Rupert Lowe
MP for Great Yarmouth · Restore Britain · United Kingdom
“A 12-year-old could take the vaccination against their parents’ wishes. Think about that—12 years old. Then came vaccine passports, also forced through by Reform UK’s Zahawi. I found the entire concept morally repugnant. The state making access to ordinary parts of life dependent on someone disclosing their medical status was criminal.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That responsibility now rests with Government, regulators and, where necessary, the courts. The inquiry itself recognised the heavy cost of lockdowns, even if it criticised how decisions were made.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. The covid lockdowns were the darkest period in recent British history, bar none. Our freedoms were stripped away in ways most of us never imagined possible. Alongside all that came extraordinary pressure on millions of people to take the covid vaccine.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us remember that the roll-out to teenagers was forced through against the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which originally declined to recommend a mass roll-out for younger teens. The facts are quite clear.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A vulnerable elderly person faced a very different calculation from a healthy 25-year-old. In fact, they could not have been more different. The 25-year-old was at no risk whatever—they were more likely to drown to death than have serious issues with covid—yet so much of the messaging treated vaccination as though it were the same decisio…”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, can I say how much I enjoy serving on the Public Accounts Committee with the hon. Lady? I think—and I am sure she agrees with me—that the key to correcting this situation is for the Government to make better decisions.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I think the passion of fans can be a dangerous thing if they are on a board, yes. The FA Premier League’s success has been driven by the prescient founding formula for financial distribution, ensuring a competitive league. Under the Bill, fans collectively will suffer, and another more innovative league in another geographic region, probably in Asia, will emerge as a leader. Members might all feel good about themselves, but billions and billions of pounds will be driven out of the country. There is no need for a football regulator or indeed any more wokery in the game, exemplified by the support for a questionable organisation such as Black Lives Matter, when the knee was taken before each game: the world’s best football meets the world’s best virtue signalling.”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sincere condolences to the shadow Leader of the House on the loss of his father. Mass deportation of illegal migrants and foreign criminals must be our ultimate policy objective. Will it be logistically straightforward? Absolutely not. Is it necessary? Absolutely, yes. It is mass deportations or a mass amnesty, and I choose deportations. Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time on how we can deport the numbers required on a rapid timescale that is acceptable to the British people, who reasonably expect our borders to be policed and the law to be upheld?”
House of Commons20 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The premier league projects unrivalled soft power, rakes in a fortune for HM Revenue and Customs and is actually good fun, usually offering competitive football, despite Southampton’s woeful record this season. What is the Government’s plan? It was first proposed by the Conservatives, of course: regulate, strangulate, suffocate. Who wants that to happen the most? La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and even the Saudis. A regulator would deter foreign investment and add bureaucracy to an already heavily governed industry. It is ludicrous and does nothing to protect clubs in the lower leagues. It should be revoked. Let us encourage and campaign, not regulate. The private sector built this success without regulation. My overriding message to all of you is “Leave football alone.””
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As is seemingly my usual opening line in many of these debates, I am one of very few people elected in this place who has any actual experience of the industry that we are discussing. As a former premier league football chairman, I can honestly say that the premier league works. Britian does not have many success stories left, but our domestic football is one of them. My message to all of you is “Leave it alone.” I mean this as a genuine question: do any of you understand the consequences of what you are looking to do? Regulating these industries does not work. London as a financial centre has withered and died on the vine since the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Why would football be any different?”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Women are being forced to face significant risk in order to be inclusive. Men must not be allowed access to women-only spaces, regardless of whether they believe themselves to be a woman—they are not. We must prioritise safety over inclusivity, dignity over wokery, reality over ideology. Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time on protecting women-only spaces and women-only services?”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the Secretary of State’s statement, I remind her that proper functioning democracy costs money. My constituents in Great Yarmouth do not like being represented by unelected councillors, so can she give a copper-bottomed guarantee that the new Norfolk and Suffolk homunculus council will have its elections in May 2026?”
House of Commons5 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They will all say exactly the same: the backbone of British farming is being intentionally broken. If Labour continues down this path, thousands of grieving British farming families will lose their farms forever. Is that really what the Government want? The answer seems to be yes. This assault on British family farms will undermine our food security, making our already uncertain place in an increasingly dangerous world even more precarious. Supporting British farmers today means safeguarding our domestic food supply for tomorrow. That should be the aim of any responsible Government. A rethink of this policy is urgently required.”
