Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
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“Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth outlined effectively in his speech, and that we have heard about in other contributions: a massive increase in hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation in the past five years, up 112%. Hate crime against trans people is up 186%. In Merseyside, where my constituency of Wallasey is, hate crime based on sexual orientation is up 162%, and against trans people it is up 1,033%. I ask the Minister what the Government are planning to do, given that six Cabinet Ministers took to the podium to rail against the trans community and so-called gender ideology and wokeism at the recent Conservative party conference?”
“Today at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that “the words we say here have an impact beyond this House.” We have seen that sometimes global issues have an effect on levels of hate crime for other reasons, and we are conscious of that today. We are also conscious of some others. Problematising members of the community, particularly trans members of the LGBT community, othering them, and perpetrating discourse that casts them as a threat and a danger to children—the usual tropes that many who are old enough and have been involved in politics as long as I have remember from the 1980s—can end only with one effect. It is the effect that my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to be in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing the debate on hate crimes against LGBT+ people as part of National Hate Crime Awareness Week. I recognise that there is a rising trend of hate crime across the board, as our society becomes more divided. Those politicians who seek to peddle the politics of blame and division have a great deal of responsibility on their hands. We have seen a rise in that kind of politics across the globe, and sadly in some areas of our country.”
“It is an understatement to observe that the ministerial code has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance during the last few years, and trust in our politics has suffered as a direct result. It has taken the Government two years to respond to the 23rd report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and they have failed to accept the most important recommendations in it, including increasing the power and transparency of the work of the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. Why?”
“I call on the Government to build on the statements of previous Ministers and finally take action to implement the recommendations of the review in full—critically, including the consideration of a redress scheme specifically for Primodos-affected families.”
“Member for Maidenhead has called those findings into question, and she explained in her contribution why she did that. Families such as Marjorie’s are long overdue answers for this miscarriage of justice, and they are all desperate to ensure that no further families suffer the adverse consequences of medicines they take or medical devices they have been given by the NHS without having access to redress much more quickly. They have endured great suffering, and they will continue to experience that suffering as a product of the use of Primodos during pregnancy. That suffering cannot be diminished, and it is a tragedy that they have had to wait so long and been so neglected, and that they are now being stalled just when they thought that finally, after years of campaigning, their suffering and the adverse effects had been recognised.”
“As other Members have highlighted, the all-party parliamentary group has three clear asks of the Government, which I hope the Minister will address when she responds: first, that the sensible and necessary recommendations made in the independent medicines and medical devices safety review relating to Primodos be implemented, including the creation of a redress fund for the families affected; secondly, that there is an acknowledgment of and explanation for the present lack of implementation of those recommendations, because it has now been a long time—three years; and finally, the withdrawal of the highly disputed findings of the expert working group, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East talked about. The right hon.”
“Member for Maidenhead that as the legal process has now ended, what ended with it was the Government’s latest excuse for not pursuing some form of redress. I hope that the Minister is able to reassure us that that position has now changed.”
“As Marjorie movingly put it in one of our recent communications, “Nevertheless while there is breath in my body, I will continue to support my daughter and all our members who struggle every day because of the damage caused by Primodos. It is an absolute disgrace that they have not received justice and that Bayer”— the pharmaceutical company that manufactured this drug— “and the Government think they can just walk away scot-free.” In the three years since Baroness Cumberlege’s independent medicines and medical devices safety review reported, we have seen long overdue work undertaken to support those impacted by pelvic mesh and sodium valproate, including the development of redress schemes, but Primodos victims have had no action whatsoever—indeed, there has been total silence and avoidance. I echo the point made by the right hon.”
“Both Marjorie and Tania are missing vital medical records—in fact, there are none at all for the first few years of Tania’s life or for Marjorie’s pregnancy. It is therefore very difficult to have definitive proof of exactly what happened to them. This is a convenient omission—that is all I am going to say. This campaign has been incredibly trying for many families, as they have often felt sidelined and stonewalled at every turn as they pursue justice for their now grown-up children. However, as this debate and those attending it today demonstrate, they remain determined to win their campaign for answers and redress.”
