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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“Throughout the 1980s, hostility to LGBT+ people was used explicitly by the Government in their political propaganda to portray the Labour party as loony lefties—that is the phrase that was always thrown at us. That effort was enthusiastically supported and highlighted by the Tory-supporting red-top tabloids in lurid and bullying headlines, which are still imprinted on my brain today. You know, it worked, Mr Deputy Speaker. I remember vividly canvassing in Battersea for the now Lord Dubs in the 1987 general election, only to have doors shut in my face after being told that Labour only stood for—the House will have to excuse me for using this language, but I think it is important in the context—the blacks and the queers. That is how well the weaponisation of this stuff, which all centred around section 28, worked.”
“There are fantastically good examples of great progress, but there are also some places where there has been no progress. We ought to support the TUC and the LGBT TUC, who are doing their best to change this reality in the workplace. All the work I have mentioned helped drive real change and increased understanding of issues that had remained hidden for too long. The increasing willingness of LGBT+ people to come out brought these matters into the open, and there was a softening attitude to LGBT people among the public. As someone who became a Minister in the 1997 to 2010 Labour Governments, it was clear to me that public opinion on this issue had moved faster than the previous Government’s attitudes.”
“Meanwhile, trade unions organised to support LGBT+ people facing discrimination at work and incorporated the fight for equality into their workplace bargaining. Today is the first day of the TUC LGBT conference, and I wish them luck from this Chamber and send greetings for the work they are doing, but the TUC published a poll of HR professionals today, which demonstrated that one in five of UK workplaces does not have any policies in place to support LGBT staff at work, and only half of managers said they had a policy prohibiting discrimination, bullying and harassment against their LGBT workers in their workplace. Although we have changed the law, we still have much to do to ensure that all employers treat their LGBT+ employees with the respect they deserve and that employees are properly protected from bullying at work.”
“The march to legal equality had many setbacks, not least the arrival of the odious section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which put back the cause of equality for years and caused untold misery for many of the most vulnerable people in our society at the most vulnerable time in their lives. Even now, it leaves a legacy of unaddressed bullying in our schools, which some teachers worry about confronting. The decision of the Thatcher Government to write into the law of the land the ridicule of LGBT+ relationships as “pretended”, and to ban what they called the “promotion of homosexuality”, led directly to the formation of Stonewall in 1988. It was the beginning of a more focused attempt to push for basic human rights to apply to LGBT+ people.”
“When young people today hear about this oppressive history, they can scarcely believe it, so much have we managed to change by working together. That is the nature of the progress that we have achieved. Indeed, I watched Dame Kelly Holmes’s documentary yesterday. She went to see some LGBT Olympian boxers training together, and they did not even realise that when Dame Kelly joined the Army, she could have been dismissed in disgrace for her sexual orientation. They were astonished. This is massive change within only a few generations, and we should all be proud of achieving that.”
“That first Pride was a very different occasion from the carnival attended by 1.5 million people when we last had a Pride in London, pre-covid in 2019. I sincerely hope that this weekend’s 50th anniversary will resemble the 2019 carnival, rather than the first one. LGBT+ people have come a long way together with our allies, and we should all be proud of the progress we have achieved. Male homosexuality was only decriminalised by that pioneering Wilson Labour Government in 1967. Until then, jail awaited anyone who tried to be open about their sexual orientation. Many police forces carried out campaigns of entrapment, and gay men were regularly blackmailed, beaten up and prosecuted for being gay. Lesbians were not even mentioned in the law, and though their status was unclear, they too felt that they had to hide away.”
“That would have been slightly too precocious of me, given that I was born in 1961—you do the maths. The first Pride was organised by the Gay Liberation Front and attended by 2,000 people, as the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said in her opening remarks. They were spat at, and they faced abuse on the streets for daring not to be ashamed of who they were, because repression and dissemination work best when people internalise the shame that those who want to keep them repressed try to put upon them. That is why the concept of Pride—of being proud and open and out about who you are—is such a powerful one. Again, it is the 50th anniversary of Pride in this country that this debate is celebrating.”
