Bell Ribeiro-Addy
MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member will know that, with the extreme heat and reduced rainfall, a lot of water companies are introducing hosepipe bans to mitigate the risk of drought. Does he agree that that seems a bit redundant, given that artificial intelligence data centres use between 11 million and 19 million litres of water a day?”
“This Bill seems inspired by the belief that hostility towards asylum seekers will deter them, whereas hostility towards migrants will not deter those we need economically, but we cannot have it both ways. There is a deeper problem with the Bill’s logic on citizenship provisions.”
“This appears to be blurred with a separate Bill that stops citizenship being restored after the first successful appeal, letting this Government sound tougher than they are while avoiding scrutiny of a power that is already used disproportionately against black, Asian and migrant-heritage citizens.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it.”
“The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation.”
“Automatic deportation for custodial sentences introduces double jeopardy; a wrongful sentence can now also mean unjust deportation. The deportation system is already a mess and is run by the Home Office, which is now asking for sole control of it, without oversight.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Bell Ribeiro-Addy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 12.
“At the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the G20 agreed a scheme to suspend debt payments for over 70 countries, but because private lenders were not made to participate on equal terms, countries that applied to the scheme had under a quarter of external debt payments suspended. As hon. Members have mentioned, over 90% of the bonds owned by countries eligible for debt relief, under G20 schemes, are governed by English law. That means that they are under our control, and we can actually do something about them. The UK could play a leading role in addressing the debt crisis, instead of standing by as private creditors are bailed out.”
“Yet man-made climate change, for which the UK has historical responsibility, is causing untold levels of destruction in that nation, and its debt crisis means that, like many other countries mentioned today, it is unable to take meaningful steps to address it. In 2021, its debt repayments were more than five times the amount of money the Government were spending on measures to tackle the climate crisis. Like many other countries, it is fighting this crisis with both hands tied behind its back. Countries in the global south will face an estimated $290 billion to $580 billion in climate-related loss and damage ever year by 2030—every single year.”
“In 2022, I joined a parliamentary delegation to Kenya with CAFOD and saw at first hand the impact of famine and drought on the people living in Marsabit County. Their agriculture and their livestock had been decimated—the country had been decimated—by one of the worst droughts in living memory. The situation that we all saw on the ground in Kenya brought home the devastating ramifications of the climate crisis, and the inequities that it is rooted in—inequities that we benefited from and have sustained since. Kenya is not a notable emitter of carbon dioxide and does not drastically contribute to climate destruction. In fact, it is responsible for just 0.03% of global carbon dioxide emissions to date—around 160 times less than the United Kingdom.”
“That form of reparative justice could remove the burden of debt that is preventing those countries from fighting the climate emergency themselves, by building infrastructure to defend against some of the environmental challenges that, if we do not get our act together, will be permanent. Some of the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries are seeing their debt payments grow twice as fast as their climate support—they do not stand a chance. When faced with extreme weather conditions every year, such as deathly floods and droughts, they are forced to borrow more and more to support their people and rebuild their infrastructure—adding to their already insurmountable debt.”
“Reparative justice is about addressing disparities that are starkly evident in the fight against climate change, particularly in the context of our international financial system, which is, quite frankly, a relic of the 20th century. Worsening droughts in east Africa, tropical hurricanes in the Caribbean, and tsunamis in Asia show how Britain’s former colonies remain disproportionately vulnerable to the frontline effects of crises that they did little to cause. Not only did we engage in colonial crimes, but we remain a leading historical emitter. The UK could take responsibility by reframing reparative justice within the context of climate justice. We could fund large-scale restoration projects, compensate for biodiversity loss, and help nations to adapt to climate change.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms McVey. I start by commending my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for bringing forward this crucial debate, and for his continuous campaigning on this matter. I chair the APPG for Afrikan Reparations and I have long called on the UK Government to engage in discussions around reparative justice. I have said time and again that reparative justice is about just that—justice. It is about more than handing over money; it is about addressing the structural inequalities that colonialism created and still perpetuates, and changing those global structures that keep the global south in its situation. Those inequalities have been instrumental in creating the debt that we are discussing today.”