“Both the APPG and the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests have campaigned tirelessly—this year marks a decade of the APPG—for countless families who have had their lives irrevocably changed by the impact of Primodos. Locally, my constituent Marjorie Lancaster-Smith has long been an active campaigner within these groups and has shared with me at length the impact that Primodos has had on her family. Following the use of Primodos during Marjorie’s pregnancy, her daughter Tania has complex heart and intestinal problems, which she has had to live with her entire life. These have impacted both Tania and the family as a whole, and she has had several periods of severe ill health, operations and complications that have been life-threatening on several occasions.”
“It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I pay tribute to the work she has done and place on record my thanks to the all-party parliamentary group on hormone pregnancy tests, which is very ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who secured the debate. She demonstrated her passionate support for those affected by this great injustice that it has taken far too long to put right. I would also like to mention the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, led by the redoubtable Marie Lyon, whom we all know and have met, as well as our constituents who have been subject to the terrible effects of taking Primodos in their pregnancies.”
“I think the Minister for her generosity in giving way, but this sounds like a typical civil service-drafted speech, if I may say so, mentioning everything but the issue we are talking about. We are not talking about mesh; we are talking about Primodos, and we want to hear about redress. Can she now please address those points?”
“Order. I do not want to intervene too much, but if you say “you”, you are referring to me. As I am sure we all we know, he is “the hon. Gentleman”.”
“I intend to call the Front Benchers from 10.30 am. If hon. Members who are not on the Front Benches bear that in mind, there will not be a need for a time limit.”
“Before I call Esther to reply, can I say that interventions have to be brief, especially in debates of this kind, where other speeches are not allowed? I have been lenient once; I will not be again.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Privileges Committee is meeting, it cannot engage in answering allegations about what it is doing in the press, but has to continue its work until it is completed, and that the rules of the House require that other people should refrain from commenting on it or calling it into disrepute until the actual document is printed and the report has been laid before the House?”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has referred to the Privileges Committee—it notes this in the report—as a kangaroo court. He said: “I think it makes kangaroo courts look respectable.” He also referred to the members of the Privileges Committee during its hearings as “marsupials”. On reflection, might he like to apologise for that use of language?”
“Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the motion were not to go through, and it was to be open season on all future members of the Privileges Committee during inquiries, the only recourse for this House to ensure that it was not lied to in future would be to have an outside system to assess that, which would be constitutionally novel and—I think—highly dangerous?”
“It is not usual for a Privileges Committee report to involve such high stakes as the one that the members of the Privileges Committee—many of them are sitting here listening to this debate—had to cope with. We have never in my experience—I am not sure that it is even in the history books—had a Privileges Committee of any Parliament put in quite that position. It is therefore to the credit of this House—”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—Madam Deputy Speaker, sorry. I think I got my pronouns mixed up. I rise to support the motion before us today. I am glad that there are no amendments to it, because it is the motion that the Privileges Committee asked to be put before the House in its special report. It is very important that “this House notes with approval the Special Report”. For us to do that will give us the best chance as a democratic House to put what has been an unprecedented period behind us. It is not usual, as we all know, for a Prime Minister to agree that a Privileges Committee report into what he said on the Floor of this House be sent to the Privileges Committee, as happened in April 2022, with the unanimous support of the House.”
“That would be a very profound constitutional change, with far greater implications for the freedom of people to speak in this House than simply abiding by decency, courtesy and proper rules when the Privileges Committee is meeting.”
“The special report, again as the Leader of the House pointed out, is unprecedented, because people have never behaved this way in the past when a Privileges Committee was attempting to carry out the duty that was given to it by a motion that was passed unanimously by the House. It is important, given that similar rules apply to the Committee on Standards, that, in what I hope will be the rare occasions in the future when the Privileges Committee may have to meet to do its job and be convened, it will be allowed to do so. As I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), if we cannot restore the respect that the Privileges Committee must have to do its job in future, we will have to create an outside body to do it.”