“This means that all the progress that we have been celebrating, and perhaps in our more complacent moments thinking could never be reversed, has just been reversed in front of the eyes of half the population of America. We must never forget that those same reactionary forces are lurking here in the UK working to achieve the same goal, often with generous fundamentalist funding from various nefarious organisations. Before I warn more about backlash and the dangers that progress will be reversed, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate just how far LGBT+ people have come since that first Pride march wended its way from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park 50 years ago. Unlike most of the people in the Chamber today, I was alive when that was happening, although I was not on the march.”
“When one thinks about those phrases and how they are weaponised across different countries, it is possible to discern that there are connections between people who are campaigning to get us back in the closet, to get women back in the kitchen, to get us to know our place, and to turn our society backwards. We have to beware of those connections. Women in the USA are now experiencing the shocking reality of a bonfire of the rights that they thought were established and permanent with the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. In the USA, some of those fundamentalist justices now have their eyes fixed firmly on same-sex marriage, the legality—for goodness’ sake—of same-sex relations, and even the use of contraception.”
“Look at the horrific attacks on Pride celebrations in Oslo just a few days ago if you think that Pride and LGBT+ people are accepted and respected as we would like to see across the developed world, let alone the rest of the world. Listen to the homophobic rantings of President Putin in Russia or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, scapegoating LGBT+ people for their own political advantage. Consider the Trump-enabler Steve Bannon’s comments as he celebrated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that he supported that attack because the Russians were not “woke” and knew “which bathroom to use”.”
“It was campaigned for and won in the teeth of the most intense bigotry, ridicule, hostility, violence and intimidation. It has made our society better, safer, stronger and more respectful as a place to live and thrive than it was before. That is a tremendous achievement and it is what, essentially, we are here to celebrate on this 50th anniversary. It was won because LGBT+ people and their allies fought for it because they did not accept the status quo that they were born into and grew up in. They realised it was wrong, they wanted it to change, they had a vision of how it could change, and they went out and campaigned for that change. But we know that LGBT+ rights are fragile and progress towards equality must never, ever be taken for granted.”
“It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights. I look forward to working with him over the coming period to try to ensure that a lot of the legal protections and acceptance that we have seen develop in our own country can be exported to other places around the world so that our LGBT+ friends across the globe can enjoy the same kinds of rights that we are here celebrating today. We are here to celebrate an incredible journey towards the legal recognition and equal treatment for LGBT+ people that has been achieved in the UK in the past 50 years. This change is progressive and life-affirming, but it did not just happen. It did not just descend as an inevitability because time and history were moving on.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way on that point and for his contribution to this debate in general. Given that trans-inclusivity is likely to be carried either in this House or in the House of Lords when the Bill comes in, would the Government consider drafting such a clause so that, if such a decision is made, we can make certain that parliamentary draftspeople have done the appropriate job in what is a difficult drafting area? That would be a very positive thing that the Minister might be able to commit to today.”
“I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about the importance of carers in our country. This week’s events have demonstrated just how loathed this Prime Minister is—and that is only in his own party. As his Administration is too distracted by their internal divisions to deal with the challenges that we face, can he explain, if 148 of his own Back Benchers do not trust him, why on earth the country should?”
“If the excess profits of the energy companies persist beyond this year, will the windfall tax persist? Will the Chancellor explain how the sunset clause works? Will he also explain why, when his super-deduction of 130% of investment has so far failed to spark the kind of investment he thought it would, he thinks a 90% investment allowance for the oil and gas companies will work?”
“Given his unique position as a Member of this House, a member of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, may I seek your guidance about whether it would be in order for me to table a named day question asking if he received a copy of the Sue Gray report in advance, and whether he sought, either successfully or unsuccessfully, to make amendments to it?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, during the Prime Minister’s statement on the Sue Gray report, my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) asked if anyone in Downing Street received a copy of the report the night before it was officially sent to Downing Street, and whether any edits were made. The Prime Minister said he did not receive the report in advance, but did not answer the question about whether anyone else in Downing Street did. There has since been further speculation that an official who did was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), who doubles up as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.”