“This is not necessarily a divisive issue. When we ask those who are suffering the most from these matters, we find that they believe that it is difficult to move forward because of some of the wrongs that have been done to them in the past. It is simply about recognition and looking at ways to tackle this issue, and at how we can deliver recompense for the wrong that we have done. It is not about being divisive; it is just about accepting what went wrong and understanding that we have a duty to make it right.”
“There are 12.5 million cat owners in the UK, and hundreds of thousands of cats are killed on the roads every year. The previous Government agreed that it would be right to include cats in the Road Safety Act 2006, but they simply did not do it. This means that cats are regularly hit and, because there is no legal duty to report it, are just scooped to the side of the road. Does the Minister agree that this is something that we should do to bring parity to cats and dogs when it comes to safety on the road?”
“Almost every one of the companies have had severe accusations of mismanagement levelled against them, backed up by hard evidence. I do not believe that our asylum process should be run for profit, and I certainly do not believe that companies doing a shoddy job should continue to be handed lucrative contracts while making the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in this country absolutely miserable. I urge the Government to review those contracts, and if they are not willing to bring the entire asylum system in house, they should at least revoke the contracts of the awful companies that I have listed.”
“Although some might point to the profit-sharing agreement that they are meant to have with the Government, the threshold for payback has not been disclosed. A freedom of information request to the Home Office revealed that not a penny of profit has actually gone back to the Treasury under that agreement. We would hope that those companies were at least providing a good service, but that is not the case. We have seen reports of several deaths, suicides and suicide attempts at those facilities. Almost every single one of the removal centres operated by those companies have seen numerous recorded cases of overcrowding, hostile and unsanitary conditions, and mistreatment and abuse of detainees, both physical and psychological. I have seen some of those conditions for myself.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for securing the debate. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on immigration detention, I want to raise the deeply troubling subject of the outsourcing of the management of immigration removal centres to private companies. I do not believe in Government outsourcing for public services —I struggle to think of an example that demonstrates good value for money—yet our asylum system, and particularly immigration removal centres, is being run for profit. In 2019, the Conservative Government awarded asylum contracts worth £4 billion for 10 years to just three companies: Serco, Mears and Clearsprings Ready Homes, each of which raked in millions.”
“T8. Travelling and working abroad can be an incredibly enriching experience, and I welcome the Government’s steps to strengthen our relationship with the EU. My young constituents would like to know specifically what steps are being taken to increase their opportunities in Europe. What discussions has the Minister had with Cabinet colleagues and EU counterparts regarding an EU youth mobility scheme and any other further actions to ease work and travel for young people in Europe?”
“People voted for a Labour Government that would act in a more compassionate way than their Conservative predecessor, and we still have the opportunity not to let them down.”
“Those include schemes for Equitable Life investors and for the victims of blood contamination and the Post Office scandal. Even though the scheme was poorly administered, victims of the Windrush scandal have rightfully been awarded compensation for the suffering they endured. Ultimately, the principle has to be the same and has to apply in this case: the Government made a severe mistake, and thousands suffered as a result, so compensation should be paid. It goes without saying that the mistake was not made by the current Government, and the blame does not lie at their feet, but unfortunately the responsibility for redress does. There is a strong moral imperative for the Government to accept the ombudsman’s recommendation. We have heard during the debate how many WASPI women have died since the campaign began.”