“But, of course, social media did not exist when I first came into this House, and neither did GB News. Before things get any more heated, we need to stop and think about the consequences of allowing the behaviour that we have seen in the past few months, as the Privileges Committee has done its report, to continue. It is to the credit of this House that the Privileges Committee’s original report—its fifth report—was debated and carried by such a majority. That puts a line in the sand. It enables us to begin to rebuild the reputation of this House and to use the Privileges Committee to ensure that this House can police itself on the Floor in the Chamber and bring Ministers to account by insisting that they tell the truth.”
“I am sure the hon. Gentleman will do what he thinks is right—I think we can all guess what that will be—when we vote. I note that the way in which this House has traditionally worked is that there are Standing Orders and there is Erskine May, but there are also unwritten assurances about how this House should behave when these issues are before it. Certainly, the Leader of the House was correct to ask, rather philosophically, at the beginning of this debate what had changed to cause the emergence of behaviour that I would not have expected to see when I first came into this House 31 years ago. I would not have expected to see people’s integrity being impugned in quite the way that it has been while they were doing duties that this House had unanimously asked them to do.”
“I ask them, one last time, to have the grace to get up during the debate and apologise to the House for the way in which they behaved prior to the Privileges Committee publishing its report, and give us an assurance that they will not do it again.”
“I suspect that those Members who tried to blacken the names of those compiling the report, and unleash that kind of process against them, knew exactly what they were doing and knew exactly the pressure they were trying to bring to bear. It is absolutely shameful that some Members named in the report indulged in that kind of behaviour, including two ex-Cabinet Ministers, members of the Privy Council and an ex-Leader of the House—the right hon. Member for North East Somerset —who knows better, and who knows that he knows better than to behave in that way. When I came to this House, I never thought that I would see such behaviour. It is to the great detriment of Conservative Members that we have seen such behaviour.”
“I have also had experience of how what one does in here can translate out there into threatening behaviour and difficulties—[Hon. Members: “We all have!”] Yes, and I said that earlier in my speech, if Conservative Members were listening. Therefore, no matter how high the stakes, it is extremely important that when Members comment, they do so within the Standing Orders and the rules of this House, and that they save comments about witch-hunts, kangaroo courts, malice and the rest of it for when the Committee has reported. One unique thing about this House is that while a report is being compiled and evidence is being collected, that Committee cannot respond to what is being put to it in a 24-hour news cycle. It must wait and let its report do the talking.”
“I have to say that, now that a little of the heat has gone out of the situation, I would have liked to see the Members mentioned in the report have the good grace to stand up and apologise to the House for some of the language they have used, such as kangaroo courts, marsupials and comments about “calibre, malice and prejudice”. The House voted for the members of the Committee to be tasked with a very difficult job. Nobody in their right mind would want to find themselves in that position. It is not a nice way to spend parliamentary time—much less attending 30 meetings, under enormous stress and with the outside social media pressures coming in at them from all angles. As someone who stood against the leader of my party, I can tell hon. Members that I have had some experience of how that works out.”
“If there is no respect in this House for the Privileges Committee and the things that we try to do to maintain good behaviour and decency in this House, there will be even less respect outside, and that will damage our ability to ensure that our democracy works properly, because without truth there is no democracy. Although this looks like quite a small report, it is a very significant one, and it is important that Members on all sides of the House, whatever faction they are in, consider seriously the implications of not voting for the motion tonight.”
“That is the problem, and I think the special report has done us a service by bringing it to the attention of this House. It is something we have to think about as we consider the motion. We have been living through febrile times. We have seen two Members of this House assassinated in the past few years while doing their jobs. There is a lot of anger and controversy out there, wound up and heated up by the way social media works. I think everybody in this House, especially those who have been subjected to some of those outside pressures—there will be many Members of this House who have—needs to think very carefully about how they conduct themselves and the kinds of words they use.”
“I was going to make a very similar point to the one that the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has just made. Does the right hon. Member agree that this is not about criticising a report once it is published? It is about not trying to nobble it while it is going on.”
“When they were privatised, water companies had all the debt written off, so they started with zero. Since then, they have borrowed £53 billion, much of which has been used to help pay £72 billion in dividends. The investment has been made by borrowing and putting it on to customers’ bills. Now, the ratings agency S&P has negative outlooks for two thirds of the UK water companies it rates, because they are over-leveraged and took out too much debt in an era of low interest, which they now have to pay back. This is not a triumph but a huge problem for the resilience of our water industry. What will the Minister do when water companies start falling over?”
