Shockat Adam
MP for Leicester South · Independent · United Kingdom
“I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a practising optometrist. Children across England are living in a postcode lottery when it comes to vision screening.”
“At a recent packed talk with my Highfields residents, they told me the same thing that all my residents tell me about: the scourge of potholes. We know that councils are facing a backlog of £17 billion in road repairs, but new technology exists that can detect early cracks and seal them before they become potholes.”
“Young people with cancer often face severe isolation during treatment, separated from their friends and everything that is normal to them at that critical age.”
“I recently read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which is a powerful account of life in a concentration camp. There is a poignant part of that book where victims and concentration camp prisoners, talking to each other at the end of the day when they could barely keep their eyes open, go and witness a sunset because its beauty b…”
“I will quickly pay homage to some organisations in my city that are utilising arts to improve the mental health of young people and the recovery of those who are unwell.”
“He recently held a roundtable where he showed that ill health currently costs the UK economy £212 billion a year, with 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness. However, arts and health interventions are estimated to return up to £8.56 in social value for every £1 spent.”
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“At a recent packed talk with my Highfields residents, they told me the same thing that all my residents tell me about: the scourge of potholes. We know that councils are facing a backlog of £17 billion in road repairs, but new technology exists that can detect early cracks and seal them before they become potholes. Will the Secretary of State commit to funding the roll-out of that preventive AI-based road technology, instead of constantly chasing the problem?”
“I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a practising optometrist. Children across England are living in a postcode lottery when it comes to vision screening. Only 50% of local authorities provide vision screening in our schools, which means that conditions such as amblyopia—lazy eye—get missed before the age of five. If we miss these conditions, children’s educational abilities and employment opportunities can be reduced. May we have a debate in the Chamber about this cost-efficient, proficient method of screening in all our schools?”
“Young people with cancer often face severe isolation during treatment, separated from their friends and everything that is normal to them at that critical age. In Leicester South, at Leicester Royal Infirmary it has been left to charities like the Teenage Cancer Trust to provide vital care and support, funded through donations and philanthropic grants. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that those charities are sustainably funded so we can support them as much as they are supporting our young people with cancer?”
“There is also Talent 25, which is De Montfort University’s extraordinary 25-year longitudinal study, led by Professor Bertha and funded by the Arts Council. It is following 440 children from across Leicester, from birth into adulthood, tracking the effects of regular access to arts and creativity on a child’s development. The early findings are positive among the children now starting school, with researchers reporting no unauthorised absences and parents describing real, lasting changes in their own lives, reduced isolation—”
“I will quickly pay homage to some organisations in my city that are utilising arts to improve the mental health of young people and the recovery of those who are unwell. Since October last year, the Shine programme, launched by the Curve theatre in partnership with the Randal Foundation, has brought drama-based sessions into five Leicester city-centre schools, reaching 250 teenagers in some of our most disadvantaged communities. The early findings from Dr Lyndsey Bakewell at De Montfort University are striking: every student involved has reported doing something they have never done before, and teachers have reported an increase in student resilience across the board. One participating pupil described feeling comfortable speaking in front of others—something that they had always found difficult. That is what early intervention looks like.”
“He recently held a roundtable where he showed that ill health currently costs the UK economy £212 billion a year, with 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness. However, arts and health interventions are estimated to return up to £8.56 in social value for every £1 spent. We also know that poor mental health costs the economy an estimated £300 billion annually. Conversely, cultural engagement among 18 to 30-year-olds shows an average wellbeing benefit of £854 per person. Evidence on social prescribing tells the same story in cash terms; reductions in GP and A&E attendance and hospital admissions could represent around a £4 saving on every £1 spent on a link worker’s salary. The 2023 “Creative Health Review” found that the problem is not a lack of evidence, but fragmented funding.”
“I recently read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which is a powerful account of life in a concentration camp. There is a poignant part of that book where victims and concentration camp prisoners, talking to each other at the end of the day when they could barely keep their eyes open, go and witness a sunset because its beauty brings out something in them that would keep them going for the next day. The reason I talk about that is that it demonstrates the importance of art, in any shape or form. It can help our young people and those who are looking to improve their ill health. Creative art for young people is routinely treated as discretionary spending: nice if there is money left over, but expendable the moment that there is not. I pay homage to the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who has done a lot of work on this subject.”
