Tony Vaughan
MP for Folkestone and Hythe · Labour · United Kingdom
“On the threats to British citizens, two British citizens are detained in Iran in Evin prison: Craig and Lindsay Foreman. They are innocent. They have been arbitrarily detained there for more than one and a half years, after a flagrantly unfair trial.”
“I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I will focus in the short time that I have on part 1 of the Bill on immigration appeals reform and specifically on whether it will cut the appeals backlog.”
“I say that on the basis of 18 years of full-time practice in the courts and tribunals of this country, when I appealed against decisions made by both lay decision makers and judges.”
“I completely agree. Another hon. Member referred to the importance of evidence-based policymaking. When I look at the impact assessment, it is not clear to me that the case has been made.”
“They made numerous errors and ended up being either too sympathetic or too harsh, and they were got rid of. Danish asylum appeals are now heard by a judge, a lawyer and a civil servant. As another Member pointed out, Australia tried the same system some years ago, but it too was got rid of because it increased the backlog.”
“They were right to enact a six-month target for asylum appeals in accommodated cases in section 49 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. Since then, around 70 first-tier tribunal judges have been recruited.”
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“People must be accountable for their actions without us becoming cynical about human nature. I also strongly support other measures in this Bill, such as the expansion of tagging to monitor offenders in the community, which, as the Lord Chancellor said, has been shown to cut crime. I also strongly support the streamlining of deportation for foreign national offenders, on which I have a recent constituency example. In June, three men from Folkestone and Dover were convicted of raping a child and committing related sexual offences. They were together sentenced to around 54 years’ imprisonment. It was an utterly horrendous case. They were foreign nationals. Under existing laws, they can only be deported after serving the minimum term of their custodial sentence, which is often between a third and a half of it.”
“There is much I strongly support in this Bill. I particularly welcome the commitment to transition to an earned progression model for standard determinate sentences, inspired by reforms in Texas. There, as we heard, crime is at record lows, and it is important to stress that the behaviour of prisoners will impact their release. The principle on which this reform is based—that offender risk is relevant to how long they will stay in prison—is sound. If they reoffend and breach the terms of release under this system, the system will come down on them like a ton of bricks. The inescapable fact is that we send too many people to prison who then become better criminals. The point of prison is to face punishment as part of taking personal responsibility for their actions, but most people in prison can be rehabilitated.”
“We often talk about the Government’s inheritance from the Conservatives, but I argue that the prison and probation system is the area of the public realm that is most affected by the Tories—where they did most damage. They had 14 years, and they created 500 prison places, as the Lord Chancellor said. The number of frontline prison officers fell by 31% and the Conservatives decimated the Probation Service. Their so-called transforming rehabilitation reforms, which privatised part of the Probation Service, resulted in taxpayers bailing out failing private companies with £467 million of public money. There is nothing more serious than ensuring law and order, and the Conservatives became the party of lawlessness and disorder. It will take time to fix our prison and probation system, and this Bill begins that vital work.”
“I am glad to support a Bill put forward by the only party serious about reforming our criminal justice system. I say that as a barrister with 19 years’ experience, and I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having been in full-time practice right up until last July’s elections, I saw at first hand the chaos in our prisons, the leaking and inadequate court buildings, and the overstretched probation officers, criminal barristers and others who were doing more for less in increasingly challenging circumstances. This Bill is critical to delivering meaningful justice for victims, protecting them more effectively, punishing perpetrators and rehabilitating offenders so that they become better citizens, not better criminals.”
“How can we keep the strongest possible safeguards in place for victims during the transition to more community sentences, how can we ensure that our Probation Service is well resourced and able to support the expansion of such sentences, and what additional measures are Ministers considering to support more effective rehabilitation of prisoners who have addiction and mental health conditions? The Bill is a serious and radical response to our prisons crisis and our reoffending crisis, which are costing our society more and more every day in every way, and I invite Members to vote for it today.”
“I do not think anyone is suggesting that people are going to leave their sentences early from the UK and walk free in their country of origin. There is a range of existing rules relating to prisoner transfer agreements and so forth, which will apply in any event. This may be a matter that the right hon. Member will be able to raise in Committee, but I have no doubt whatsoever that this measure—which will still be subject to the safeguards that are already in existence, whether in the deportation process or the justice process—will ensure that justice is done, which is the whole point of the Bill. There is much in the Bill that I welcome, but let me ask the Minister a few questions.”
“By leaving the EU, the Tories tore up our returns agreement with the EU, and they completely failed to negotiate a new one, but this Government have now rectified that. Does the Home Secretary agree that the Tories and Reform are in cloud cuckoo land if they think that the French would have signed a returns deal with us if we had left the European convention on human rights?”