“Some 8,600 families in Wallasey are facing increases in their mortgage bills of up to £1,800 in a year. That is a huge extra chunk of worry. I welcome the Chancellor’s statement, but does he not worry that the banks are being very slow to pass on interest rate rises to those who are saving, while almost immediately passing interest rate rises on to those who borrow? That makes the interest rate mechanism much less effective in dealing with the inflation situation. Did he notice, as I did, that the banks this autumn made more than £4 billion extra on the differential between those interest rates? Should he not have been much tougher on the banks? What will he to do to stop this profiteering?”
“T8. Food inflation is rising by double the rate of inflation, and the rate for basic foodstuffs—bread, pasta, milk—is even higher, often going up by 40% or more. In my constituency, 38% of people have skipped meals. Will the Secretary of State investigate the role of sanctions and benefit inadequacy in a system in which people cannot feed themselves?”
“As the Committee itself points out, comparisons between the inquisitorial nature of the Committee’s proceedings and those of an adversarial court of law are “fallacious”.”
“Fourteen months of painstaking and forensic work later, the Committee has produced its excoriating verdict in the report we are debating today. It is a damning verdict, and one that I believe the whole House must not only note, but vote to accept. I will comment on the findings of the report later, but I first wish to make a few further observations about the importance of today’s proceedings. Boris Johnson and his acolytes have engaged in a systematic attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Committee and its work for their own purposes. They claim it is unfair and biased against the former Prime Minister. They claim that the individuals are biased and that the procedure is biased, but anyone who has read the report and seen the painstaking way in which the Committee went about its investigation will know that this is false.”
“That was when Boris Johnson was still the Prime Minister, and it is therefore safe to assume that he consented to this course of action. The Committee was then constituted—as is customary, as we have heard—with a Government majority, but chaired by an Opposition Member. In this case, it was my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is a distinguished and long-serving Member of this House. She is also a lawyer. There were no objections at that stage to any Member who was asked to serve on the Committee for the purpose of investigation. Had there been such an objection, the Government could have used their majority to change the personnel who had been asked to conduct the inquiry. They did not, and the membership of the Committee was agreed unanimously by the House.”
“He leaves the House in disgrace, spewing Trump-like conspiracy theories and attacking the integrity of the parliamentary system he has done so much to bring into disrepute. This report is not about so-called partygate, although the gravest civilian crisis since the second world war, which took 230,000 lives, is the sombre backdrop against which the Prime Minister’s wrongdoing took place; it is about Parliament’s requirement that Government Ministers tell the truth, so that they can be held to account for their actions. Parliamentary accountability lies at the heart of our democratic system. Serious matters concerning Boris Johnson’s lack of ability to tell the truth were referred to the Committee for investigation by a unanimous decision of the whole House on 21 April 2022.”
“I rise to support the recommendations in the fifth report of the Privileges Committee on the conduct of Boris Johnson. They should be accepted in full, and they should be supported by all Members of this House who wish to uphold our democratic institutions and our system of parliamentary democracy itself. That is especially the case after the former Prime Minister’s disgraceful reaction to the draft report last weekend. The Committee’s conclusions are very clearcut and they are unanimous. The Committee has concluded that the most senior member of the Government, a sitting Prime Minister, engaged in very serious contempt and wrongdoing, which is worthy of the very long suspension that was to be recommended as punishment.”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend. I also think we must commend the honour and steadfastness of all members of the Committee of Privileges who have been put under enormous pressure during this process. The House of Commons has its own rules and regulations, which it must police itself as the courts rightly have no jurisdiction over those. As the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) explained, the courts do not have jurisdiction over this Parliament, and that is to protect Parliament, and by extension our democracy, from being subverted or undermined by outside pressure from the powerful. To portray that inquisitorial procedure as inherently unfair is simply not credible.”