“Sadly, Leicester South is not immune to the unemployment figures for young people—1,000 young people and counting. My concern is that AI is about to make it even worse, especially as CEOs are citing lower human capital value as justification for replacing workers with AI. What is the Secretary of State’s Department doing to ensure that technological advancements create opportunity, rather than unemployment?”
“There was no ministerial statement of condemnation, no Cobra meeting and no solidarity. What does this silence say to my children as they wait with bated breath for Harry Kane to bring it home?”
“Q9. My children, like millions of others, are kicking every ball of England’s world cup campaign, but as a parent I am really concerned about their security in this country, along with other Muslim parents. Let me explain why. When a Sikh lady was raped in Walsall, the perpetrator repeatedly called her an effing Muslim bitch. There was no condemnation by a Minister at the Dispatch Box and no outcry from Members in this Chamber who openly call out these matters when the perpetrators are of a different colour. When we had the Unite the Kingdom march calling openly for the expulsion of Muslims in this country, there was no ministerial statement condemning such statements. This weekend, five members of the Muslim community were stabbed on the streets of Edinburgh.”
“If there is nothing to conceal, why are the details of previous lobbying being withheld from Parliament and the public? My question for the Minister is straightforward: why was an arms manufacturer being reassured by Government Departments while international legal proceedings over genocide in Gaza continued? What safeguards exist to ensure that commercial relationships with any foreign defence contractors do not influence policing, prosecutorial independence or British foreign policy? Transparency is not optional; if Ministers are confident that those relationships are appropriate, they should have no objection to placing them fully in the public domain.”
“They also reveal that Home Office officials had been in contact with the police regarding those protests, while another meeting was scheduled to include a representative from the Attorney General’s Office. It is disturbing that, while Ministers meet privately with executives from a company whose weapons are alleged to have been used in acts now under scrutiny before the international courts, those who want to challenge those activities through protest increasingly face being associated with terrorism. While the suppliers of war and genocide are granted meetings with Ministers, those opposing the machinery of war risk being treated as a threat. Most troubling of all, the section of the ministerial briefing entitled “Past lobbying” was redacted.”
“One of those systems, the Lanius drone, is manufactured by Elbit. Elbit has a significant presence in my city of Leicester through its manufacturing and technology operations. The company generates billions of dollars in annual revenue while supplying the military equipment used in a conflict that is subject to allegations of genocide before the International Court of Justice. That is why parliamentary scrutiny of its access to Ministers is essential. It is deeply alarming that freedom of information disclosures reveal repeated meetings between Elbit executives and the Home Office. Briefing papers show that Ministers were preparing to reassure the company in response to Palestine Action protests.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I agree wholeheartedly that conflating a people’s religion with a Government’s actions is totally unacceptable. Criticising the state of Israel and its actions, especially with its present Government, is not antisemitic, otherwise the bombing of Iraq or Afghanistan would be Islamophobic. I want to concentrate my speech particularly on Elbit, which supplies around 85% of Israeli military drones and land-based military equipment. As the International Court of Justice considers allegations of genocide, and while the ICC has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Minister of Defence, Elbit continues to profit from the genocide in Gaza. United Nations investigators have documented the repeated use of armed quadcopter drones against Palestinian civilians.”
“I ask the Minister for three things: first, to increase brain cancer research funding urgently and substantially, with ringfenced investment for diseases such as DIPG; secondly, to ensure that every patient can access whole-genome sequencing; and, finally, to enshrine the right to try—the right to reach clinical trials, innovative treatments and immunotherapies even when standard treatment has failed. Treatments have not meaningfully changed in decades. Eiliyah deserved better; my sister Shahida deserved better; Owain deserved better; the families who will hear the words “brain cancer” for the first time this week deserve better. I urge the Minister to act, and to act now.”