“Order. I remind everyone who will be contributing to the debate that the rules say that if you are going to identify a Member of the House of Commons or indeed the Lords—not necessarily by name—you have to have informed them in advance. Has the hon. Member done so?”
“I know this is a very difficult area. May I ask those who are speaking in the debate—not only the hon. Gentleman—to bear those rules in mind when they make their speeches?”
“I will call Jonathan Gullis to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“We all understand, and the Prime Minister understands, that not being truthful on the Floor of this House requires a resignation. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) asked the Prime Minister a point-blank question on the Floor of this House when he was at the Dispatch Box. She asked him if he had been to a party on 13 November in 10 Downing Street. He said he had not and that no party had happened. There are four pictures of it featured in the Sue Gray report. Will the Prime Minister account now, on the Floor of the House, for his answer to that very specific question?”
“Given that the right hon. Gentleman was just talking about growth in the economy, he will be aware that the Governor of the Bank of England and the Monetary Policy Committee told the Treasury Committee yesterday that growth would be negative in the fourth quarter of this year. Growth is slowing, unemployment is rising and inflation is soaring—is that not correct?”
“No previous UK Government have ever regarded breaking international treaties and breaking their own solemn undertakings as a negotiating tactic, sullying our international reputation in the process, and our country will rue the day that this one did. This is a Government who look after their own, allowing a bonanza in dodgy covid contracts for their mates, and passing laws to wreck independent judicial oversight and clamp down on protests. The sooner they are gone, the better.”
“So we have today’s threat to legislate to tear up the Northern Ireland protocol, and damn the consequences for the Good Friday agreement, or for our international reputation as a country whose word can be relied upon and that respects the rule of law. This is the Northern Ireland protocol that the Prime Minister negotiated, which he hailed as an “oven-ready” triumph, and which he asserted in the 2019 general election “got Brexit done.” Only this Government could be so irresponsible as to contemplate starting a trade war with the EU in the middle of the most ferocious cost of living crisis in generations.”
“It shows just how out of touch the Government are that they prefer to press ahead with new, repressive laws against “noisy” protests while ignoring the collapse in law enforcement and prosecution levels on their watch, hoping we will forget the shamefully low numbers of crimes that are currently prosecuted and the even lower numbers which result in convictions. This Government have let fraud run riot even as they under-resource and fragment any serious police response to it, while millions of our fellow citizens fall victim to scams and con merchants. This is a Government who prefer to campaign than to govern, and a Government who think that policy delivery is issuing a press release. We have a weak Primer Minister who runs No. 10 like he ran the Spectator office—as one long, chaotic, bacchanalian, irresponsible party.”
“And we have a Tory Chancellor who has said that it would be “silly” to add any extra help until the autumn. Against that background, the Government’s abject refusal to alleviate suffering and use the powers at their disposal to assist those in real need is a disgraceful dereliction of their duty. Their indifference to real suffering will not be forgotten; it will be remembered as the hard times get even tougher for millions of our fellow citizens. Labour has suggested a one-off windfall tax on the huge unearned profits currently flooding the energy companies’ coffers, which would help alleviate some of the suffering, yet the Government refuse to enact it. Instead, we have a hotchpotch of a Queen’s Speech, with 38 Bills with no focus and no connection to the realities millions of people in this country are facing.”
“These higher costs cannot be avoided or easily minimised and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) pointed out in his effective speech, it is well known that they cause most hardship to the poorest, who are least able to cope and have no savings. Despite what some Government Ministers seem to think, the poorest have little practical opportunity to increase their hours or their pay, at least in the short term. Thus, after 13 years of Conservative rule, we see soaring poverty levels, millions relying on food banks just to get by, and the lowest level of benefits since Lloyd George was Prime Minister. It means that the social safety net created to prevent destitution has been deliberately shredded by this Government, leaving many to cope with the intensifying cost of living squeeze without effective help.”