House of Commons28 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing such a valuable debate. Being a farmer is not job; it is a career. In fact, it is not a career; it is a way of life. As one of the few active farming MPs, I am more qualified than most to comment. We were told before the election that Labour had no intention of changing APR, and farmers would have voted for Labour specifically on that pledge from the Environment Secretary. They certainly would not now. We should call it what it is: an outright betrayal. Where do people think our food comes from? It does not grow on shelves in Waitrose; it is grown by British farmers on British farms. I urge all MPs to speak to their farming constituents.”
House of Commons28 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members should ask themselves honestly: if a hotel at the bottom of their road was suddenly filled overnight with young foreign males who had entered the country almost entirely unchecked, would they be happy for their teenage daughter to go out after dark? The answer is no.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you very much, Sir John, and apologies for not bobbing appropriately. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Our message to the world has to be this: if you come here illegally, you will be deported. Not housed in luxury accommodation, fed and cared for at the taxpayer’s expense; deported. Not allowed to roam the streets entirely unchecked, with no limits; deported. Not free to apply for asylum under whatever lie the Home Office is buying this week; deported. Removing those with no right to be here is not cruel; it is not heartless; it is necessary. Language matters, and these men are not desperate asylum seekers; they are not irregular migrants—they are illegal migrants, and they should be treated as such. Spreading them across the country into unsuspecting communities is pure insanity.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sadly, I have little doubt that far more crime is being committed by illegal migrants than we are being told. I have raised the matter time and again with the Government. Nobody seems to care. There are roughly 30,000 illegal migrants in hotels around the country. As we know, the vast majority are young males, many from cultures that do not respect women. That is not racist, far right or whatever else; it is a reality, and one we must start to deal with. Secure detention is required, not open hotels. If the facilities do not exist, build them. If we get serious on deportations, they will not be necessary for long. Send the following message and the boats will stop: “If you come to the UK illegally, you won’t be met with luxury accommodation. What will the British Government do to you? Two words: detain and deport.” That is the only way.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me be abundantly clear: the full cost of these hotels is being concealed from the British public. I am doing everything in my power to uncover the truth. Locals are not even informed about what has happened in their town. I asked the Home Office to develop a consultation process with residents before a hotel is hijacked. It refused and reminded me of its obligation to care for illegal migrants. What about the safety and needs of taxpaying local residents? Hotels are being filled with young men in close proximity to girls’ schools. Does anyone here find that acceptable? I have pushed the Government to undertake a review of the impact on British women and girls of crime emanating from these hotels. Again, they refused. Who is the Home Office actually serving?”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not think the tone of the debate is in any way relevant. What is relevant is what the Government do to protect the interests of the British people. The answer to the question I asked is no, and if Members disagree they are even more deluded than the Home Office. When I try to explore the actual cost of these hotels and the surrounding healthcare, travel, translation, recreational activities and more, I am denied vast swathes of information by the Home Office. It is a cover-up. It says that it does not pay for x or y, but that is because it is all subcontracted out on billion-pound contracts spread over 10 years. The list of further subcontractors on those contracts is fully redacted. Why might that be? Again, it is a blatant cover-up.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T6. As someone actively involved in a number of businesses, unlike the majority of Front Benchers, I have spent far too much of my life trying to communicate with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and I am not alone. Taxpayers cumulatively spent 798 years on hold with HMRC in 2022-23, and letters often go unanswered for months. When the phone is picked up, decent British taxpayers and their advisers increasingly are treated like criminals by arrogant, petty, unaccountable bureaucrats. Will the Chancellor commit to a comprehensive review of HMRC, to make it as accountable to the taxpayer as the taxpayer is to them—”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In her statement, the Home Secretary said, “Let there be no doubt: responsibility for this outrage lies squarely with the perpetrator.” That is indubitably true, but I would argue that there is blood on the hands of the myriad very difficult to understand Government agencies and quangos that charge around in ever decreasing circles, blaming everybody else when something goes wrong. Will she commit to reviewing every single dropped or downgraded case on which Prevent failed to act appropriately, to avoid another heartbreaking catastrophe like this one?”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think we in this House can all agree that the premier league is the world’s most successful league. It has grown up under self-regulation, but there are now proposals to regulate it. The premier league transmits soft power across the world and raises huge amounts of revenue for the Government. Given the damage that the Financial Services and Markets Act has done to the London stock exchange and other markets, will the Government take responsibility if football declines after they introduce football regulation?”