Lee Anderson
MP for Ashfield · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“There are no words to express the sadness we feel about the passing of Ann Widdecombe, but the sadness, unfortunately, is turning to anger—anger at not just the social media companies, but all of us in this place and the politicians, and some of the language that we use in this place.”
“Q13. In Ashfield, four workers, including two nurses, were kicked out of their HMO, only for Serco to put four illegal migrants in their place. One of those illegal migrants was a Pakistani national who went on to rape a vulnerable young girl in a park in Ashfield. He is now doing 14 years in prison.”
“There was the smell of the pit head bath, which I can still smell now; the sound of laughter in the bath as hundreds of men stood there naked, washing each other’s backs to scrub away the coaldust, the dirt and the grime; and the feeling of your ears popping as you went through the air doors to reach shaft side, before you went undergroun…”
“First, I would like to declare an interest: I am a former coal miner and a member of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme. In the 1950s, there were over 700,000 men working in the pits in this country—people like my grandads, great grandad, dad and uncles—in fact, I cannot remember any male member of my family not working down the…”
“One of the questions that we must ask ourselves is: how many members of the scheme will be left in 10 years’ time? I reckon there will be half as many as there are today, because members of both schemes—the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the BCSSS—are dying every single day.”
“It was the fault of politicians and union leaders that communities were divided. They killed an industry that had served us well in this country. Some men, like my dad, went on strike and others worked. Looking back, I have no problem with either group.”
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“It is great that the Minister is doing work with young boys, but does she agree that boys can be boys and girls can be girls, especially growing up through school? Does she think it is helpful that boys are told they can go to school in dresses?”
“Q10. It was reported on the TV yesterday that the Labour Back Benchers are revolting. Now, that is a matter of opinion, but unlike the Labour Back Benchers and the Prime Minister— [ Interruption. ] Unlike the Labour Back Benchers and the Prime Minister— [ Interruption. ]”
“Unlike the Prime Minister of our country, I have never been thrown out of or barred from a pub, and after yesterday’s disastrous announcement to save our pubs, it is no wonder he has cleared off to China, but I have one question for the Deputy Prime Minister. Will he come with me to Ashfield to visit some pubs, speak to some landlords and explain to them why over 500 pubs have closed since this Labour Government came into power and why another 500 pubs will close in the next year? Come on, be a man!”
“Now that the Chagos Bill has been dropped from the Order Paper for 19 January, will the Leader of the House please confirm when consideration of the Lords amendments will be scheduled?”
“It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairship, Sir Edward. Let us be honest: if this petition was likely to trigger a general election, I doubt very much whether some of my former colleagues would be in the room today, because many of them would lose their seats— [ Interruption. ] We all make mistakes, and when we do we should hold our hands up and say sorry. Wherever I go in this country, and I travel a lot round this country every week, people say to me that they are sorry—sorry for voting Labour at the last general election—and that they will never vote Labour again. They wish they could turn the clock back and vote for a different party, normally Reform UK.”
“They can shake their heads or grin if they want, but they will not be forgiven—mark my words. Just imagine when Labour Members are down at the jobcentre in a couple of years’ time for their next job interview. The adviser says, “What have you been doing for the past couple of years?” Well, I can sum up their achievements already. For the past few years, they worked for an awful dictator. Under his leadership, illegal migration is totally out of control. Our streets are filling up with criminals; in Birmingham, they are filling up with rubbish as well—there are rats the size of small dogs roaming around Birmingham, feasting on tons of rubbish. They have closed pubs and restaurants. They have put 100,000 people in the hospitality industry on the dole.”
“I will just correct the hon. Gentleman slightly. Nowhere in our national literature did anybody promise to cut council tax anywhere in the country. He may want to correct himself on that. Anyway, I get people apologising for voting Labour. Sometimes the odd lunatic might say they are going to vote for the Green party—they are usually recaptured very quickly. But there is a glimmer of hope, because at the next general election, this lot over here, on the Labour Benches, will all be looking for jobs. Of course most of them are absolutely unemployable now, unless they fancy a job as a bailiff, because, let’s face it, all they have done over the past 18 months is go into people’s houses and take stuff off them—usually money from people’s pockets. It is absolutely disgraceful.”