“They planned their lives based on assurances that the state pension would be available at 60. Instead, they have faced financial hardship, uncertainty and, in many cases, significant distress. As a result of the previous Government’s maladministration, these women have spent the bitter, cold winter rationing their heating because 84% are concerned about soaring energy costs. I know that that reality is faced by people up and down the country, but it is doubly so by WASPI women. What is the cost of failing to address the injustice and leaving thousands of women in financial hardship, without the support they were promised? What is the point of an apology without redress? Some precedents have been mentioned already for providing compensation where the Government have failed.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this important debate. I state on record my support and admiration for the WASPI campaign. They have campaigned tirelessly for an acknowledgment of the wrong they face and, crucially, for compensation. I have been pleased to meet many of them on a number of occasions during my time as an MP, and I stand in complete solidarity with them. The Government have rightly accepted the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration and apologised for the 28-month delay in writing to 1950s-born women, but what good is that apology if there are going to be no steps towards redress? These hard-working women contributed to the economy, raised families, cared for others and contributed to society in countless ways.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the fantastic speech she is making. Endometriosis UK, which provides the secretariat of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, of which I am the chair, released a report last year that found that 47% of women had visited their GP 10 or more times with symptoms prior to diagnosis. Many of those women are likely to face issues with getting time off work to attend these appointments, or experience some form of disciplinary action because of it. Does my hon. Friend agree that being understanding and tolerant about the number of appointments needed to secure a diagnosis is critical to being an endometriosis-friendly employer, and that, ultimately, we need to take steps to ensure that the process does not take several years and so many appointments?”
“As the London Renters Union has pointed out, for the many families struggling with housing costs, a 20% rent hike is simply a no-fault eviction under a different name. During my time as an MP, I have seen too many unscrupulous attempts to remove tenants to be unconcerned about a likely increase in illegal evictions in response to scrapping section 21. I welcome new enforcement powers, but we have to acknowledge the financial difficulties that local authorities face after 14 years of massive cuts. The Government must ensure that local authorities have the resources to use these enforcement powers.”
“I welcome the amendments that remember that people with a variety of different circumstances are living in those homes, and they should be viewed with compassion. I welcome and support new clause 10 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), as well as new clause 9 tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) on adaptations for disabled people. It is welcome that the legislation would make it illegal to discriminate against benefit claimants and families for exactly the same reason. I would like further changes to prevent discrimination, such as scrapping right-to-rent checks and reforming the laws around guarantors more generally. I would like the legislation to go further on preventing illegal and back-door evictions.”
“In its current form, the Bill caps rent increases only at market rate—the prices that landlords set. The amendments would instead cap them at the rate of the consumer prices index or wage growth, whichever is the lowest. I have yet to hear a compelling reason why landlords should see their incomes grow faster than people who actually work for a living. I place on record my support for the Renters’ Reform Coalition’s call for a national rental affordability commission, to investigate methods to bring down rents relative to incomes.. Although there are not many Members on the Opposition Benches, the few speeches that they have made have talked about homes almost entirely as assets, forgetting that people need to live in them.”
“The UK has some of the most energy inefficient homes in Europe, with 2.6 million private rented homes falling below minimum energy efficiency standards in England and Wales alone. Almost a quarter of renters live in fuel poverty, the highest rate of any tenure. The Bill contains important measures to provide renters with some basic security and to place some basic responsibility on landlords. However, so much more could be done to strengthen it. I am pleased to see that the Government are supporting the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), and I am pleased to support amendments 9, 5 and 6 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker), which would better protect sitting tenants from unaffordable rent increases.”
“I am glad that the Bill brings some common sense to the situation, ensuring that rent increases can no longer be written into contracts and that landlords will be able to legally increase rents only once a year, and protecting tenants from egregious rent hikes. Also highly positive are the new measures to strengthen enforcement against slum private landlords, to extend the decent homes standard to the private rental sector and to widen council enforcement powers while extending the range of financial penalties available to local authorities to fund enforcement activity. I am pleased that the Bill legislates for a consultation on improving energy efficiency standards in rented homes.”
“In my borough of Lambeth, renting a one-bedroom home now costs the average person more than half their take-home pay. When teachers, rail staff, nurses and other key workers went on strike to call for inflation-matching pay rises, the last Government attacked them and rejected their demands, calling them greedy, but that Government shrugged their shoulders as private landlords collected above-inflation rent hikes from some of those same key workers year after year. In recent years, the situation has been particularly pronounced. In March 2024, the Office for National Statistics reported that monthly rents rose by 9.1%, the highest annual increase since records began in 2015.”