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As well as withheld court transcripts, I have been pushing the Ministry of Justice for data on the following: how many Pakistani or other foreign rapists have been deported, are still in prison, did not serve a custodial sentence, are back in the same community as their victims, had previous convictions or have reoffended, with a full nationality breakdown of those involved in the gangs. The response was that the requested information “is not centrally identified in the data systems relevant to these questions.” If this were a state inquiry into the private sector, it would be accused of negligence. My view is that we need a full national inquiry. This is a rotting stain on our country, and it needs to be exorcised in full. It cannot continue to be kicked into the long grass.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How did the MHRA allow politicians, celebrities and even its own agency to describe these vaccines as safe and effective, when yellow card data clearly showed it is not universally safe and certainly not universally effective? How could MHRA CEO June Raine say she had transformed the MHRA from a watchdog to an “enabler” of the pharmaceutical industry—an oxymoron for a watchdog that is meant to safeguard public health? It is Parliament’s duty now to exercise its sovereign power to ensure that we learn from the myriad of mistakes.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If an elderly man in his 90s believes that the virus poses more of a threat than the vaccine, then let him take it. For almost everyone under 70, that is a risk analysis that falls firmly in the camp of not having the vaccine. Don’t even get me started on the abhorrent vaccine passport policy—one of the most evil policies devised by Government in living memory. The MHRA should have provided full and transparent data so that educated adults could make their own decisions for themselves and for their families. It must act as an independent barrier against both political expedience and corporate profit, protecting public health above all else. The question is: who regulates the regulator? Who protects against regulatory capture?”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Had it been honest about the real need—or lack thereof—for population-wide vaccinations, the whole case for lockdown would have collapsed. As of 4 November, there had been 489,991 adverse reaction reports from covid-19 vaccines in the UK. Those are just the reported issues. What is the true number? When individual after individual reports feeling far worse after taking the vaccine than they ever did after the virus, should we not question whether that vaccination was necessary? The MHRA failed. This was simply not a vaccine that was needed by the entire population. We were fed the lie that taking the jab would protect vulnerable loved ones, which was disgraceful dishonesty. The vaccine did not prevent transmission—we know that now, and we knew that then. It should always have been a fully free and informed choice.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The wicked list is endless. None of it was based on any science, and certainly not the vaccination of almost the entire population—including, disgracefully, young children. This was a hideous dereliction of duty by the MHRA. It was not just children it forced the covid vaccination on, but tens of millions of people who had absolutely no need for it whatsoever. There was clear risk from taking the vaccine—not just the initial two doses, but the booster following them. The evidence for the vaccine was simply not there, particularly considering that by that stage, almost the entire population had actually caught the virus, which gave far more effective natural protection than any man-made intervention. The MHRA knew that, but it failed to act. Why? Was it under political pressure not to undermine the wretched covid response?”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The biggest challenge in the MHRA’s history was the covid response, and it failed. It enabled the biggest assault on civil liberties and economic prosperity in my lifetime, which was lockdown—the greatest scandal of them all. It was, quite simply, the most disgraceful period of recent history. The MHRA’s insistence on vaccines for all enabled lockdown restrictions to continue for as long as they did. It must take part responsibility for the consequences: vast NHS backlogs, mental health issues rife, soaring alcohol-related deaths, obesity booming, children’s development wrecked, long-term illnesses mounting, increased substance abuse, domestic violence on the rise, unnoticed child neglect, fathers missing the birth of their children and elderly loved ones left to rot and die alone. We were not even allowed to mourn the dead properly.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I should start by alerting people to my declared interests relating to the pharmaceutical industry. All of us familiar with the growth of the quango will be aware of how these unelected, unaccountable organisations have come to control and dominate British public life—not us, the democratically elected Members, but the quangos. Failure is rewarded and never punished. No organisation encapsulates that point as comprehensively as the MHRA. Its role is essentially to ensure that medicines and medical devices are safe and effective—where have we heard those words before? How can it possibly be trusted to regulate properly when it is funded largely by the companies it is tasked with regulating? It is simply human nature for a conflict like this to impact on the decision-making process.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the abject failure of devolution in both Scotland and Wales and the fact that the Americans fought a war of independence on the slogan “No taxation without representation”, my constituents of Great Yarmouth would like an answer to two questions. First, why should they continue to pay their council tax beyond May, when they will not be represented by elected people? And secondly, by what name do they call these unelected councillors after May?”
