YouSaid · the spoken record
David Davis
We hold 81 passages that may be David Davis’s. We do not publish them until we can confirm who spoke. See the correction.
On the record 2004–2026
hansard · podcast
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“I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman says—I have been a critic of some privatisation myself—but it does not explain why those same malaises did not apply during the Blair years.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Following their convictions for LIBOR manipulation, Jay Merchant and Christian Bittar were deported from the UK and barred from returning. Earlier this month, their convictions were comprehensively quashed by the Court of Appeal. With their convictions thrown out, the reason for their deportation is completely invalid, but the deportation order will remain in place until removed by the Home Office. Will the Home Secretary look into those cases, accelerate the decision-making process on their applications and have their deportations revoked, so that they do not receive any more unearned punishment?”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This week, The Sunday Times reported on its front page how Ministry of Defence police attempted to prosecute five members of the SAS over bogus allegations made by our enemies. They arrested the soldiers and subjected them to continuous—and frankly incompetent—investigation for three years while they were fighting ISIS on our behalf. That action has travelled like a shockwave through Hereford, destroying morale and undermining one of our best fighting units. Nobody wants to put soldiers above the law, but will the Prime Minister speak to the Defence Secretary and stop British agencies acting with credulous complicity with enemies that are trying to use lawfare against our soldiers?”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To add to that point, when the Secretary of State looks at that, will he also look at elements written into the Irish constitution, particularly with respect to the operation of the Garda and its duty to protect the reputation of the Irish state? That will also cripple any attempt to expose information.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Every single time we have seen a member of the special forces in the UK speak in public about this matter, they have made it plain that they do not believe that they are above the law. On the contrary, they believe that they are there to uphold the law and that what they object to is making the process the punishment, which is where we are now.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is the most formidable and difficult of Bills facing the House, as I think anybody would recognise, and he has navigated it with great charm. He has reinforced my view that he should have been in the Cabinet long ago, and I thank him.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) on his speech. While I disagree with some of its substance, I agree with a lot of his sentiment, and his support for our veterans is welcome. May I thank the Secretary of State for his telephone call at home to tell me that he was going to support my amendment 50? I should have realised—I have been here long enough—when I looked at the Order Paper for amendment 50 in the name of David Davis that it would have become Government amendment 50. I feel as if I have been nationalised. It is the only time that I will approve of a nationalisation. I thank him for that. I commend the Secretary of State for the elegance and tone of his speaking over the past couple of days.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are plenty of examples—I think Clonoe was one of them—where a crowd prevented the authorities from getting close to a car until it had burned out, for the very simple reason that it destroyed the evidence. Even in the case of the murder of a previous Speaker at Stormont, Norman Stronge, and his son, the IRA set fire to the house, with the same aim.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Diplock recommended those trials, he gave the example of a man who was executed in front of his young son the day before he was due to give evidence in a terrorist trial. That is the background and the circumstances. However, the IRA did not stop there. They understood that, as well as witnesses, the other thing that matters in court cases is forensics. That is why they wore a strange uniform of boiler suits, rubber gloves, shoe coverings or wellingtons and balaclavas, because they knew that they had to deny the evidence, but that was not all. When they had carried out their crime, the cars used were frequently abandoned and burned to destroy the evidence.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why are operations such as Loughgall, Clonoe, Coagh or any of the others challenged by supporters of the IRA and others? The peculiar circumstances of Northern Ireland made this sort of operation necessary. How is that? The IRA knew how to frustrate justice. They would murder or intimidate not just anybody who thought that they might be a witness, but their families. If I were in that circumstance in Northern Ireland, I would baulk at giving evidence if I felt that my family might be murdered as a result of doing so, and I would baulk at serving on a jury for the same reason. That is why we ended up with Diplock trials, which had judges without juries, because that was simply not viable.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the rest of the United Kingdom, an inquest is not allowed to pursue a case if it becomes at all apparent that it may lead to a criminal prosecution, such as the finding of an unlawful killing, but in Northern Ireland the reverse is true. Even Northern Irish judges recognise the ludicrous nature of that situation. We saw that in the Coagh case with Soldier B, where there was judicial review attempt after judicial review attempt, which led to the judge talking about the “ludicrous nature of this challenge, funded as it is by legal aid.” The judge in that sequence talked about having to make views or judgments in slow motion or freeze frame on decisions. Those were life-and-death decisions, for the individuals concerned, and they were made in fractions of a second. That is the central reason for my objection.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because it involved the defeat of what they considered their most successful unit, the East Tyrone brigade. What was the measure of that success? That so-called brigade killed 250 innocent people. The defeat at Loughgall was seen as a humiliation for the IRA, and that means that they are now desperate to rewrite history and cast their murderers as heroes and British soldiers as amoral killers. That is why they want a coroner’s inquest, rather than a legacy commission. I am afraid that in Northern Ireland a coroner’s inquest is in many ways public theatre; it is just different. The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), made this point, but I will reiterate it.