“Eiliyah’s aunt asked me quietly to speak for her today, but I would like to speak quietly also for my own sister, only a handful of years older than me, who went from full of life to grade 4 glioblastoma and then death in under six months. During that time, she was barely offered any treatment at all, and what she was offered was decades old. That is the heart of the problem: as we have heard today, brain cancer is the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, yet our survival rates lag behind most of Europe. Nowhere is that cost clearer, as we have heard, than on tissue freezing, so will the Minister commit to a national standard for tissue freezing?”
“I will begin by paying homage to a young girl by the name of Eiliyah: when her tumour took over her right hand, she began to learn to draw with her left, because she loved arts and crafts more than anything else. When she could not dart around any more, she started to bum-shuffle everywhere. She was unfortunately diagnosed with DIPG, one of the most aggressive childhood brain tumours known to medicine. The family had a bit of hope but, before proper treatment could start, the tumour returned again. Her family could only watch as she lost her movement, her speech, her sight and finally her ability to eat. She died on 2 May this year, surrounded by those who loved her. She was just a child.”
“Safety concerns are blighting passenger rail services. Constituents working at Leicester train station have raised serious concerns about security gaps, particularly the near impossibility of reaching transport police during emergencies. With nearly 80,000 offences recorded on our railways in 2023 and 2024 and the RMT reporting staff being punched, threatened, spat at and abused simply for doing their jobs, what assessment have Ministers made of whether private security contractors at railway stations have the enforcement powers they need to keep both passengers and workers safe?”
“This week, we commemorate 10 years since the death of Jo Cox, who spoke about what unites us rather than divides us. May I ask the Minister to consider setting up a cross-party taskforce to tackle this issue, which is going to affect every single member of our communities?”
“We all condemn the actions on Monday night, and we look with concern at the subsequent rioting, but my concern is about those who make it possible for such actions to happen—those who politicise and weaponise. When I was younger, in the 1970s, if somebody was going to attack me for racial reasons, which did happen, I could spot them from a mile away. Now, those who instigate racial hatred wear smart suits, speak the King’s English, and occupy every radio wave and television channel to instigate hate. We seem to be repeating the same situation—Southport, the Liverpool fans who were run over, and the Huntingdon train stabbing. People are looking at crime through a lens of racialisation, but many in this Chamber have spoken in unity today.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Following on from that question, I also give my deepest sympathies to the victim and his family, and pay tribute to the bystanders who intervened in this horrific case. Does the Secretary of State agree that, as he has already expressed, crime and heroes come in all different hues and colours? We saw that on the train in Cambridgeshire and with the stabber of the Saudi student in the picturesque streets of Cambridge last year. It does not matter which background people come from. It is the responsibility of Members of this House to temper the inflammatory remarks so that we do not see actions like those last week in Southampton, where innocent police officers have had to go into hiding.”
“The Secretary of State in her statement—in her own words—talked of Netanyahu’s condemnation of settler violence as being “hollow”. Will she allow the Great Israeli Real Estate Event to proceed on UK soil this weekend? If she does, could she not be accused of the same thing?”
“Many in the Muslim community are feeling bewildered, besieged and beleaguered. When they exercise their democratic right to vote and the results do not go a certain way, they are accused of sectarianism. When they take to the streets to protest peacefully against genocide, they are accused of going on hate marches, all the while witnessing not one but two Unite the Kingdom marches, where there were open calls for their expulsion from this country, which are met with apparent indifference. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to protect the Muslim community from further alienation and what message does she send to those who incite hatred against them?”
“I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a practising optometrist. Myopia—shortsightedness—is nearing epidemic levels for UK children. It is a crisis that was sharply increased by covid, when screentime surged and outdoor activity collapsed. Research shows that nearly one in three of our UK children will now be short sighted, and the rate is still rising. Shortsightedness after a certain dioptre level can lead to retinal conditions and sight loss. When developing any digital policies, can consideration be given to the devastating impact of screentime on our children’s eye health?”
“Does the hon. Member agree that it is not simply unfair but un-British to change the rules for people who were told that they could qualify for settlement if they stayed in this country for five years, by moving the goalposts to 10 years?”
“Is there not a real threat of politicising immigration at a time in which universities in my constituency are really struggling because there is a lack of international students, who are no longer willing to come to this country? The amount of money they bring to our economy is phenomenal. Pursuing this type of policy will disrupt the foundations of our universities.”