House of Commons15 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilised world—no longer a Government by free option, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” Friedrich von Hayek, an eminent Austrian-school economist, said: “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” Given the historical track record of states abusing their citizens by various forms of currency debasement, including QE, the default position should be to make it illegal, unless this democratically elected House has an informed vote supporting debasement.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Taxes should be transparent, justifiable and simple. The cost of government should be covered by taxes alone, limiting the growth of excessive statism. Gold has historically been the standard store of value and protection against currency debasement for over 5,000 years. It is interesting that profligate Governments always denigrate gold-holding, and holding it is often banned by Governments in crisis who have deceived their electorate. The words of President Woodrow Wilson after he signed the Federal Reserve Act should serve as a warning to all of us: “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Trump described DOGE as a transformative initiative aimed at slashing bureaucracy, cutting regulations and restructuring federal agencies, and likened it to the Manhattan project. Money is the foundation of all human exchange of enterprise and replaced barter in the earliest communities. It allows for the transfer of skills through a transferable medium such as a coin, a note or indeed a transfer. By a continuous process of inflation, no matter how it is perpetrated, Governments can confiscate—secretly and unobserved—an important part of the wealth of their citizens. As they do so, the size of the state inevitably grows, and it becomes a self-serving, greedy master of the people it should be serving. Common-sense logic and human relationships among working people are inevitably undermined, and there is a general moral decline in society.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Milei’s focus has been on cutting public sector spending, reducing inflation and implementing drastic fiscal adjustments, which have led to improvements in Argentina’s economy. Inflation has fallen from nearly 300% to around 119%, public sector jobs have been reduced by 35,000, and the country has achieved a primary fiscal surplus. Argentina’s economy has also exited recession, with a growth rate of 3.9%, and borrowing costs have dropped, signalling reduced debt default risks. Elon Musk has been appointed to lead Donald Trump’s new Department of government efficiency, which he will co-run with Trump ally and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk said that the Department’s creation would address Government waste and inefficiency.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is interesting that Weimar Germany’s revival started with the dismissal of many civil servants, and social welfare spending being massively cut. The French Government’s recent funding crisis makes it look even more like a national Ponzi scheme than in the UK. Both wings of French politics refused to sanction debt reduction despite the budget deficit being expected to rise to over 113% of GDP by this year. Market concerns are pushing the euro lower and France’s borrowing costs higher, with bond yields briefly surpassing Spain’s for the first time since 2008. Javier Milei, Argentina’s President since 2023, has brought significant economic reforms with his radical libertarian agenda, earning both praise and criticism.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They used $700 billion of intervention to prop up the financial system generally, particularly AIG. During the covid crisis of 2020 and 2021, when many bad decisions were taken by an already bloated state, between £310 billion and £410 billion—equivalent to between £4,600 and £6,100 per person in the UK—was spent in a number of questionable centrally planned interventions. In rather the same way as early Weimar Germany, Britain finds itself heavily indebted and continuing to run multiple deficits, making matters progressively worse. Our moral decline is clearly evident, as true capitalism has been undermined by regular intervention, increasing state regulation and a growing, bloated and inefficient state.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With currency devaluation came a decline in all that had previously been cherished, including loyalty, faith, morals, innocence and honour. Over recent times, capitalism in the UK and globally has been undermined as states have grown in size and central banks have distorted logic. Systemic risk management via the clearing banks in the ’70s was gradually replaced by more overt interventions, including by Alan Greenspan in 1987, and in 1997 when Long-Term Capital Management, an offshore company, was bailed out by the US Government. The year 2008 was a watershed moment, when Gordon Brown bailed out financial institutions at an estimated cost to taxpayers of £137 billion, followed by quantitative easing between March 2009 and August 2016. That was dwarfed by the actions of Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke in the US in 2008.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It ended in chaotic collapse, and it badly damaged France and her economy. National debt was supported by printed money in the same way as today through QE via central banks globally. I fear that the ending will be the same in due course. In Weimar Germany, after the first world war, the Reichsbank had become accustomed to printing money to fund the wartime economy, increasing marks in circulation from two billion to 45 billion between 1914 and 1919. State debt rose by 30 times, from 5 billion marks to 153 billion marks. That continued with the value of the mark going into freefall in early 1923 and the issuance of notes of up to 100 trillion marks, before sense returned. It was a time of moral decline, short-termism and prostitution that benefited the opportunists, not the long-term wealth creators.