China in the light of the harvesting of organs and the use of forced labour; I sought to amend the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 and the Procurement Act 2023. Over the past few years, UK legislation has fallen behind developments in the supply chain. Our laws urgently need to be enhanced to protect human rights. Such crimes must be held against the standards set in international law, and where found wanting, sanctions imposed. I call on our Government to clean up the supply chain and ensure that China is held to account for the abuses perpetrated.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for securing this essential debate. Now that we have a Labour Government, we have an opportunity to review our trade and diplomatic relations with nations, not least with China. We know that many manufactured goods exported from China have used forced labour by Uyghur and Turkic Muslims, not least in the solar, electric vehicle, cotton and seafood industries. Absent from the last Parliament was a human rights approach to trade. We have an opportunity to reset our trade policies and international relations and to ensure that countries that exploit labour know the consequences.”
House of Commons6 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me now turn to the issue of local authority funding for adult and children’s social care. Local councils bore the brunt of austerity; successive Government cuts since 2010 have left them in dire straits, which disproportionately affects the people who are most likely to access social care. There have been increasing pressures to find savings, which has not only cut services and jobs but seriously limited the ability to invest in cost-effective preventive services. Some 73% of the budget of St Helens borough council is spent on adult and children’s social care. I welcome the Chancellor’s 3.2% real-terms increase in local government funding, including the £600 million to support social care—”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Budget will deliver to communities such as mine. May I begin by welcoming the mineworkers’ pension scheme resolution? It means that £1.5 billion of miners’ pension payments to their fund will be distributed among 112,000 former miners and their families. It is absolutely right that an injustice has been corrected, for those people have waited far too long. It is also shameful that the last Government failed to budget for the resolution of the Post Office Horizon and infected blood scandals, and I applaud our Chancellor for correcting that now. I urge the pensioners who will not receive the winter fuel allowance—those who are just missing out—to apply for universal credit; in St Helens, £6.5 million remains unclaimed. I regret that we have been unable to remove the two-child cap, or deal justice to the WASPI women.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One in four households in England live in a SIGOMA council area. At present, social care services are a postcode lottery, and that needs to be addressed. We need a methodology that takes actual needs into consideration, and ensures that the funding follows. However, I applaud the Chancellor for providing £250 million for children’s social care and £600 million for adults.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No. It is good that, in the short term, a Labour Government will target additional grant funding at the councils that are most in need, but that needs to be the start of a process that will reverse years of financial decline. For too long, local council funding formulas have worked against underprivileged communities, and the areas that need funds the most often do not receive their fair share. Sadly, that creates a downward spiral, with an ever-increasing percentage of local government funding being spent on social care. This is not sustainable. As I have said, 73% of our council’s budget is spent on social care. Moreover, the 48 members of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities are unable to invest in their local areas in the same way as their counterparts because of the funding formulas.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, while the top 10% stacked up 57% of it—up from 52.5% in 1995. In our communities, the less well-off are struggling with energy prices and other costs. What will the Government do to ensure that the gap closes?”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am honoured to have met Sebastien Lai and his legal team, who are fighting for the release of his father, Jimmy Lai. Jimmy is 76 and a diabetic, and there are serious concerns about his ill health in solitary confinement. Jimmy is a man of faith. He is a Roman Catholic who is being denied Holy Communion—how very cruel that is at his stage of life and in his condition. His crime is standing up for freedom and democracy. Sebastien has been doing all he can, but he needs assistance and respectfully requests that senior figures in Government get his father, a British citizen, released. Will the Foreign Secretary commit to meeting Jimmy Lai’s family and will he ask the Chancellor to do the same, ahead of her visit to China next year?”