“I declare an interest: like one in three households in my constituency, I rent my home. As a renter and an MP who represents a large number of renters, it will come as no surprise that I rise to speak in favour of the Bill, which will bring in some important, long-overdue reforms to provide private renters with decent and secure homes. Crucially, I am pleased to see the abolition of section 21 evictions, which was promised by the Conservative party, including in its 2019 manifesto, but never delivered. Close to a million people faced no-fault eviction notices in the last Parliament because of that failure, which added to the homelessness crisis that we now face. I am happy to see measures in the Bill that focus on affordability.”
“I could not allow this opportunity to pass without mentioning the new Brixton blood donation centre in my constituency, which is opening in a few weeks. I extend an invitation to the Minister, and all Members, to come and visit the new clinic and to open their veins and donate. It is so important that we challenge the misgivings around blood donation and encourage people to donate. Ending new HIV cases is not just a medical issue; it is a social justice issue. We have to challenge the racism and discrimination that prevents individuals from accessing care, education and support.”
“Racist assumptions around HIV and AIDS have also had consequences in other areas of the healthcare system. As recently as 2021, the NHS had a discriminatory blood donation ban on black donors due to flawed science around HIV. The ban had a direct impact on sufferers of sickle cell, an illness that predominantly affects black communities. Treatment is dependent on blood transfusions, particularly for a rare blood group such as Ro, which is common in black people. The legacy of those rules has resulted in a reluctance among the black community to come forward and donate blood. That is why I commend the work done by organisations such as the Terrence Higgins Trust, which makes a concerted effort to combat outdated and discriminatory policies and all the damage that they cause.”
“Last year, more than one in three HIV diagnoses in Lambeth was classified as late, meaning that the immune system had already suffered damage. Across England, 44% of diagnoses are late and women are 51% more likely to receive such delayed diagnoses. Early detection saves lives, offering effective treatment that ensures that those living with HIV can lead long and healthy lives and not pass on the virus once it is suppressed. People who are not infected are still at high risk because HIV stigma can prevent them from accessing information and education. Cultural taboos linked to sex and sexually transmitted diseases in black communities can also have an impact on people’s access to HIV prevention and education, which directly increases the vulnerability of those who are not infected.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for bringing forward this crucial debate. I will start by commending campaigners and activists who have worked tirelessly to ensure that we have international awareness of HIV and AIDS. The legacy of racism surrounding the AIDS pandemic casts a long and enduring shadow for communities such as mine in Lambeth, and indeed across Africa and the Caribbean. Although the impact of the virus and our understanding of it has evolved, the legacy of racist attitudes towards AIDS continues to have consequences for black communities in the healthcare system. HIV-related racism and stigma increases vulnerability to infection in black communities, and those who are HIV-positive are less likely to come forward to be tested or to access treatment and health services.”
“The UK has a responsibility not just to respect the independence of international courts, but to take active steps to promote compliance with international obligations. When nations or leaders have been accused of committing war crimes, the UK has held itself up as a global leader in placing sanctions. It is unconscionable that in this situation we are yet to stop all sales of arms to Israel. If Israel is accused of committing war crimes, does the continued sale of any arms to Israel not make the UK potentially complicit? Given the gravity of the situation, will the Minister further clarify why he cannot comment on sanctions, or indeed on the other steps that the Government are planning or willing to take to make clear the UK’s condemnation of the continued slaughter of civilians in Gaza?”
“I recently met members of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, who highlighted a loophole in the Human Tissue Act 2004 allowing human remains to be auctioned, frequently disguised as modified items or replicas. Such items have included a foetal skeleton posed under a glass dome, a human thigh bone turned into a cane, a human jawbone necklace and the varnished skull of a six year old, and are often from indigenous communities in Africa and Asia, having been stolen during colonial expeditions. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that it is abhorrent for human remains, regardless of their origin or age, to be sold by auction houses and on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, eBay, Etsy and Gumtree, and will the Government take action to end that depraved practice?”
“Is it here to keep us safe or to monitor us 24/7? Most Members would undoubtedly, I hope, protest at the idea of police randomly stopping members of the public to check their fingerprints or other DNA against databases just for a possible match. Why should we look at this intrusive automated biometric software any differently?”