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“QE is what third-world dictators used to indulge in shortly before their currencies descended into chaos, but it has now become a mainstream tool to avoid the Darwinian reality of capitalism. History is littered with examples of Governments, dictators and kings abusing their hard-working citizens. Coinage during Rome’s ascendant years was bolder, larger and widely accepted, but it reduced in size, weight and content as her empire waned. There was John Law’s Mississippi scheme in France in 1716 to 1720, when he and the Duke of Orléans, who was regent for Louis XV, presided over an establishment-backed scheme on the premise that paper money was preferrable to gold or a metal-backed currency, and that shares were a superior form of money as they paid dividends. It was, in essence, the first national central bank.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The most famous modern UK example was the great debasement between 1544 and 1551, when Henry VIII reduced the gold and silver content of coinage by the use of base metals such as copper in order to fund his bacchanalian overspending and wars with France. It has been a common feature of Government behaviour over the 5,000 years of gold trading history, and it continues today in the form of quantitative easing. With no gold standard to constrain unproductive investment and direct capital to sound and profitable investment ventures, policymakers today have become obsessed with short-term stimuli centred on the performance of stock and bond markets. Central banks have become uncontrolled, unconstrained and reckless in their pursuit of delivering non-stop, unsustainable global growth driven by credit.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit quantitative easing; to prohibit the Government from indemnifying any losses that may result from quantitative easing; and for connected purposes. The purpose of this draft legislation is to ensure that the state is as economically accountable to the people as the people are to the state. That means terminating the state’s ability to debase the value of money through practices such as quantitative easing, which is not an option for the individual. Clipping, sweating, plugging and cutting are forms of coin debasement either by Government or individuals.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Richard Tice, Jim Allister, James McMurdock, Lee Anderson and myself, Mr Speaker. Ordered, That Rupert Lowe, Richard Tice, Jim Allister, James McMurdock and Lee Anderson present the Bill. Rupert Lowe accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 January, and to be printed (Bill 155).”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will a regular update be published detailing ongoing prosecutions and sentencing? Will the Government publish a full nationality breakdown of those convicted for such offences, along with the location of their crimes? How many known foreign rapists are there per town, per region? Will the Government publish a breakdown of the immigration status of those involved? On what grounds were they in the UK? Do they have previous convictions? How many foreign nationals found guilty have been released but not deported?”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government commit to pausing all Pakistani visas and foreign aid into the country until the Pakistani Government agree to accept any of their deported citizens who have perpetrated these crimes on British soil, and imprison these rapists and their accomplices in Pakistan however they see fit? Will the Government undertake a full investigation into officials who had knowledge of these crimes yet failed to act? A specified taskforce to root out this evil should be established. We should not just fire these vile individuals but prosecute them. How many girls are estimated to have been raped? Is there a tally for the overall number of rapes? Horrifyingly, it may well be in the millions. We just do not know. How many vulnerable young girls are estimated to still be involved in these gangs? If there is no estimated figure, why not?”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that the Opposition amendment has been selected, I will not stand here and outline my disgust at what has happened with regard to the historic grooming gang scandal. The British people want answers, so I will ask questions of the Labour party, and several of them. Will the Government commit to deporting all guilty foreign nationals involved urgently, including family members who were aware of the crimes and therefore complicit? Wives, sisters, mothers and cousins, if they knew and said nothing, are just as guilty as the rapists themselves. Will the Government commit to stripping citizenship from dual nationals implicated and deport them as well? Race or religion must protect nobody.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will carry on, if that is all right. How many re-offences have occurred since release? How many of these monsters are walking on the same streets as the girls they raped and abused? One report suggested that a victim came face to face with her rapist in the supermarket. Are the Government comfortable with that? How many of the foreign rapists were in receipt of any form of state benefit?”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The mass rape of young white working-class girls by gangs of Pakistani rapists is a rotting stain on our nation. This is not about Elon Musk. This is not a bandwagon of the far right. This is about the victims and ensuring that swift and brutal justice is delivered to those demons responsible. It is about distinguishing between right and wrong.