House of Commons28 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are absolute angels, who look after our elderly relatives and loved ones with love and compassion. Social care should be promoted as a valued service, and professionals in the sector deserve recognition and respect, yet the pay and terms and conditions need to match the duties we ask of them. The whole sector needs a rework to ensure that it pays fairly and offers progression, so that staff can afford to stay in the job that they love and want to do. They should be valued. Labour has promised, rightly, to set up a national care service, thereby finally putting care on a par with the NHS, because it needs to be a modern healthcare system. There needs to be sector of social and healthcare professions. The reforms need to look at the funding model, at-home treatment, staffing issues and, crucially, the integration with the NHS.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The levy is based on council tax levels, so the areas with the lowest returns will receive a pittance. It is in those areas that more people need care and support. According to the Local Government Association, 57% of council tax already goes on social care. It is not sustainable, because there is less and less money, and more and more people. We live longer now, and we will continue to live longer in the long term, so the problem will only continue to get worse. Social care should be financed nationally, and it should follow the needs of patients. We cannot give a quota of money when there are hundreds of people in one borough, and perhaps 100 in another borough, needing support; it needs to follow the needs of the patient. One of the sector’s major problems is hiring and retaining care workers, who do an incredibly difficult job.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When it comes to adult social care reform, priority must be given to treating patients at home where they feel comfortable, with their families around them and with their neighbours popping in. That is essential, both to protect hospital bed capacity and to give elderly and disabled people the dignity they deserve and the ability to stay in the homes they love in familiar surroundings. Most of the care, and even some of the medical and clinical treatments, can be given at home—I have witnessed this—and that can free up NHS bed capacity for those who need the beds to receive treatment that they cannot receive at home. The current system of relying on local authorities whose budgets have been cut for more than a decade is not good enough. Even with the additional social care levy, local authorities are struggling to cope.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because of the wonders of modern medicine, people are living longer, but that often brings with it multiple complex needs. Our care system has not kept up with these changes. Families care, and they also need support. Care staff cannot leave a sick person alone waiting for an ambulance. Often they wait for hours, which has a knock-on effect on shift patterns and, ultimately, on other patients who are waiting for the care and support that they need. Elderly and vulnerable patients should not be left waiting for food, medicine and personal care. The NHS and the care sector need to be better integrated, in order to stop situations like that arising. Care homes and nursing homes are also closing, so, again, there is a lack of capacity leading to unsafe discharges. The sector is in crisis, and patients are suffering.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hospital had already turned a corridor into a ward and was doing everything it could, but the ambulances were still stuck in the car park. This is simply because hospitals are over capacity—and Whiston has been well over 100% capacity on many occasions. It is a very popular and very good hospital, but it is overstretched. Elderly and chronically sick people are not being given the dignity that they deserve. At times, unsafe discharges have occurred in various hospitals, and that needs to change. There is a new term now: it is not “bed-blocking”, but “accommodation not clinically needed”. Social care must be fixed and properly financed, and it must be truly affordable for people to use. The pressure that the NHS is under will only be fixed if social care is fixed as well.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a great honour to represent the town in which I was born, and in which I hope to die, and to represent those great people who have worked so hard during their lives. For too long, social care and the needs of elderly and vulnerable patients have not been adequately considered, but social care is just as important as our national health service. Indeed, the NHS has suffered greatly from the lack of appropriate and necessary recognition and consideration of social care within Government. We have heard time and again about record waiting lists, patients being treated in hospital corridors, and ambulances carrying patients having to queue for hours outside A&E. According to a communication from the North West Ambulance Service, 30-odd ambulances had been stuck in Whiston hospital car park.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). May I congratulate all Members who have been returned to the House of Commons, and in particularly I congratulate and welcome all the new Members. I wish them every success and happiness in their time in the House. The Humble Address was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), a great friend of mine, and seconded by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). They are both warm, kind people—probably the two kindest I know in the House—and their speeches were very warm, very humorous and very interesting. That was the highlight of the day, in my view. I must thank, in particular, my constituents in St Helens South and Whiston for returning me once again.”
House of Commons17 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Whether we like it or not, there is a war in Europe. There will be a winner and a loser. It is essential that Ukraine wins this war, and we must ensure that it gets what it needs. Ukraine must win, and Europe and NATO must do everything in their power. Ukraine must win, for if not I really fear that Europe and NATO may not survive in the future.”
House of Commons20 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is $300 billion of Russian central bank funds sitting in the Euroclear exchange, and our Government should be pressuring the EU to use it to support Ukraine. Money seized here should also be used to support Ukraine. China has given Putin a blank cheque; it is supplying him to win. It is also time for talks on Ukraine joining NATO and the EU to begin, and to be hastened. That is what they are fighting for—to be part of the free and democratic world, and ideals that many have fought and died for. Denying them that in the hope of appeasing a ruthless dictator is pointless. History teaches us that trying to appease a bully does not work. Ukraine is backed by the free and democratic world. Putin is backed by dictators and despots. If Putin wins, every authoritarian regime across the world will be emboldened.”