“And let’s not forget puberty blockers—these are medical trials on children. Everyone on the Government Benches who supports that should hang their heads in shame. The Government are ending the automatic right to trial by jury—shameful. They allow Islamist thugs to dictate police policy on the streets of Birmingham. They have turned a blind eye to Islamists threatening to kills Jews on the streets of London. They voted against having a national inquiry into the mass rape of young girls in Labour-controlled areas—absolutely shameful. Each one of them should be absolutely ashamed.”
“Nowhere on the leaflet did it say we were going cut council tax, so the hon. Gentleman should maybe read it again. This Government have stolen money off the workers by not increasing the income tax thresholds—something they promised to do—and they have given that money to the shirkers. By shirkers, I mean that these are able-bodied people—the bone-idle, basically. They refuse to go to work. In fact, they stay at home all day and sponge off the state— [ Interruption. ] Labour Members are shaking their heads. In fact, the only work some of these shirkers do is go out once every five years and deliver leaflets for this lot—great work if you can get it. Our farmers have been attacked, our pensioners have been robbed and we have been locking people up for social media posts.”
“I think X has to clean its act up—that is simple, and I think we all agree with that. It is interesting that all these Labour MPs complain about X, yet they are all on X every day making silly comments—you could not make it up, Sir Edward. If they had any scruples or backbone they would all come off X, but I suspect that not one of them will; they will carry on.”
“We have a Foreign Secretary who is giving away British sovereign territory and making us pay billions of pounds for the privilege. We have a Health Secretary who is ploughing ahead with giving children life-destroying hormone blockers. Worst of all, as a result of this Government we have radical Islamists, former Labour voters—and some politicians—waiting in the wings ready to stand for Parliament at the next election in once-safe Labour seats. Most of the Labour MPs in this Chamber are going to go—they will be on the dole.”
“Let us discuss the Cabinet, starting with the Prime Minister, whose first instinct is to prioritise foreign judges over British people. We have an Attorney General who agrees with the European Court of Human Rights when it blocks foreign rapists and murderers from being deported. We have a Chancellor who does not understand the first thing about economic growth. We have an Energy Secretary who is killing our manufacturing sector with his net zero madness. We have an Education Secretary who says nothing about the radicalisation of our children by left-wing teachers. We have a Justice Secretary who once said that Brexiteers were worse than Nazis. Mind you, Sir Edward, that is not the daftest thing he has said; just go on YouTube and have a look at his contributions on “Mastermind”—hilarious.”
“I am not quite sure. I make about 400 quid a month from being on X. That is not exactly the “gotcha” answer the hon. Gentleman expected to that question, but I make no bones about it: I make money from X, and I pay about 45% tax on the money I make, which goes to the Treasury. Let us not forget another flagship scheme of the Labour party: building brand-new social housing for illegal migrants who come over the channel. Meanwhile, we have a million Brits stuck on the council house waiting list. Yet anybody who calls that out—anybody who disagrees with that lot over there on the Labour Benches—is labelled a far-right racist. It would be fair to say that every family in this country has been affected by this Labour Government, but not in a good way. We have all had enough of it. We are fed up to the back teeth of them.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is most generous with his time. Could he please explain why he thinks Labour MPs were so against voting for a national inquiry?”
“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. He talks about pledges that were not made in the manifesto. I can think of three: a Deputy PM had to resign for tax dodging, a Homelessness Minister had to resign for making people homeless, and an anti-corruption Minister had to resign over corruption. Does he think those things should have been in the manifesto?”
“The hon. Gentleman is most generous with his time. He talked about divisiveness in politics, and he said that schoolchildren are picking up on that. At Quarrydale academy in Ashfield, a year 9 history class was being taught polities. There was a chart on the wall; on one side, it said, “far-right” and “Nazis”, next to pictures of my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), myself, Oswald Mosley and Mussolini. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that is the right way to teach our children?”