“Friend rightly described it as a disgrace. It is clear that humanitarian access has worsened and that the Court’s orders are still being systematically ignored. We must see full compliance with the ICJ’s provisional measures, all border crossings reopened, all restrictions lifted and humanitarian operations restored to pre-conflict levels. Under the genocide convention, the UK has obligations to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law, regardless of whether the UK has reached its own conclusions about genocide itself. The ICJ has made enough rulings. The time for action is now.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) for her tireless activism on this issue. Twenty months ago, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches Palestinians in Gaza, to protect what the Court found to be Palestinians’ “plausible” right to be protected from acts of genocide. Today, humanitarian reality speaks for itself, as other hon. Members have set out: 470,000 Palestinians face catastrophic food insecurity, and nearly 900 people have been killed while queuing for aid since May—shot by Israeli forces as they waited for food and water. Last month, alongside 27 other countries, the UK rightly condemned Israel’s aid distribution system as “dangerous” and “inhumane”—my hon.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his answer. Given that he leads on UK-EU relations, will he outline how the Cabinet Office will ensure that the new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement will reduce the level of checks on goods at both the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkstone, in my constituency, and the Port of Dover, and improve the flow of trade? What steps are being taken to further break down barriers to trade in goods with the EU?”
“T4. I echo the Home Secretary’s remarks about the 7/7 attacks. Alcaline Transport in my constituency was fined £10,000 after it reported that a clandestine migrant was found in one of its vehicles. When will improvements to the clandestine entrant civil penalty scheme be fully implemented, so that hauliers who report issues responsibly are supported, not penalised?”
“We must have as strict a sanctions regime as possible against the illegal settler outposts and organisations in the west bank. We must sanction any Israeli politician or organisation that incites violence in the occupied west bank, as we already have. We must stop trade with the settlements. All that is required because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, we are under positive legal obligations to take steps to prevent violations of international law, as the ICJ advisory opinion made clear in July 2024. We must recognise the state of Palestine, along with the 147 other UN member states that already do. Doing this is about our country acting with moral authority and showing the moral leadership that we ought to show.”
“Mr Turner, 5 June is an important day for Palestinians: Naksa Day, when they remember the forced displacement of approximately 300,000 Palestinians during the war of 1967, when Israel occupied the west bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip. We must learn the lessons from history and not repeat tragic mistakes. This Government’s approach is markedly different from what has come before. They were right to sanction the two Israeli Government Ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who have championed illegal settlements; right to support the independence of our international courts; and right to take an internationalist, multilateral approach, collaborating closely with our allies France, Germany and Canada to call out the Netanyahu Government.”
“About 8,000 Israeli military checkpoints, barriers and gates have been constructed, causing unprecedented movement restrictions. Aid deliveries to the west bank face impenetrable obstacles. The Israeli military are conducting an unrelenting campaign in the west bank. They have deployed tanks, carried out air strikes and destroyed buildings and other civilian infrastructure. We have heard eyewitness testimony to that effect from Members present. On 21 May, a diplomatic delegation of representatives from over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, came under fire from Israeli soldiers while visiting Jenin refugee camp.”
“It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for securing this timely debate. We must be crystal clear about what is going on in the west bank. The forcible displacement of Palestinians there is an act of grave immorality and a breach of international law. Bodies such as the UN, Amnesty International and Oxfam are clear about what is going on. The UN has confirmed that since 7 October 2023, more than 6,463 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the west bank, including East Jerusalem, following the demolition of their homes. That figure does not include around 40,000 Palestinians who were displaced from three refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem. Oxfam is clear that we are witnessing the “largest forced displacement in West Bank since…1967”.”
“I thank the Minister for her statement and for her engagement. My question is about the co-production proposal. By what mechanism will that be given effect, and how is co-production different from consultation? Will disability groups have any entitlements or powers beyond simply giving their views?”
“His lawyers have confirmed that he has been denied independent medical care and is allowed out of his cell for a mere 50 minutes a day. That is inhuman treatment. He is a frail, elderly man who is 77, has diabetes and has lost considerable weight, yet he remains a man of immense courage and unyielding spirit—qualities to which I want to pay tribute today. If he is found guilty he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison. As chair of the APPG, I have raised Jimmy Lai’s case in person several times with Chinese officials, including in January when I visited Beijing as part of a visit by a cross-party group of parliamentarians. The Chinese believe it is an internal matter for them, but raising his case firmly has been my duty.”