“The autumn roll-out into Pharmacy First is a start, but we need a shared vision of what full deployment looks like in this Parliament, with the funding to match. Finally, address the workforce crisis by setting out concrete steps to grow the pharmacy workforce in parallel with any expansion of services. New services on the backs of a depleted workforce will fail.”
“Medicine optimisation is another point. With an ageing population on complex polypharmacy regimes, pharmacists conducting structured medication reviews can reduce harm, cut millions of pounds in waste and improve outcomes. This is not aspirational; it is proven. We are simply failing to fund it at scale. I have a repeat prescription for the Minister. First, publish a road map to close the pharmacy funding gap with above-inflation increases—not in one year, but as a sustained multi-year commitment. Pharmacies cannot plan, invest or recruit without it. Secondly, match investment in retained margins with real action on medicine pricing. The UK is an unattractive market for global suppliers, and medicine shortages flow directly from that. That is a patient safety issue. Thirdly, be genuinely ambitious on independent prescribing.”
“Independent prescribing is, as the sector rightly calls it, a generational opportunity. Pharmacists already have the clinical skills. With the right framework and investment, they can manage long-term conditions, initiate and adjust medicines and take pressure directly off GPs—not as a stopgap, but as a genuine, permanent part of the primary care team. Beyond prescribing, pharmacies are ideally placed to deliver integrated healthcare and lifestyle services, such as smoking cessation, weight management, hypertension case-finding and alcohol interventions. In my experience in community eye care, the closer we embed clinical services in high street settings, the better the uptake by patients who would never otherwise engage with the NHS. Pharmacies are trusted, accessible and visited regularly—far more than any GP surgery.”
“Those are welcome steps, and everything of that nature is going in the right direction. However, NPA analysis shows that 8.9% is needed simply to allow pharmacy budgets to stand still—to absorb the national living wage, employers’ national insurance contributions, inflation and business rates. The settlement is just 1.3 percentage points above that threshold; it does not close the £2 billion funding gap that the NHS’s independent review identified a year ago. Much of the uplift will be swallowed by costs before a single patient sees any benefit. I am not just here to outline the problems, as there are positives. Community pharmacies represent one of the greatest untapped opportunities in modern healthcare, and I say that as someone who has seen community-based clinical practice at work.”
“In Leicester, five pharmacies have shut down in the last calendar year alone. There are now fewer than 10,000 pharmacies open in England, and nearly 64,000 opening hours a week have disappeared since 2022. Between 2021 and 2025, the sector lost 3,000 full-time equivalent pharmacists. Funding was cut in 2016 and held flat for eight years, and the sector has absorbed real-terms cuts of 30%. Pharmacies, unlike other businesses, cannot pass on their costs to their customers. They cannot manage demand by extending their waiting lists, and 90% to 95% of their income comes from the NHS. They are, in effect, trapped. We all welcome the £340 million uplift announced for 2026-27 and the decision to begin integrating independent prescribing into Pharmacy First and the Pharmacy Contraception Service.”
“There is a lag in the number of GPs who are qualifying and taking up positions. In lower socioeconomic areas, of which there are many in my Leicester South constituency, there are 1,985 patients per GP. There are 300 more patients per GP in those areas and, as has been mentioned, pharmacists really do plug the gap, saving 38 million GP appointments and doing incredible work. The Government’s 10-year health plan is built on the bold premise of shifting care out of hospitals and into our communities. We all support that ambition—of course we do—but we cannot deliver care in the community if we are not allowing community infrastructure to thrive, and that is precisely what is happening to pharmacies at the moment. Since 2017, England has lost more than 1,400 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, which is a net loss of 15% of the entire network.”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this debate. She, the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) and all colleagues have dispensed some great ideas today. [ Laughter. ] Sorry, but it does not end there. The Minister and Members may be aware—I might not have mentioned it enough—that I am one of the only practising optometrists to be a Member of Parliament, and optometrists share many of the concerns and challenges that our pharmacy colleagues face. I surpass the hon. Member for North Somerset in having been a community-based optometrist for nearly three decades. I want to address many of the points that have been made. First, our GPs are facing real burnout.”