House of Commons20 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Who knows what will happen in the US presidential election? Our country and Europe need to be ready. Our support for Ukraine needs to step up. Any sign of weakness or hesitancy inspires Putin. The result of this war will have a greater impact on Europe than it will on America. It is ultimately our war—Europe’s war—and we need to make sure that Ukraine wins. When armaments are supplied, too often restrictions are placed on them. Limiting the use of long-range missiles is asking Ukrainians to defend their country with one arm tied behind their back. Russia has gone all in to win, and Ukraine being able to fire missiles slightly further will not change Russia’s already barbaric behaviour. The massacre of Ukrainians in Bucha shows how the Russians will behave if they win. Ukrainians know that they are fighting for their survival.”
House of Commons20 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For more than two years Ukrainians have been fighting this war on behalf of us all. The brave Ukrainians are fighting for our shared values. They are fighting for our democracy, for our freedom, and indeed for Europe’s freedom. Many of those brave Ukrainians have made the ultimate sacrifice. Women and children have paid with unspeakable suffering and death. We are not dying each day to defend Europe from Russia. Our job, and the job of other European and NATO countries, has been to support Ukraine. That has been through military aid, sanctions, and cracking down on dirty money, yet too often we are playing catch-up, and delays in vital support getting to Ukraine have cost them dearly. The delay in American support for months has given Putin a new-found optimism, which could prove catastrophic to our Ukrainian allies.”
House of Commons20 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some 44% of places in youth custody are taken up by children and young people on remand who do not go on to receive a custodial sentence. Yet children held in young offenders institutions spend most of their time locked up in their cells, amid high levels of violence. Does the Minister think that that is the best place to spend time during adolescence?”
House of Commons14 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Giving all young people a good education is key to levelling up our country, yet the number of apprenticeship starts has fallen by a third over the last decade and there are 3% fewer completions than three years ago. We have improved on last year, but we are not there yet. Why have the Government let the number of offered and available apprenticeships slide, and why does the Minister think that young people are not qualifying at the rate they were three years ago?”
House of Commons29 April 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Do you agree that we should be looking for more hospice care, not less, but we should not be changing it to a hospital ward? It is a different atmosphere in a hospice. Do you find that is the case? That is not decrying hospitals, but hospital is not somewhere to die.”
House of Commons22 April 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for her wonderful contribution to the debate. Many people want to stay at home—I have stayed with four people right through to their deaths at home—but hospices give a different care from hospitals. If you go into hospital, you might not get into the hospice. We have 10 beds in the most beautiful hospice, which is funded 71% from fundraising. If they are not in a hospice, and they do not have care at home—not everybody can do it at home; they might not have the family to provide the care they need—they can end up in a hospital for hours. Does my hon. Friend find that in her area? They can get triaged in an ambulance outside the hospital, and they do not get the palliative care and support, and their families do not get support—it is a completely different service.”
House of Commons22 April 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I thank the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for securing the debate. It has been a wonderful and sincere debate, but does my hon. Friend agree that there should be more equality between care at home—hospice at home—and care at the hospice? There is no doubt that there is nothing better than care in a hospice—absolutely no doubt. I have nursed four members of my family at end of life, and getting clinical support at home when it was needed was always a problem—my brother had to search for morphine at night. Does she agree that staff are funded even less and are on the minimum wage?”
House of Commons22 April 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Reoffending costs £18 billion a year, but there is not just the financial cost but the impact on society in general, as well as on the individual. Some young prisoners are still getting only one hour out of their cells, so there is no time for rehabilitation—they can perhaps do a little exercise, but that is not the same. How confident is the Minister that all young prisoners will get the re-education that he has outlined? When does he think all young prisoners—if these people have to be in prison—will get proper rehabilitation and the support they need when they come out of prison to get a home, to have somewhere to stay and to go into further training? Will he please give me some reassurance that better times are coming, not just for young offenders but for society as a whole?”
House of Commons20 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. Will the Minister cast some light on something to help me to understand? Does the statutory instrument have any impact at all on the overseas territories? If not, how are we going to monitor them and restrict their activities, because most money laundering goes through the overseas territories?”