“Our constituents are effectively being placed under constant surveillance. The notion of their presumed innocence, which sits at the heart of our justice system, has been undermined, and this “cutting-edge” technology has not produced substantial results. With some 6 million CCTV cameras in the UK, which all have the potential to be converted into facial recognition cameras, we are veering dangerously close to becoming a police state with levels of surveillance that would be deemed acceptable only in the most authoritarian of dictatorships. I believe that our liberty and our security can co-exist. It is not a matter of “those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear”; it is a matter of the basic principles of freedom and privacy. Those basic principles begin to draw into question what such surveillance is really here for.”
“People of colour are already disproportionately stopped and searched at higher rates, and the use of potentially flawed technology will serve only to increase the rate at which ethnic minorities are stopped, searched and possibly even incorrectly detained, further dampening trust in the police among these communities. We know that that needs to be resolved. To any Member who thinks that I am exaggerating the potential for misidentification, I say this: in 2023, Big Brother Watch found that over 89% of UK police facial recognition alerts wrongly identified members of the public as people of interest. In that case, what benefits does this technology bring? It has been used in the borough of Lambeth, including in my own constituency, on a number of occasions, but as far as I am aware it has not produced a substantial number of results.”
“If online sources are going to be used as part of the image database, it is almost inevitable that images will be mislabelled and that innocent people will be subject to needless run-ins with the police. Questions around the numerical similarity score used to determine matches also ought to be raised. We already know that facial recognition data has racial bias: it is deeply flawed when attempting to identify people with darker skin tones, just as Getty Images is, and the Metropolitan police’s own testing of its facial recognition algorithm identified disproportionately higher inaccuracy rates when attempting to identify people of colour and women.”
“Friend the Member for Battersea—I hope everybody is following this—and in its apology to all three of us, it suggested that Getty Images, where they had taken the image from, had labelled most of the pictures of me, since I had been elected, with the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea. Since then, to avoid embarrassment, it seems that most publications now use pictures of me looking like a constipated walrus, but they have said that their reason for this is that they can be sure it is me and they want to avoid any further embarrassment. Although problematic, that is a far more trivial example of what can happen when images are mislabelled, but if humans can make these errors, the technologies they create obviously can.”
“This is a deeply flawed plan that could result in serious mix-ups. A simple mislabelling on an image database could lead to the wrong person being stopped and a potentially traumatic experience with the police. I can illustrate my point with a short anecdote; this happened to me a mere few months after I was elected to this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) was speaking in the Chamber. BBC Parliament miscaptioned her as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East and, when they spotted this, both Members took to Twitter to point out the mistake. In their haste to cover the story, the Evening Standard incorrectly used a picture of me instead of my hon.”
“Thank you, Dame Siobhain, for your merciful chairpersonship. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for introducing this crucial debate. Like many others, I have many concerns about live facial recognition technology, some of which have already been raised, but I will focus my remarks on the room for error and the potential impact that this technology will have on already dwindling public trust in police, particularly among black, Asian and ethnic minority citizens. I will raise points similar to those of my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) and Brent East (Dawn Butler). Live facial recognition technology compares live CCTV images with those already on the police database and other images taken from open source, publicly available image sites.”
“Further to the point made by the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock), just about every time that somebody has stated that there are issues of racial discrimination with this technology, they have cited sources that people can look at. For the benefit of both the public and the hon. Member, it is important to note that these are not just assumptions; they are based on data and evidence. There is further evidence we could give, such as my personal experience and the experiences of others, but those specific points were made with evidence.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. I fully understand that something needs to be done. Tuition fees were introduced just before I went to university. It never sat well with me that Members of this House went to university free of charge, or with a grant too, and then seemingly pulled the drawbridge up behind them. I am pleased that the Secretary of State mentioned disadvantaged students and her plans to conduct an equality impact assessment, but we know that university applications have been slowly declining. Has she any plans to review her actions if the equality impact assessment shows that there are issues for disadvantaged students?”
“A four-day week with no loss of pay has proven to have benefits for employers and employees alike, and a recent report by the Autonomy Institute and Alda suggests that it can have a hugely positive impact on the economy. The report concludes that Iceland’s economy has outperformed most of Europe since adopting a shorter working week, and now has one of the lowest unemployment rates. With even more UK businesses beginning a four-day week trial on Monday as part of the 4 Day Week Campaign’s autumn pilot, what assessment has the Department made of the Icelandic report and of the potential impact that a four-day week could have on UK businesses and our economy?”