“The typical annual dual fuel bill is 40% higher today in real terms than it was in 2021. After accounting for inflation, that means it is £511 more per household. The bad news does not stop there, with Ofgem announcing that the crisis is going to get worse, with a 13% increase to the energy price cap. My constituents in Leicester South were already suffering. Labour promised to fix that, but the cost of living is just getting worse. The Minister says that the only way to protect our country is through clean, home-grown power, so what is he doing to decouple the bills from gas prices and when will my constituents feel that?”
“We say we are going to listen to young people, but one young person recently said that they should be labelled as LEETs, not NEETs, because they are looking for education, employment and training. Positive framing is essential, especially as AI reshapes the labour market and we have the boss of Standard Chartered calling them “lower value human capital”. Does the Minister agree that we must rethink pathways into work, invest in new models of education, and provide a stronger safety net so that technological changes create opportunities, not exclusion?”
“Henry’s heartbroken father has said that Henry’s family do not want his murder to “be used to create further division, hatred or tension.” I pray that we all heed those words in this House. This heinous crime is made worse by the shocking police response, and lessons must be learnt. What will the Home Secretary do differently to crack down on the epidemic of knife crime, such as creating a dedicated knife crime Minister? What steps will she take to ensure that our Sikh community, who are overwhelmingly peaceful and integrated, are not held collectively responsible by those who wish to divide us?”
“Israel’s illegal invasion of Lebanon is continuing unabated. Millions have left their homes, and millions of refugees have fled to the north. It is happening all over again: people are suffering and civilians are dying. What is the Secretary of State doing to suspend all military co-operation with Israel so that it stops the Gazafication of Lebanon?”
“History gives us cause for concern, especially when it comes to private finance initiative arrangements, which have cost the NHS tens of billions of pounds over decades. Let me end by saying something about the Palantir question. The creation of a single patient record is welcome, but the vessel matters as much as the vision. The £330 million NHS federated data platform contract, awarded by the last Government and inherited by this one, raises serious and unresolved questions, and it must be addressed.”
“It causes irreversible sight loss, it increases the risk of falls, and it carries serious long-term costs for both the NHS and social care, and we now have the technology to address it more efficiently than ever. The iStent inject device can be inserted during routine cataract surgery in a single procedure, treating both conditions simultaneously. This is exactly the kind of innovation that the 10-year health plan calls for, yet uptake is inconsistent because there is no national commissioning guidance. I urge the Government to ensure that the single patient record supports consistent clinical decision making across the glaucoma pathway, and that integrated care boards are required, not merely permitted, to commission those procedures. The Bill also abolishes NHS England, and we have heard much about that.”
“I must also declare my interest as a practising optometrist. Clause 14 gives integrated care boards new responsibilities over primary care services, and the Bill transfers commissioning of NHS sight tests from a national framework to individual ICBs. I completely understand the logic of localisation, but I have already seen what happens in practice. In Coventry and Warwickshire, a community urgent eye care service that was diverting more than 13,000 A&E attendances per year was withdrawn at the end of 2025. In Hampshire, community glaucoma schemes have been moved back into hospitals. This is the postcode lottery in action. Glaucoma affects approximately 700,000 people in the UK, with about half of them walking around undiagnosed.”
“We all cherish the NHS, and all of us in this Chamber have a duty to ensure that anybody who does not believe in the basic principle that care should follow need, not wealth, must be nowhere near the jewel in our crown that is the NHS. I begin with primary care—or, indeed, the glaring inequality in primary care. Practices in the most deprived areas carry, on average, 300 more patients per fully qualified GP than those in the least deprived. That gap has grown by 50% since 2018. In Leicester—my constituency and my home—there are 1,985 patients per GP, which is significantly above the national average. The Bill introduces a statutory duty to reduce health inequalities and, under clause 24, to produce neighbourhood health plans, but a plan without the workforce to deliver it is a plan in name only.”