House of Commons6 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He was a dear friend to so many people and so well respected, and I am privileged to be one of those people. I always enjoyed chatting over a drink of tea in the Tea Room, and we would have many a laugh. I will miss Tony, my real friend. God bless Tony and God bless his family—may you take the same comfort that I have here today listening to so many well-deserved tributes.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been a real comfort to me to listen to so many tributes for such a wonderful man that I have the highest respect for. I had the pleasure of knowing Tony for many years and it was a joy to work together in Parliament after decades of friendship. He was such a kind, caring, compassionate man. Tony could not help himself from helping others. Every day was a day of action to help others to make life and things better. Only last month, I was at the all-party parliamentary group on Belarus—he corrected me on how I pronounce that—which was chaired by Tony, and he was fighting as passionately as ever for a free and democratic Belarus. That was just last month. Tony was kind and softly spoken yet so strong in his beliefs, and actions always followed them up.”
House of Commons23 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They should pick up the costs on development, so people know what they have got. Then you have the old properties—I call them asset-rich and purse-poor. The properties are worth a fortune. They are beautiful big old houses—you would give your right arm for one of them—but when it comes to maintaining all this and their paths, the older people cannot do it. To bring that up to standard is a cost. It is not a cost for the council to pick up.”
House of Commons16 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to be careful on this. Councils are constantly picking up bills from other people, and these costs are the costs of poor developers. There are different ways of dealing with different aspects of this. One is safety development. To take a leaf out of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, you design, you develop, you construct—for use, maintenance and everything. Why not do the same for future housing developments, so that we do not have estates built without roads or pavements or these nice park features that would be lovely for children to play out on? Nobody’s going to maintain them and they end up like a rubbish tip. People tip there, because nobody cleans it up. And what happens? More people tip there. No developer should be allowed to develop things that cannot be put right.”
House of Commons16 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I was picking up on that point. The lady present understood it. She was saying that it is not that the councils are paying twice for something; everybody looks—”
House of Commons16 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister justify the Government cut of 38% of the funding for projects to reduce violence against women and girls in Merseyside? They have cut £400,000, and one project will have to cease.”
House of Commons15 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The use of international lawyers has been a long-standing practice in Hong Kong, and we have failed Mr Lai. Will the Minister advise exactly what steps will be taken, and when, to secure or attempt to secure international legal representation of the British citizen Mr Lai?”
House of Commons18 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Labour’s plan to tackle the criminal gangs directly with a cross-border police unit and to clear the backlog is the only way to stop the small boats. Vanity projects for headlines are not befitting of such a serious issue. The Government should go back to the drawing board—I bet we will be here in a few months or a year.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The system is failing and it needs fixing. This country needs a solution to the crisis, not a distraction. The Bill claims that Rwanda is a safe country, because the Bill says that is so. That is not the type of country that Britain is. We are not like that. We believe in the rule of law and obligations under international laws and treaties. The Rwandan Government have been involved in many questionable events across Africa, including the kidnapping and beating of dissidents abroad. The Rwanda policy is an attempt by the Government to look tough and to distract the country from the sorry state they have got us into. Even on the off-chance that flights to Rwanda take off, they will deal with less than 1% of asylum claims. It is a Tory vanity project. It will not solve any problem. As a country, we are better than this.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Rwanda is not a safe country. This country is using the Bill as a distraction from the Government’s failure to sort out the immigration backlog. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are being spent on hotels every day. Hundreds of millions have been spent on this fantasy Rwanda policy without a single person being sent there. That money would be better spent sorting out the backlog and getting people processed. Immigration policies are already in place, but they are not being enforced. The Home Office is working too slowly, as it has previously with passports. Processing claims quicker is the best way to free up hotels. In the past decade, the backlog of asylum claims has risen four times faster than the number claiming asylum. This is ultimately a crisis of the Government’s own making, and it has been years in the making.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to be able to identify who the true owner of offshore wealth is. We need to be able to uphold the law and make sure that tax is paid. We need to remove the veil of secrecy that, sadly, exists in too many of our territories and dependencies.”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Public registers can also help to restore public faith in the tax system by helping to expose the high levels of aggressive tax avoidance and evasion that we know take place. In the long term, public registers can contribute to creating a fairer and less lopsided tax system. That allows the Government of the day to collect tax effectively, and fairly invest in our public services and infrastructure. Public registers of beneficial ownership are a sensible transparency measure, with broad cross-party support. The Government have repeatedly expressed their support for establishing public registers, but we are still waiting for them to be set up. They were supposed to be set up by the end of 2023. This situation cannot go on. The Foreign Secretary needs to get this over the line.”