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is incredibly central to this matter, because the word “innocent” exposes the truth and draws a line between terrorists and their victims. In response to the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Sunderland Central, “veterans” and “victims” are not mutually exclusive terms, but “terrorists” and “victims” are. That is the significance of the amendments I am talking about. In the IRA active service unit killed at Loughgall, there were any number of people to whom that applied. The clearest example was Jim Lynagh, who was guilty of at least 20 murders and probably more than 30. His nickname was “the executioner”. He was not an innocent victim by any rational judgment of the word. Why Loughgall? It was the greatest single defeat of the IRA—the one that they are most sore about and still feel the scars of. Why is that?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The difference arises from a deliberate decision taken by the Blair Government in article 3 of the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, which changed the definition of “victim” and ruled that anyone affected by the troubles through loss, trauma or injury would be classed as a victim. That means that proven murderers killed in an attempt to carry out another murder count as victims. I know of nowhere else in the world where the law treats killers as victims. This issue is still relevant. In September last year, the Democratic Unionist party used a motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly to try to restore some moral clarity by adding the word “innocent” before “victims”. Most of us would think of that as a tautology, but the motion was defeated by Sinn Féin, supported by Alliance.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They relate to the fact that I was the trustee of the SAS Regimental Association for well over a decade—I cannot remember how many years. All parties in the debate so far, yesterday and today, have quite properly focused on the need to get closure for victims and, at the same time, to deliver justice for our veterans. Nobody can argue with those two aims. I am focusing mostly on getting justice for veterans by preventing them being punished by the process, but, before I pursue that line in detail, I will address some of the words and definitions that we are using, particularly the definition of “victim” in the operation of inquests in Northern Ireland. We all have in our minds a fairly clear idea of what a victim is, but unfortunately it is a little different in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am trying to do as much damage as possible. [ Laughter . ] I stand to speak principally to amendment 51 and, to some extent, to amendment 49, which would stop existing paused inquests going forward. Amendment 51 would address directly the paused inquest relating to Loughgall. I picked that event out because it is the most controversial and central to what the IRA were trying to achieve. It is emblematic of many of the reasons why we should not pursue any of these inquests, but should put them in their proper place with the legacy commission, which could deal with them dispassionately. Before I go any further, I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and not just this year but in previous years.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If Members want to look into this, I recommend that they look up the example of Lance Corporal David Jones, who was shot at the moment of challenge, or that of Captain Westmacott. There are others, but those cases give the Committee clear examples of the sorts of risks that had to be taken—and were taken—by our brave, honourable, decent and law-abiding soldiers.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At Clonoe, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar mentioned, there was another problem: the intelligence was wrong, which made it even more difficult. There they were facing a double-barrelled dushka machine gun, .50 calibre and capable of bringing down light armour or aircraft. A three-second burst of fire from that and the whole patrol would have been dead. That was the sort of thing we were asking our soldiers to do. I will come back to the Loughgall example, which is even worse in many ways. That was the sort of thing that we said to our soldiers, “You must do this to attempt to achieve an arrest, or at least a stop if you have to.” This is not theoretical; in the specific context of the special forces, which is what these three cases relate to, hundreds of soldiers died in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Doing nothing meant that 10 or 15 innocent people would die every year because the state was not fulfilling its duty, so the only way to stop it was to catch the East Tyrone brigade in flagrante—in the act of carrying out a crime—and try to arrest them. Of course, the first aim of the state is always to act with minimum force if possible, but the circumstances did not always allow that. This was an armed set of terrorists, probably in the process of trying to kill somebody, who might then turn to kill you, and you had to stand up and say, “Excuse me, you’re under arrest.” We saw from many of these events how dangerous that was. At Coagh—the case that went through all those judicial reviews—an SAS soldier effectively had to dress up as a UDR man to be the target, and they had to wait until he had been shot at before they moved.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. That serves to focus our minds on the fact that this was a very deliberate strategy. This did not happen by accident, and the IRA did not just take to wearing boiler suits as uniforms; this was a deliberate strategy. The IRA’s strategy faced the state with a conundrum. Doing nothing and sitting back does not work—if the jury processes and other judicial processes do not work, that is not an option. Why do I say that? Let me go back and take the East Tyrone brigade as an example. It killed 250 people before Loughgall. During the late ’80s, it was killing people at a rate of 10 or 15 a year.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