“Leicester’s textile sector exists, the capability exists, and the security case for buying British has never been stronger. The NHS is the largest employer in the country and one of the largest procurers of textiles, from uniforms to bedding and from surgical gowns to staff clothing. The potential is enormous. Not only would a targeted commitment to NHS procurement from UK manufacturers—and Leicester manufacturers in particular—support local jobs and local supply chains; it would reduce carbon emissions from long-distance shipping, strengthen our supply chain resilience, and build exactly the kind of productive, skilled employment base that the Government say they want to create.”
“I will quickly turn to an example that illustrates precisely what backing businesses ought to look like in practice, and where Government procurement could—if the Government choose—make a transformative difference. I have spoken to local textile business owners in Leicester, the city that used to clothe the world. At one stage, it was the second richest city in Europe because of its industry; unfortunately, it is now on its knees because contracts are being given to foreign companies, such as those in China, instead of to young, hard-working British entrepreneurs. Awarding defence uniform contracts to Chinese manufacturers is not simply an economic error, but a strategic one. It creates supply chain dependency on foreign nations at the precise moment when the Government are asking us to take defence seriously.”
“We must invest in the future rather than pile costs on to our own businesses, and thereby allow corporations to run riot. That is why it has been very pleasing to hear many Members speak about apprenticeships, which are a perfect example of investing in the future. I welcome any ambition to expand opportunities for young people, but warm words must be followed by structural change. University was once the most favoured destination for economic growth, but for many, that is economically out of reach. Still, the journey of an apprenticeship is a renewed ticket to economic growth and the skilled defence workforce this country urgently needs, including engineers, manufacturers and technicians. We cannot build frigates or maintain fighter jets with a generation who have been left behind.”
“Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of British prosperity. In my constituency of Leicester South, as in constituencies across this country, the employers, the innovators, and the anchor institutions of our high streets and industrial estates, are being hammered by the increased cost of living, whether it is energy and business rate rises, increased costs to staffing budgets, or national insurance contributions. The Office for Budget Responsibility found that the changes to national insurance contributions caused a 2% hike in payroll costs for employers last year alone, while the confidence of chief executive officers has fallen more in recent years than during the pandemic. The Government’s spending on defence must come from the bottom up.”
“These are the things that are going to destroy our nation; these are the things that we really need to worry about. I would also like to highlight the colossal waste of money in previous defence projects, given that many people jump to say that we must spend on defence and sacrifice welfare, which they say is such a waste of money. The Ajax armoured vehicle programme costs £5.5 billion; it is still not ready and is running over a decade late. The Bowman radio cost £2.5 billion; it was 25 years late and still does not work properly. The Type 45 Daring class destroyers are £1.5 billion over budget, and the majority are now being maintained in a dock, despite being less than 15 years old. I turn now to the economy and, more specifically, the businesses that sit at its heart.”
“An argument has been made today that we must sacrifice welfare for warfare—strip the safety net to fund the military—but my argument is this: the things that make people feel safe at home are exactly what make us worth defending. We talk endlessly about threats abroad, but the things that lead to instability—poverty, inequality, failed public services and communities being left behind—are right here. Just this weekend, on Saturday, at the march to allegedly “Unite the Kingdom”, we saw vile Islamophobic rhetoric and shouts, with organisers and speakers on stage calling for Muslims to be deported from this country and from this place where we sit. Members of parties across the board were openly told to go back home, despite being born and brought up here.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), who gave a very powerful speech. I want to use my time to address the issues that matter to the defence of our country and its future from a very domestic perspective. If I have time, I will touch on the historical waste in the defence industry. Following what was said by the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), sadly around 50% of young people today say that they would not defend our country. The question is, why? Is it because we do not build a strong country by making poor people poorer, and we do not build a strong Army from an unhealthy, under-educated and economically broken population? The two things are not in competition; they are connected.”
“What assessment has the Minister made of the report concerning communication between the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, regarding the court investigation into war crimes in Gaza? What steps is he taking to uphold the independence of the international judicial institutions that we set up?”
“In 2021, the Prime Minister wrote an essay in which he said, “Where the current Tory government has muddied the waters of transparency…I want to make it easier to hold government to account.” He said that a Labour Government must “play its role in restoring honesty, decency and transparency in public life”— and yet here we are. Does the Minister agree that after all the redacting of messages, it is not only the Labour party that is being damaged, but democracy itself?”