“I thank the hon. Lady. She talks about representation and proportionality in the country and in this place. Is she aware that Reform UK got 4.1 million votes in the last election, but got five MPs, and the Lib Dems got 3.6 or 3.7 million votes and got 71 or 72 MPs?”
“The hon. Gentleman is being most generous with his time and has returned me the favour of an intervention. He talks about listening to the public; the public are very angry about the Chagos deal. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Opposition parties should use all the possible levers, in this place and the other place, to kill that Bill?”
“Those personalities include Jimmy Savile, Huw Edwards, Chris Denning, Jonathan King, Chris Langham, Stuart Hall, Rolf Harris, Phillip Schofield —a whole raft of perverts who stalked the corridors of the BBC. None of these here will talk about that—not one of them. Mark my words, those creatures are still stalking the corridors of the BBC. In future their names will come out. [ Interruption. ] Would the hon. Member like to intervene? I thought not.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I must know a different BBC from most MPs here today. The BBC is a service that people are forced to pay for, even if they do not use it. That is not fair. People can even go to prison for not paying the fine; those people are normally young, single mothers. As we all know, the BBC has been riddled with scandal for the past 100 years, but more so in the past few decades. I agree that the BBC has made some great programmes over the years—documentaries, environmental programmes and so on—but it has also produced a raft of dodgy TV personalities, which probably nobody in this room will mention. I’ll tell you what: they do mention them outside in the real world.”
“Thank you, Mrs Harris. Look what they did to Cliff Richard: filmed a raid on his house when he was an innocent man. Look what they did to Princess Diana. Look what they did to Donald Trump, our closest ally. Bob Vylan were on stage shouting, “Death, death to the IDF.” What about the Gaza documentaries? What about the dodgy reporting of the bank accounts of my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)? The list goes on and on.”
“I am quite happy to declare that; it is on my Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is £100,000 a year and it is probably more than the hon. Member will ever get paid for appearing on TV, if he gets paid anything at all. I am not paying my licence fee. I have not paid it for around 10 years. I am not paying to subsidise the pensions of people like Huw Edwards. Some people in this room—probably all of them—may think I am being a bit unfair on the BBC, but I challenge anybody in this room to get on their phones right now and find evidence of another broadcaster that has been riddled with as many scandals as the BBC. People should not be forced to pay for a service that they do not use. Yes, it still makes some great programmes, but it should be a subscription service.”
“I do not listen to the BBC at all and I do not watch live TV. I do not get enough time, as a Member of Parliament and a TV presenter. All my time seems to be taken up with that. I will finish with this: I hope the Minister agrees with me and the vast majority of the British public that people should have a choice. It should be a subscription service, and then people can decide whether or not they watch it and whether or not they pay for it.”
“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time, and he is quite right: the BBC should be held to high standards. Can he think of another broadcaster that has had as many scandals as the BBC over the past 30 or 40 years?”
“In November last year, the Energy Secretary and his entourage attended COP30 in Brazil. That was an event where a rainforest was chopped down so that the Energy Secretary could talk about saving rainforests. Does he understand the hypocrisy of it all?”
“Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker. It is all well and good closing these asylum hotels, but they have to go somewhere else. The latest madcap idea that we hear from the Labour Benches is to build council houses for illegal migrants crossing the channel. Does the Minister think that will help to smash the gangs?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the urgent question, the Health Secretary suggested that Reform UK were vaccine sceptics—that is not the case. I have had all my vaccines since being born, and I will continue to have vaccinations, including the flu jab. Is there anything you can do to encourage the Health Secretary to be a little bit more accurate with the facts?”