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Quite frankly, every time there is a series of leaks—from the Panama papers and the Paradise Papers to the “Cyprus Confidential” dossier—it is an embarrassment to our country, and it is not going away. As has been set out, one of the most effective ways to crack down on the problem is with public registers of who owns the companies in our overseas territories and Crown dependencies. There has been enough talk about cracking down on tax avoidance for decades; it is now time for realistic and pragmatic action for good. Fraud, tax and sanction avoidance, and other economic crime can be cracked down on only if it is possible to follow the money. The Government cannot expect law enforcement to crack down on tax avoidance if it is not given the tools it needs to do it. We can do it and we have said we will do it, so we should get on and do it!”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The presidential family of the Republic of Congo have enriched themselves to the sum of at least £500 million by completing dodgy oil deals through companies based in Anguilla, all while the Congo sits in billions of pounds of debt. Of all the cases, 92% of those were registered in the British Virgin Islands. The scale of the financial damage caused by those companies is £196 billion, which is greater than the UK’s foreign aid budget over the past 20 years. We in this House often talk about our responsibility to the world and to mankind, and about our duty to help the world’s poorest—that is why we believe in foreign aid—yet monumental sums are being robbed from countries around the world by despots and dictators and then stored in our territories. Our duty to the world requires us to do more to crack down on it.”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have a duty to the people of Ukraine to do our bit. We have heard many times from the Dispatch Box about how much support we are rightly giving to Ukraine, but the Government must press our Crown dependencies and overseas territories, which are the Russians’ laundromat of choice, to do the same. Transparency International has identified 237 cases of corruption enabled by companies based in the overseas territories. Those cases are worth an astonishing £250 billion, which was diverted via rigged procurement, bribery, embezzlement and the unlawful acquisition of state assets. All those cases passed through companies registered in our overseas territories.”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for securing the debate. Our country, with its Crown dependencies and overseas territories, is responsible for 35% of global tax loss. The UK tax gap is estimated by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to be worth £36 billion. Those billions of pounds could be spent helping our NHS or fixing our schools’ leaking roofs, but sadly, they are instead propping up Putin and his cronies as they try to destroy Ukraine. The past year has put a spotlight on dirty money laundered and hidden here, yet that problem has been around for years. We must act now to ensure that we are not indirectly responsible for horrors continuing to occur by failing to tackle dirty money, be it in London, the British Virgin Islands or one of our other territories.”
House of Commons7 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law should always be treated with the utmost seriousness. Assessing specific allegations is the proper task of lawyers in competent international courts. Does the Minister recognise, with Labour, that the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction must address the conduct of all parties in Gaza?”
House of Commons4 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Looking after the health of the nation must be the top priority of any Government; looking after the health and wellbeing of all NHS staff is simply a must.”
House of Commons24 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Believe me, I was horrified when I learned of the working conditions, and I thought I knew quite a bit about health. In some hospitals, the NHS staff—doctors—are lucky if they have a mess like a sixth form might have. Surely our doctors are worth more than that. Solving the NHS workforce crisis cannot just be a one-off solution. There needs to be continuous assessment of our future needs as a country, so we do not find ourselves in this situation again. It takes years to train medical professionals, so the Government must plan continuously and years in advance. That is what a Labour Government will do; Labour will provide the short-term solutions along with a long-term strategy to ensure our NHS is never in the state that the current Government have driven it to.”
House of Commons24 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What costs more money is having to recruit temporary or agency staff to plug the staffing gaps and losing the existing expertise in the workforce. What costs more money is having to send patients to private appointments due to lack of NHS staff. Our doctors deserve respect. The title “junior doctor” can be misleading to the public. Junior doctors are trained professionals who could have 10 years, or up to 20 years, under their belts. The term “junior doctor” does not give doctors the respect they deserve with their skills and experience. Adopting the use of “postgraduate doctor” or another term would be more befitting and give doctors more of the respect they rightly deserve. The Government should be speaking to those doctors to find out how to improve their working conditions.”
House of Commons24 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Medical school placements need to be prioritised in current understaffed areas to help reduce the health inequality that exists across our country, which covid tragically put a spotlight on. Any long-term NHS workforce strategy needs to address that issue. The second part of the approach needs to be retention. There is no better short-term solution than to keep as many trained medical professionals in the NHS as possible, yet this is more than just a short-term solution. Keeping experienced and skilled staff in the NHS helps us both now and in the future, and is about more than simply money. The general working terms and conditions, whether that is work-life balance, job flexibility or pension allowance, need looking at. Yes, it costs money to improve the living standards and working lives of our medical professionals.”
House of Commons24 October 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