“It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing this vital debate. I commend her for her work fiercely fighting for her constituents. I declare an interest in this debate as the chair of the all-party parliamentary China group. Jimmy Lai’s situation is desperate and his treatment wholly unacceptable. I am deeply concerned by the treatment that Mr Lai, a 77-year-old British citizen, has received at the hands of the Hong Kong authorities. He has been a tireless campaigner for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. He has already been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for a separate case relating to his now closed newspaper, Apple Daily .”
“I was encouraged to see that the Prime Minister raised Jimmy Lai’s case when he met President Xi at the G20 in Brazil. I urge the Prime Minister to meet Mr Lai’s son and his lawyers. The UK must of course work closely with our allies to continue to raise his case with officials at every level of the Chinese Communist party. China and Hong Kong should understand that Mr Lai’s case and the treatment that he has received is damaging the standing of China and Hong Kong in the world. But beyond questions of legality, reputation and soft power lies the case of a frail, elderly man who deserves better, more humane treatment. I call on the Hong Kong authorities to release Jimmy Lai.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must not forget that Hong Kong still, it is said, has a common law system, so Hong Kong must observe the common law and the basic principles attached to a fair trial. That is the bedrock of what the common law is about. It has been a privilege and inspiring for me to meet Sebastien Lai and his father’s lawyers. I pay tribute to them and their work. Because of our fundamentally different political and economic systems, conceptions of democracy and human rights in China and in Britain will inevitably be different. But we must not relent from pushing and raising the case, given that Hong Kong has a common law system, and the international obligations that apply to China and Hong Kong must be upheld.”
“My hon. Friend talks about an additional 1p per egg, but does she agree that some sort of financial incentive or financial reason would be an important factor in increasing the state’s ability to phase out cages and crates? Otherwise, we are not going to see this happen en masse.”
“We all want to protect individuals, particularly those who may be vulnerable or more easily influenced, so I fully share that concern. Although I respect the principle behind the amendment, however, I do not believe it offers the right solution. New clause 14 rightly prohibits advertising voluntary assisted dying services to the public, while giving Ministers tightly defined powers to create appropriate exceptions through regulations. That is important, because in a healthcare system as complex as ours, we must be able to draw the line between unethical promotion and responsible professional communication. I think the new clause gets that balance right.”
“I want to put on record my sincere thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for the way that she has approached this Bill. Her willingness to listen to concerns from across the House has been evident, not least in new clause 14, brought forward in the names of the hon. Members for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) and for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin). That is a testament to how we can work together on these deeply sensitive issues. I rise to speak in favour of new clause 14 and against amendment (b) to new clause 14. I absolutely understand the intent behind the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). Nobody in this House wants to see voluntary assisted dying services being advertised in a way that is insensitive, inappropriate or exploitative.”
“I will press on. Secondly, the amendment attempts to limit the scope of future regulation by barring any changes to the Suicide Act 1961, but that is already covered by new clause 14, which prevents other changes to this Bill, should it become an Act. The amendment is not only duplicative, but closes off avenues for future clarity that might be needed in the Suicide Act, such as to ensure that offences around coercion or fraudulent practice are properly dealt with. In short, the amendment does not add clarity; it risks confusion. It does not strengthen the advertising ban; it introduces constraints that could make it harder to enforce with evolving practice.”
“That will have to be worked out; I do not have the answer at my fingertips, but others might. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley say earlier that she is open to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and others in the Lords to find a workable way forward on all these issues. I hope that he will take her up on that offer. This is obviously an area where constructive cross-party work could ensure that strong safeguards are achieved without unintended consequences.”
“I am essentially finished. I urge hon. Members to reject amendment (b) to new clause 14 in its current form, not because we oppose its aim, but because we can and must find a better way to achieve it.”
“Does the hon. Member agree that, through the Government’s programme of planning reform, we must not create any loopholes that could be exploited to facilitate the destructive, large-scale farming operations that he refers to?”
“She is a primary school teacher and is fearful that the young girls she is educating now will have fewer rights when they grow up than she does. I thank Gemma and the more than 103,000 people from across the UK who signed her petition. That includes 152 from my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. I also thank 55 of my constituents who emailed me to express their views on the issue. That has fed into this speech. How is abortion criminalised in the UK? It depends on where we live. Abortion is, in effect, decriminalised in Northern Ireland, whereas long-standing laws maintain the criminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland with two main offences: procuring miscarriage under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and child destruction under section 1 of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 700014 relating to decriminalising abortion. It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. The petition creator is Gemma Clark, and this is what it says: “I am calling on the UK government to remove abortion from criminal law so that no pregnant person can be criminalised for procuring their own abortion.” Gemma became involved in campaigning on this issue during the pandemic. She was particularly alarmed by the tactics of some campaigners harassing women trying to access abortion in Scotland. She also has a friend who experienced a stillbirth but was investigated by the police. Gemma is worried that there is a lot of misinformation about abortion, especially late-term ones, and that that is linked to the rise of extreme ideologies and misogyny.”
“Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, there are defences, variously, under the Abortion Act when two registered medical practitioners authorise abortion in an approved clinic in broadly four situations. The first is when there is a risk of injury to the mother’s physical or mental health up to 24 weeks—that was the exception expanded during covid, so that women could access pills for medical abortions at home, following a consultation, for pregnancy of up to 10 weeks.”
“I am not aware that following the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland there has been a strong current to re-criminalise it, which might be expected had a situation such as the right hon. Gentleman referred to actually occurred. It is not my understanding that that has happened. For each of the two offences I described, sentences of up to life imprisonment apply. A person is guilty of the offence of child destruction when the pregnancy is of at least 28 weeks and they commit a wilful act to cause the child’s death; it is a defence if the act was done to preserve the mother’s life. The offence of procuring miscarriage can be committed at any stage of gestation when a person uses a poison or instrument to induce miscarriage. As the right hon.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and of course it was a 2018 Supreme Court decision that showed that the rules that were then in force in Northern Ireland violated the human rights of women. That has to be at the centre of our considerations. Let me finish listing the exceptions so that I can get to the point. Risk of grave or permanent injury, risk to the mother’s life and substantial foetal abnormality are exceptions without any gestational time limit.”
“The Crown Prosecution Service reports that in the period January 2019 to March 2023, six people were charged with child destruction and 11 were charged with procuring miscarriage under section 58 of the 1861 Act. One of those people was Nicola Packer, who took home abortion medication following a teleconsultation, believing that she was less than 10 weeks pregnant. She was in fact 26 weeks pregnant, and was accused of having an illegal abortion. On 7 November 2020, she was in hospital. The next day—”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I come back to what I said to the right hon. Member for Gainsborough: whatever the position at the time of the law’s coming into force, I am not aware of there being a movement or democratic support for changing the law back to what it was before. When we talk about whether laws meet the current standards and societal norms, that is the most important thing. Let me turn to how the law is applied in England and Wales. Until 2022, it was believed that only three women had been convicted of having an illegal abortion in the 150 years since the 1861 Act, under which most illegal abortions are prosecuted, but there has been a recent increase in the prosecutions of women for procuring miscarriage under the Act.”
“In reducing her sentence, the judge said that the case called for “compassion, not punishment”, and that there was “no useful purpose” in keeping her in prison.”
“I agree, and I will support the new clause. Ms Packer was in hospital one day, and arrested the next, and it took five years before the courts could dispose of that case. Another case is that of Carla Foster, a mother who was jailed for illegally taking abortion tablets to end her pregnancy during lockdown. She was initially sentenced to 28 months in prison. She was a mother of three who was of exceptionally good character and had suffered from poor mental health. She had quickly admitted to police that she had provided incorrect information during a consultation, and the Court of Appeal reduced the term to 14 months and suspended the sentence. However, by that point, she had already served 35 days in prison and had been denied any communication with her children, one of whom is autistic.”
“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and thank her for her work on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which engages that principle of autonomy. I find it hard to read about the cases I just mentioned and not feel that the time has come to abandon the practice of criminalising and imprisoning women for choices they make about their own pregnancies.”
“I have not seen, as I said in response to interventions, evidence to suggest that removing the criminal law deterrent would motivate swathes of women to have abortions after 24 weeks. Indeed, I have not heard of any campaigns in Northern Ireland to re-criminalise due to unforeseen consequences.”
“I appreciate that there are organisations passionately opposed to decriminalising abortion. I believe that decriminalisation does not mean deregulation. My hon. Friends the Members for Gower and for Walthamstow propose to maintain a body of rules on access to and provision of abortion, such as the existing time limit, which would remain in force. Some people claim that decriminalising abortion would lead to significant increases in the number of women performing dangerous late-stage abortions at home, as the right hon. Member for Gainsborough suggested, but I think that would be highly unlikely. The latest figures available, from 2022, reveal that 88% of abortions were performed at under 10 weeks gestation.”
“Friends the Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) have tabled new clauses to the Crime and Policing Bill that would disapply such provisions, eliminating the risk of prosecution for women who self-manage abortions or seek care beyond current legal limits. Under the new clause of my hon. Friend the Member for Gower, access to abortion services would remain exactly as it is, as I understand it, including time limits, grounds for abortion and the requirement for two doctors. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is in a much better position than me to talk about her new clause, which follows similar principles, so I will not stray into her territory by saying more at this stage. The key point is that although we should maintain regulation, criminalisation is a very different matter.”