“Last week, I met an amazing lady, Rachel Williams, who after 10 years of suffering domestic abuse decided to leave her partner. Just a short while after, he entered the salon where she worked and shot her from two feet away with a shotgun. Luckily the second shot missed, but she has been left with horrific scars, both mental and physical. Prevention is a key element of the plan. What can the Minister tell Rachel that will protect women from violent ex-partners?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. Of course, we have been here before with industry in this country. I remember what happened to the coal mines back in the 1980s. I worked in the coal mines in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and the whole industry was decimated by the Conservative Government at the time—”
“If the Government are going to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise industry or keep places open, they should look at the oil refineries, because once they have gone, they are never coming back, and we have lost the community and that sense of pride. There are not many Government Members here, to be honest—I cannot see many—although I will thank the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) for his passionate contribution. I did not catch most of it because I am a little bit deaf; I will sit a bit closer next time.”
“How things have changed! The power station now burns wooden pellets from trees chopped down in North America—in Canada. They chop the trees down and put them on diesel-guzzling cargo ships. They then chop them up into pellets using diesel-guzzling machinery on the ship. They then come to this country, are put on diesel-guzzling cargo trains and transported to Drax power station, where we set fire to them. And we say that is renewable energy. That costs the British taxpayer about £1 million a day in subsidies. I think it has cost about £10 billion so far since we have been using wooden pellets there. Just a few miles down the road we have the perfectly good Lindsey oil refinery, which appears to be doomed, with 400 jobs at risk and a thousand more in the supply chain.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, he is more than welcome. What the Government did not realise at the time is that when they got rid of a coalmine—each coalmine had a football team, a rugby team, a cricket team, a community club, a miners’ welfare, a brass band and a bandstand in the local welfare grounds—it destroyed whole communities, and those communities will never come back. They will never be the same again. Fast forward 40-odd years and we have a Labour Chancellor and Government, who we would think would protect these industries. Look at the hypocrisy in that part of the world. We have Drax power station, which used to burn coal from a nearby coalmine, just a few miles down the road. I think that was shut about 10 years ago. I remember the Energy Secretary at the time was campaigning to keep it open.”
“Just let that sink in: the biggest cost to a refinery is one that has been inflicted upon it for the sole purpose of meeting net zero. In other words, it has been inflicted by this Government and the Energy Secretary.”
“It is dangerous, dirty work, and they contribute towards their society by earning decent wages—good wages—and it keeps their communities going. If we lose that, we lose it for ever. In the last year alone, we have lost a third of refineries, following the closure of Grangemouth, and now Lindsey is obviously doomed as well. That leaves just four refineries in the country. Why is Lindsey closing? Because it is being hit again and again with costs just to stay compliant with the UK emissions trading scheme. We know that to be compliant, refineries are required to submit verified emission reports to the UK ETS authority and to surrender sufficient allowances to meet the total emissions generated. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) said, those costs account for the highest expenditure in a refinery’s operating budget.”
“We would expect this Labour Government to do a little bit more for these communities. Back in the ’80s, Labour was attacking the Tories for doing exactly the same thing: closing the vital industries. As I say, once the industry has gone, it is gone, and the skills that one generation passes on to another are gone as well. It is all well and good saying to somebody, “It’s okay, you can make windmills or solar panels,” or, “We’ll retrain you in green energy,” but they do not want that. This lot do not understand that there are still men and women in this country who want to get up in the morning and go do a proper day’s graft. They want to set the alarm clock at 10 o’clock at night, get up at half four or five o’clock in the morning and go do a proper day’s graft where they get their hands dirty.”
“Friends say “net stupid zero”, that is what they are referring to. And it is stupid—it is absolute madness. I am going to finish now, because I have had an extra minute and I know other people want to speak. I have been one of those working men who gets up in the morning at 5 o’clock and goes and does a dirty, horrible, dangerous job. I know what it is like to come home, after doing a horrible shift on a horrible job. I know what the people in these communities feel like. They do it because they love their family and their community, so they go and do some jobs that nobody in this room would ever do. This Labour Government should remind themselves what the Labour party was founded on: helping the working man in this country.”