“Can we judge this Queen’s Speech to be successful in addressing the cost of living crisis? The Governor of the Bank of England warned at the Treasury Committee yesterday of an “apocalyptic” situation with food supplies and therefore with rising prices. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s May report warned that inflation would soon reach 10%. It also signalled lower growth than previously predicted, with a contraction in quarter 4 of this year. It also expects higher unemployment. It predicts that inflation will not return to its target of 2% for nearly three years. The squeeze in what the economists call real incomes, which take account of inflation, is the most ferocious we have seen in generations, not least because the rapid rise in inflation is being driven by soaring prices for necessities: food and energy.”
“Yet again, I have sympathy with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, given the Back-Bench duties he finds himself having to fulfil. He talks about us having all the facts before us. Will he reassure the House that all the photographs taken by the official photographers will be available to us to peruse as these judgments are made, so that we can make sure that we have all the facts before us?”
“The Prime Minister accepted the Health Secretary’s resignation for breaking covid guidance, not covid laws. The Prime Minister then accepted Allegra Stratton’s resignation for joking that the parties that were so frequent in Downing Street were a business event. He is now using her joke as his defence. Why is he holding himself to lower standards than the people whose resignations he accepted?”
“The maritime industry, which exists in Liverpool as well as Hull, is precious and we have to fight for its future. The company paid out £270 million in dividends before taking this action. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government must now do all they can to end any association with the freeports and other contracts that P&O has, until it puts this monstrous injustice right?”
“Why does the Secretary of State seem pleased that P&O is to recommence its routes when, as we have heard, some of the crew will be on as little as £1.80 an hour?”
“If these statutory instruments and the changes to agricultural schemes are not properly drawn up or enforced, this is another area where that might happen. Will the Minister reassure me on those points?”
“Friend the Member for Cambridge about the potential for fraud in some of these schemes. Obviously, they are about giving farmers income. The schemes have new criteria, which are being applied in new circumstances. Will the Minister reassure us about the degree of detail in them, and particularly in the mechanism for enforcement and minimising the chances of fraud? If one looks at what has happened in the coronavirus schemes and what is happening with anti-fraud enforcement across the piece with this Government, it is very, very fragmented. The enforcement muscle is weak and unused, and consequently billions of pounds are being lost to criminal gangs, opportunistic fraudsters and, quite often, fraudsters who are far more sophisticated than opportunistic.”
“Farmers face uncertain and volatile—but probably rising—costs at a time when the basic income that they are used to is transitioning. It will be difficult for farmers to deal with that volatility without some sort of reassurance from the Government, especially as the Government’s schemes are being tried out and may change. In fact, the Minister has effectively admitted that they are being shaped as the Government go along, which again creates a lot of moving parts, and more uncertainty and volatility. It also means that there may be a lot of unintended consequences. Does she have any words of reassurance about that? When all the cogs start going, we cannot always predict the output. As a member of the Treasury Committee, which has just interviewed Lord Agnew about fraud in the coronavirus schemes, I reinforce the point made by my hon.”
“It would be useful to know whether the Minister has the confidence to say that her officials and DEFRA can administer the system over its transition period, which, at seven years, is quite long. Secondly, I understand the need for a transition period of this length, but during such a transition, the objective circumstances change. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned this when he discussed the unforeseen circumstances in which we find ourselves, in which volatile energy prices are impacting directly on farmers’ costs. At the same time, the cost of fertiliser and other inputs is rising, and the Government—this was preannounced and expected—are reducing direct payments significantly and putting in place a different scheme with different criteria.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Mr Hollobone. I cannot say that I am an expert in all things agricultural or farming, but a few general questions occurred to me while perusing these statutory instruments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. First, I do not think that DEFRA or this country was ever stunningly brilliant at administering the common agricultural policy scheme, so transitioning away from a stable scheme that everyone was familiar with to something different, albeit for good reasons, is bound to create the potential for confusion, worry, and maybe even administrative problems. This is quite a complex transition from a steady state to something that is evolving.”
“Is my right hon. Friend as surprised and worried as I am that the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, which is in the Treasury, has 37.8 full-time equivalent people working in it?”