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government release all court transcripts relating to those cases so that the British people can understand just part of the horror for themselves? How many of those documents have been hidden due to the cost of release? That should not be an obstacle to the transparency of those trials. Will lifelong sentences be considered for British citizens involved in the crimes, and for those in positions of power who acted to cover up the scale of the abuse? Which politicians, local and national, had knowledge of the events but failed to act—again, going as far as actively concealing what was truly happening? Those are the facts that the British people want and deserve to know. All those questions have also been submitted in written form, and I look forward to receiving open and transparent answers.”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will carry on, if that is all right. How many who were released receive any state benefits? How many children have been born following a rape by those men? How many have been given access to the child against the mother’s wishes, and how many have used the child as a route to remain in the UK? Will the Government commit to preventing that in future? How many deportations have been blocked due to the rapist’s right to a family life or due to other European Court of Human Rights influences? Will the Government set up a dedicated, confidential and accessible official process for whistleblowers to safely raise their concerns about foreign rape gangs, ensuring that it is safe, secure and easy to find?”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In this case, the bags were dumped into the sea with the ammonium nitrate still in them. They will not biodegrade, and will float to the surface after a storm, potentially becoming wrapped around a ship’s propeller and shaft, causing extensive damage—not forgetting the vast ecological damage to young fish, the seabed, and the inevitable algal blooms that will follow. To make matters worse, as the elected representative of the good people of Great Yarmouth, I was excluded from all communication and decision making leading up to the catastrophic dumping operation on 16 November 2024.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The MV Ruby is a sorry tale of bad decision making by Government and a selection of unaccountable, unelected quangos operating in silos without any application of common sense. It exemplifies the loss of sovereignty of Parliament, which should be absolute under the 1689 Bill of Rights, which asserted the rights of Parliament and individual rights based on John Locke’s philosophy. The outcome was a shocking and avoidable double act of environmental terrorism, when around 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate—better known as agricultural fertiliser—was dumped in the sea about 12 miles off the coast of my constituency. When I fill my drill or fertiliser spinner with fertiliser, I discharge the contents of the double-skinned weatherproof plastic bag into the hopper and recycle the bag.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We now find that the Marine Management Organisation, the MCA, the Environment Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the HSE all blame the dumping on the ship's captain. All other possible sensible options were blocked, but does this silence make them complicit in this catastrophe ? I conclude that it does.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I understand that he put on a new pair of rubber gloves which he thrust into the ammonium nitrate and then threw the gloves on to the table, claiming they smelt of diesel. Other people report that they understandably smelt of new rubber. This was also after the gross act of environmental terrorism. To carry out no inspection before dumping is quite extraordinary. This kind of behaviour is not uncommon from the HSE, which is a law unto itself, clearly employing a policy of “Do as I say, not as I do”. The question is, who regulates the regulator? When we understand that the HSE is part of the Department for Work and Pensions, no further explanation is necessary or indeed possible.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Dr Flood’s attitude was reported by many of the stakeholders to be aggressive, inappropriate and unprofessional, with the use of foul language and even banging his fist on the table and telling people, “This is going to flatten Great Yarmouth.” Analogies to the Beirut explosion were wholly inappropriate and misleading, causing panic among both local and national Government, who have no experience of handling ammonium nitrate. It is incredible that he did that without either a site visit or proper physical analysis of the material before the dumping. Was he too lazy to do what common sense suggested was the correct cause of action? Dr Flood only attended the site and inspected a small number of remaining split bags of material on Monday 18 November, after being instructed to attend by a Minister.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Peel Ports’ view was that it could safely unload the stained bags—the ship had previously carried a cargo of coal—on to the dock for analysis and disposal. HSE threatened sanctions and enforcement action against Peel Ports if one bag was unloaded on to the dock. I understand that legal responsibility for the material passes from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to HSE once unloaded. It is also interesting that Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service attended MV Ruby at this time, on either 12 or 13 November, and downgraded the situation.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Peel Ports began offloading the bags of ammonium nitrate on to the sister ship, Zimrida. On 11 November, Peel Ports identified seawater in hold one and some staining on the lower bags. Peel Ports notified the HSE, Dr Flood, and again requested its attendance to inspect the bags and the material. HSE refused to attend and inspect. Peel Ports sent them photographs and videos of the cargo in hold one. Peel Ports employed its own explosives experts, Dr Jim Warren and Dr Charles Owen, to attend and inspect the cargo. They reported that they could wipe the staining off the bags, concluding that it was unlikely the bags were contaminated. Peel Ports again requested HSE attendance, which was refused.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