“Mass abstention in tonight’s vote on the Conservative side would be a total dereliction of their duty, and that includes the Prime Minister. I hope that we will see all of them in the Lobby tonight voting to defend the integrity of this Parliament and our democracy.”
“So egregious and so damaging for public trust in our democracy are Boris Johnson and his cheerleaders’ actions that it is now imperative that this report is accepted. All MPs from the Prime Minister down must be seen to be upholding the integrity, professionalism and accountability required to ensure that our system operates, and we must unite to defend truth-telling and punish those who believe they can lie with impunity. That is why this is not merely a symbolic debate, the former Prime Minister having fled the scene of the crime. He clearly harbours designs to make a comeback, having fled accountability and a reckoning, which is why we must support the bravery of those we ask to serve on the Privileges Committee by actively endorsing their recommendations.”
“He used his considerable public platform to make outrageous accusations of bias against the Committee members, who have had to be provided with extra security as a result. Allies of his have threatened any Conservative MP who supports the report with a confidence vote and deselection in their local constituency parties. According to reports over the weekend, Boris Johnson believes that he left Parliament in a “blaze of glory”. He has left in disgrace. He has run from accountability for his lies and untruths. There has been no self-reflection, no apology, no acceptance of a shred of responsibility, just the narcissistic howl of a man-child who will not see that he has only himself to blame.”
“For that crucial purpose to be fulfilled, the House assumes that any Minister tells the truth to Parliament. Inadvertent errors can and must be corrected at the earliest opportunity, but we cannot work if we have rogue Ministers lying on the Floor of this House with impunity. In deciding to resign prior to the publication of the report, Boris Johnson has heaped further opprobrium upon himself. He broke confidentiality by leaking the provisional report, ahead of its being finalised, for his own ends. He fled the judgment of his fellow MPs in a Chamber that contains a large Conservative majority. He ran away from the judgment of his constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, without attempting to defend himself to them.”
“Instead of being thanked, they have found themselves traduced in the Boris Johnson-worshipping print and TV media, which has called into question their motives and their very integrity, and it has been egged on in that disgraceful behaviour by the former Prime Minister himself. It is beneath contempt for serving Members of this House and the ex-Prime Minister to accuse the Committee of being a “kangaroo court” or being “biased” against him. In my view, all those who have made such baseless accusations should themselves be referred to the Committee of Privileges for contempt of this House. As the Committee points out, this inquiry goes to the heart of the democratic system in this country. This House exists to pass law, and also to hold the Government of the day accountable for their actions.”
“Let us see what happens at the end of today’s debate to see whether the system has worked. It is being challenged, and we have to accept that and respond to that challenge, which I hope we will in this debate. Despite the hysterical reactions to the contrary, it is important to state, as the Leader of the House did in her remarks, that this was a properly constituted senior Committee of the House. It was asked to do a difficult but vital job, and it discharged its duties with integrity and honour. It is now our duty to ensure that we support the members of that Committee, and support the conclusions that they came to after that detailed work. I also believe that we should thank the members of the Committee of Privileges, because they have done the House of Commons a great service under the most intense pressure.”
“The hon. Gentleman has been opening the debate with his usual common sense and insight, but has he thought that the toxicity of this debate is deliberately created by those who wish to cause fear and then use that to cause division? Then they can victimise already vulnerable people in a way that is designed to increase the toxicity and fear, rather than dial it down.”
“Pride also gives us the chance to show solidarity with other LGBT+ people around the world who have yet to make the progress that we have enjoyed, and who in 66 countries still face legal bans on their existence and in some extreme cases face the death penalty.”
“The events that take place during Pride Month give us all a chance to celebrate our history, which is very important as it teaches us and gives us hints about what may lie ahead in the future if we do not keep our wits about us. It also gives us a chance to celebrate the remarkable progress we have made as an LGBT+ community, from LGBT+ people being criminalised to legal equality, visibility and much more widespread acceptance. That is quite a journey. It is a remarkable change, and it has happened in my lifetime. I am older than I sometimes think myself to be, but I am not that old in the scheme of the social history of this country, so that demonstrates the scale of the change I think most of us in the Chamber, although not all, have witnessed.”