“We on the Treasury Committee have just published a report on economic crime and some of the evidence we took highlighted a great deal of frustration among those working in this area and trying to make the system work, in particular at the Minister’s Department’s lack of progress with reform of Companies House. That is in the Minister’s own specific bivouac; why has more not been done faster?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way finally, but it all counts. He seemed to be saying to colleagues earlier that his attitude to our amendments is that he is willing to discuss them after the Commons stages of the Bill and to do something in the Lords. Is that what he is saying? Is he telling us today that the Government will not accept any more Opposition or Back-Bench amendments and that he will leave it to the House of Lords to change these things? Clearly, if that is going to be his attitude, we need to know.”
“Does the hon. Lady share my frustration, which was widely voiced in the Treasury Committee when we were doing our report on economic crime, that although the Government have known what is wrong with Companies House for a very long time, we have had virtually no movement to reform it except for an announcement that there might be enough money to do so in 2024?”
“I am a big supporter of the right hon. Gentleman’s new clause. President Zelensky is to address us tomorrow; would it not be good for us to be able to tell him that that new clause was accepted tonight? We would then be able to say that we can crack down much faster.”
“The bewildering and fragmented nature of enforcement, and its underfunding, must be put right if we are to get to the stage where we can finally deal with the corruption of our financial system and its infiltration by those authoritarian regimes and kleptocrats who are putting our democracy at risk, and who, even as we are having this debate, are murdering and bombing innocent people in Ukraine and threatening the peace and prosperity of Europe and the world. I hope that the Government will listen and accept a lot of these amendments by the time the Bill comes back to this House in due course.”
“We also learned recently that the National Crime Agency had no Russian speakers. I am not sure how it is meant to pursue sanctions against Russia if it does not have anyone with the appropriate language skills to do so. I hope that it will be beefing up its enforcement activities as well. We understand and support what the Government are trying to do with this legislation. It is long overdue, and we think it needs to be strengthened.”
“I support all the amendments that are intended to close loopholes in this long-overdue legislation, narrowing the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and the reality of what it is possible for them to do, strengthening the legislation, and ensuring that we have transparency so that we know who owns what, so that people can indeed be sanctioned, and so that their progress across our financial system can be followed in a meaningful way to make sanctions a reality. I also support new clauses 7 and 2, which seek to beef up enforcement. Today, we in the Treasury Committee heard that the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has 37.8 full-time equivalent staff. I put it to the Government that that is not nearly enough for us to make sanctions against Russia workable and effective.”
“I suppose the frustration is that we have been told for a long time that economic crime and kleptocracy and the proceeds of economic crime are going to be clamped down on, yet very little that is effective has happened. Now we are hearing something similar from the Minister. What is he doing to beef up enforcement to ensure that these sanctions are actually going to bite? We can have the best sanctions in the universe if we are not enforcing them; they need to be enforced, and fast.”
“Does my hon. Friend share my worry and frustration that there has been such a big gap between the Government’s rhetoric about economic crime, sanctions and kleptocracy, and what they actually do? Before we can fully support the sanctions suggested, we need reassurance that there is now no gap and that enforcement will be effective. The sanctions have to be effective, or they might as well not exist.”
“Will the Prime Minister tell the House, if he can, what is going on with the Russian troops going through Chernobyl? That sent a chill through a lot of people’s thoughts when we heard about it.”
“The hon. Lady and I both sat and listened with increasing incredulity during the Treasury Committee hearings on economic crime. Does she share my frustration at the Government’s seeming inability to act on any of their stated concerns?”
“Ministers provided no satisfaction whatsoever that proper progress was being made. Where is the hold-up? Where is the blockage that is preventing what should be obvious progress from being made? Some measures have been announced for years and years, yet we have seen no proper or legislative progress. We all welcome our City’s importance as a financial centre, but it is now being compromised by a baffling lack of urgency in dealing with economic crime. Our security is being threatened by international criminal gangs, kleptocrats and terrorist financing, yet the Government seem to have become fixated on describing complex processes rather than acting to stop their outcome, which is rising levels of economic crime and fraud, affecting many of our constituents when they are scammed out of hard-earned money.”