“Dr Ranee Thakar, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, has said: “Abortion that happens outside of the current law generally involves very vulnerable women—including those facing domestic abuse, mental health challenges or barriers to accessing NHS care. Yet alarmingly, prosecutions of women have been increasing in recent years…Abortion is an essential form of healthcare and should be subject to regulatory and professional standards like other medical procedures, not criminal sanctions.” As I mentioned, Northern Ireland repealed provisions criminalising abortion. Similarly, my hon.”
“At the international level, and as the petition creator, Gemma Clark, has rightly reminded me, the World Health Organisation’s 2022 guidelines on safe abortion recommend removing medically unnecessary policy barriers to safe abortion, such as criminalisation. More than 30 organisations representing medical practitioners in this country support decriminalising abortion, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Faculty of Public Health, the Centre for Reproductive Rights, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that statistic, which I was not aware of. Criminalisation involves traumatisation from the moment of investigation to charge, arrest and all the way through the system. The time has come to abandon these outdated practices. I struggle to see how it can be a good use of the scarce resources in our criminal justice system to prosecute and imprison women in these situations. Our laws cannot be fixed relics of the past, but must reflect social attitudes and societal norms. A YouGov poll of 2,098 adults in September 2023 found that 52% of respondents believed that women should not face prosecution for having an abortion, while only 21% of respondents believed that prosecution was appropriate.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. As our hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and I have said, these are human rights issues, and courts have highlighted incompatibilities where that has been the case. It is important that those principles guide our approach. I am in favour of the regulation of abortion, but I am also in favour of decriminalising it, so that abortion can once and for all be treated by the law as a matter of healthcare, not criminality, and individual rights to bodily autonomy can be exercised without fear of prosecution at one of the most physically and mentally vulnerable points in any woman’s life. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other Members and the Government.”
“I again thank the petitioner for presenting this House with an opportunity to consider this crucial issue, and I thank everyone for participating in the Petitions Committee process. Question put, That this House has considered e-petition 700014 relating to decriminalising abortion. The Chair’s opinion as to the decision of the Question was challenged. Question not decided (Standing Order No. 10(13)).”
“Some Opposition Members mentioned the value of the life of the unborn child and said that autonomy was almost being treated as a trump card by those proposing decriminalisation. That is not something I hear or recognise. A human rights approach will always balance the competing rights that I have just referred to. That is what the Supreme Court did in the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission case when it found that the rules at that time were incompatible with the law. There is always the backstop of preventing inhuman treatment, but there was no real rebuttal to the proposition that public attitudes in England and Wales overwhelmingly support decriminalisation. It follows that Parliament should respond to that.”
“I again thank the petitioner, Gemma Clark, for starting this petition. As others have said, it is being debated at a crucial time given the proposed new clauses to the Crime and Policing Bill, which we have debated today to a degree. What is clear is that abortion investigations and prosecutions are on the rise, although they are still relatively small in number. However, what has come across in many hon. Members’ speeches is that a culture of fear flows from the criminal law. We heard of Sammy’s case. Victims are being treated as suspects; seven police officers raided a house and searched bins, phones and health apps at a time of deep vulnerability. Many hon. Members referred to the centrality of choice and individual autonomy, as I did.”
“We want to play our part in Folkestone and Hythe in supporting this nation’s clean energy mission, and I believe that we should be doing that in two ways: first, by bringing back nuclear energy generation at Dungeness; and, secondly, by taking our fair share of solar developments. I am glad that the Government have committed to nuclear as part of our energy mix.”
“Reform’s policy seems to support the surrendering of control of our energy prices to the global markets, given its commitment to fast-tracking oil and gas developments in the North sea and abolishing subsidies for renewable energy. My constituency is proving to be a popular place for planned solar farm developments, primarily because of the above average numbers of sunshine hours that we have and our relatively flat land. Currently we have five solar farm projects in my constituency which, if they progress, would qualify for nationally significant infrastructure project status. There are a few smaller ones as well.”
“As we saw after the invasion of Ukraine and the rocketing energy prices that followed, we have no control over the global price. For national security, more renewables will deliver energy independence, because, instead of our country importing fossil fuels from hostile authoritarian regimes, we can produce more of our own energy at home. Tragically, these points have been lost on the Conservative party, which has given up on being ambitious about tackling climate change. It simply does not believe that this country, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, has the will or the ability to build the world’s strongest green economy.”