“I have heard colleagues talk about “net stupid zero” in the past. We think the targets should be scrapped; we are not against trying different sources of energy to fuel our nation. We are saying we should have a sensible transition. China has got it right: it is burning coal. China is opening coal mines and using coal-fired power stations. The irony is that China makes solar panels and windmills using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations, and then flogs them to us. We think, “That’s great! Look at this: we’re reducing the Earth’s carbon.” We are not reducing the Earth’s carbon; we are just exporting it to other countries. It is absolute madness and hypocrisy. When we are committing this nonsense, it costs our Treasury billions of pounds in receipts a year. It is absolute nonsense. When some of my hon.”
“My message to the Government is quite clear: you allow undocumented men into our country with no ID at all; you pick them up and place them in luxury hotels with no ID at all; you then give them a free asylum claim and free legal aid with no ID at all; yet you are ordering my constituents in Ashfield to get digital ID, and then you have the cheek to call us fascists. That is what they do. Just leave my constituents alone and concentrate on clearing up the mess that you lot have created.”
“Over 5,000 of my constituents signed this petition, and they do not want this Government poking their nose into their private lives. My constituents are not illegal migrants. They did not break into this country. They are decent, hard-working people whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought in two world wars to secure our freedoms. Every single working person in Ashfield will now be penalised because of the failures of this Government. No one needs a digital ID to work in this country. They need a national insurance number, backed up by a driving licence, passport or some photo ID.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. This Government are trying to create a Big Brother Britain. We had the ramping up of facial recognition and 30 arrests a day for social media posts, and they are getting rid of trial by jury in most cases. We also have children being radicalised in our schools by left-wing teachers. Now this Government are trying to force digital ID on to us all, and the excuse they are using is that it will stop illegal migrants working. If the Prime Minister was really serious about stopping illegal migrants working, he would detain and deport every single illegal migrant that crosses the English channel, but of course he will not. This is a gimmick. It is a pathetic attempt by a weak Prime Minister who has totally lost control.”
“Year 9 students at Quarrydale academy in Ashfield are currently studying politics, and on their display board they had the words “extreme right-wing parties”, “Nazi party” and “fascism”. At the side of those words, they had pictures of Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) and me. Does the Minister think that should be on the curriculum?”
“Q5. While those on the Labour Front Bench continue to peddle their own form of dog-whistle politics, Reform UK— [ Laughter . ] Reform UK is cracking on with the day job. Our Reform-led councils— [Interruption.]”
“The Prime Minister may shake his head, propped up by his gullible Back Benchers, but here is a challenge: will he guarantee that all the cancelled elections from this year and the proposed local elections for next year will go ahead in May 2026? Go on—be a man.”
“One of the major pull factors for illegal migrants crossing the channel is the fact that they can get jobs quite easily. Does the Home Secretary still support an amnesty for all undocumented workers?”
“It has been reported in the media that we have prison officers working in our prisons who can barely speak a word of English. In fact, they are using flash cards to instruct prisoners to go back to their cells. It does not take a mastermind to realise that that is recipe for disaster. Will the Justice Secretary tell us if that is true or not?”
“I share the Minister’s concerns over Army recruitment. Could she please explain to me why a young person would even consider a job in the armed forces if they may get a knock on the door in 50 years’ time to be charged with an offence when they were simply doing their duty?”
“The cover-up continues. We have a Prime Minister who never wanted a national inquiry, we have a Minister who never wanted a national inquiry and we have the Labour Back Benchers who never wanted a national inquiry. Does the Minister agree that the victims of these horrific crimes will never get the justice they deserve, as long as we have a Labour Government in charge?”
“On a point of order, Ms Ghani. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) just swore at my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin).”
“Last year, the chief constable of the West Midlands police force told Muslim elders that he would always police without fear or favour and that he would not tolerate any sort of racism, but the banning of Maccabi fans is quite clearly racism. Does the Secretary of State agree that if the police chiefs cannot police a football match, they should no longer be in office?”
“That should fill us all in this place with a sense of shame. We cannot blame this on a lack of investment, lack of youth clubs or lack of youth facilities. Most of the blame, I believe, lies in this room and with every single politician in this Palace, past and present. We are legislators—we can change this.”