“Rising demand, rising costs and 14 years of Conservative public sector cuts mean that many local authorities and services are at breaking point. My own borough of Lambeth, a deprived inner-London area with higher demand for social housing and temporary accommodation, and for social, public and youth services, has been particularly affected, which has been quite challenging. Will the Minister commit to an emergency increase in funding to combat the immediate crisis for local authorities, and, in the long term, to a much-needed update of the funding formula to better reflect local need?”
“Friend agree that everybody should come along to the APPG conference this Sunday, 27 October, if they would like to hear more?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her fantastic speech. As she will know, a number of people are calling for reparations, including Members of this House; there is an all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations of which she is a member. Does she agree there should be a discussion about the different ways in which people want reparations to be paid? People have heard about large sums of money and have got scared, but they have not thought about all the different ways, such as through environmental or educational reparations, that we could go about repairing the sheer imbalance of equality that we as a country created by taking part in the enslavement and trafficking and colonialisation of other countries. There are many different ways in which we could support those we so seriously disadvantaged, and does my hon.”
“That would do nothing to rebuild broken trust and confidence, particularly within the black community, who have been disproportionately impacted. Following the Angiolini and Casey reviews, is less accountability the route that the head of the Met should be asking for?”
“The fatal shooting of Chris Kaba caused pain to his family and considerable fear and anger, not only in my community but across London. This House must understand that the concerns being raised are not anti-police, but pro-accountability. We must respect our legal processes, and it is extremely rare that police officers ever face such prosecution. The Home Secretary clearly agrees that while police officers work under exceptional pressures, any loss of life following police contact must be properly investigated, so is she concerned by comments from the Metropolitan police commissioner regarding disciplinary processes, including that firearms officers should be exempt from criminal charges over fatal shootings?”
“The right to protest, and the courage of people taking to the streets to demand change, have given us many of our cherished social advancements—from the suffragettes demanding votes for women to the Race Relations Act 1965—but the sheer number of powers to restrict protest is resulting in peaceful protesters being arrested and sentenced to lengthy periods in prison. The previous Government pushed through a range of such laws despite opposition from senior policing figures and from Members across all parties. When will a comprehensive review of the state of protest take place, with a view to repealing powers that unnecessarily restrict the right to peaceful protest?”
“11. If he will take steps to help increase the number of accommodation units available for parents whose babies have been admitted to neonatal care units.”
“I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their re-elections and on taking their places. Recent research from the charity Bliss showed that when a baby receives neonatal care, their parents are routinely expected to leave them in hospital overnight for weeks or even months at a time. Its research found that for every 10 babies who need to stay overnight in neonatal care, there is only one room available for a parent to stay with them. How will the Minister ensure that the existing guidance about facilities for families is followed, and how will she ensure that trusts can access the resources they need to stop the separation of babies and their parents?”
“I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on his announcement that there will be an early repeal of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. This, too, is an anti-democratic, authoritarian measure that places members of the armed forces above the law. The Prime Minister’s announcement on this should be a model for the rest of the legislation that I have mentioned. It is also very important to look at some of the actions that the previous Government took. They rushed legislation through in a very hurried way. In fact, they gave us a model for doing things in the future. I wish to point out that the people of this country voted against that Government, so let us repeal all of their awful legislation both quickly and decisively.”
“Scrapping the exclusory voter ID laws that the Tories introduced is another urgent priority to strengthen engagement in the democratic process. A survey by More in Common estimates that more than 400,000 people were prevented from voting in the general election due to these undemocratic rules. The same research shows that people of colour were 2.5 times more likely to be turned away. Let us be clear about this: any law that disproportionately stops black and brown people from participating in our democracy is racist. The voter ID laws were introduced on the pretence of tackling voter fraud, yet between 2017 and 2022 there were just 18 convictions. Compare that with the 400,000 people blocked from voting at the ballot box. There are so many things that we want to see.”