““Injuring” is too mild a term, frankly—one occupant had a fractured skull, while others had broken bones, and two of the soldiers fell about 10 feet on to rubble. Others sustained hearing injuries.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To be frank, I find it hard to imagine the level of courage it takes to sit in a building, waiting for it to be blown up by a 300 lb or 400 lb bomb. It is beyond my imagination, but that is what they did. The attack started when the van screeched to a halt, and a number of the unit debussed and opened fire on the police station. They fired a total of 78 rounds; I do not know whether all of them were fired at the police station, but I imagine most of them were. Inside the station, people reported being hit by fragments of bullets as they hit the steel frames of the windows and disintegrated. The digger then crashed through the perimeter fence and the bomb exploded, destroying half the building and injuring the occupants.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was not the first such operation, but the third; it came after Ballygawley, where the IRA shot and killed two police officers before blowing up the station, and the Birches, where they machine-gunned the station—fortunately, they missed people—before blowing it up. At Loughgall, the IRA team attacked the police station in two units. One unit was in a van, carrying a team armed with automatic weapons with the intention of killing the three police officers as they came off duty, and the other unit—of three men, I think—was in a JCB-style digger that was carrying in its bucket a 300 lb to 400 lb bomb. The attack happened at 7 pm, when the police officers were due to come off shift. Inside the station at the time, because of intelligence that was known, there were three police officers and three SAS soldiers.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with David Johnstone—by the way, I think he is a very brave commissioner. His predecessor was effectively fired for standing up, and he is still standing up. He is right, and to go off on a slight tangent, our other enemies learn from this, as we are seeing elsewhere in the world today. If we are not very careful, we will end up without one of the best parts of our armed forces, because we ourselves will have destroyed it. Let me come back to Loughgall. The aim at Loughgall was to destroy the police station and kill the police officers who would be coming off shift at 7 pm—the attack was timed for 7 pm.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It does not explain why they were there at the shift change, when the RUC men were about to come out of the building. It is plainly nonsense, but it is the sort of nonsense that they want to perpetuate in a court. That is another reason why I would rather see the dispassionate actions of the commission than the activities of IRA lawyers in the courts.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a really important thing to investigate, but it should be investigated in a cool, analytical manner, not in the theatre of the court. Why do the IRA want to have a coroner’s inquest rather than a legacy commission investigation? Because they were humiliated at Loughgall, and they want to rewrite history with themselves as the heroes and British soldiers as the villains. Let me give the Committee an early sign of the sort of thing they will try to claim. We have been hearing recently that these IRA people were only aiming to destroy the building—they were not aiming to kill anybody. That would have been completely different from the first operation, where they murdered people in cold blood before blowing up the station. That also does not explain why the IRA fired 78 rounds at the building—bullets kill people, not buildings.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was about to come to that point, and I will probably come back to it again. That is the real tragedy of that day—he was the real victim, as was his son, I think, who was wounded as well. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not agree with this, but one of the things about the British state is that we take our judicial responsibilities in these matters seriously, and we have prosecuted our own soldiers. The name Clegg jumps to mind, but there are others who were prosecuted and sent to prison even for acting irresponsibly, let alone malevolently. Of course that is the worst tragedy of that day—that is literally in my next paragraph. I will give the hon. Gentleman my notes after this debate, so that he can see for himself. Incidentally, that is one of the reasons why I say that this case should go to the legacy commission.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I spoke this morning to one of them who has been through more of these court cases than most, both inquests and judicial reviews. He told me that IRA lawyers are, in his words, “more interested in drama than justice”.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very close to the end, Madam Chairman. The hon. Lady is exactly right, and that is the entire thrust of amendment 51. If I had had my way, I would have said that amendment 49 was better, because it would have stopped all these inquests. The amendments would not get rid of the investigations, but would put them into a better process, which the Government have designed. I will finish on coroners courts. I have listened to a number of soldiers who have appeared in these courts, and the Committee can guess who I am talking about, but they are tough, intelligent soldiers. However, the court is not their environment, when they are being harassed by a lawyer not to get to the truth, but to get a story out of them.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is that what we want to do, or do we want to do it properly, by dispassionate method, using an instrument that is designed for the process and that those on both sides of the House agree will work?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In my view, many of them should have done, but he got it for putting himself at extra risk to save civilians and to prevent the death of civilians. That tells us what we are dealing with in relation to British soldiers in Northern Ireland. My last point is that this operation was approved in detail by the general officer commanding, Northern Ireland. I believe that it was approved in detail by the Secretary of State. It was reviewed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, with all of the information to hand—forensics, witnesses, the lot. We should remember that RUC people would not have been involved directly, but would have given witness statements. Do we want to run that through a circumstance where the evidence is degraded, where people’s memories have gone and where some have died? One of the individuals involved has dementia.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, not on this point. I am nearly at the end. I have already been rebuked by the Chairman for going on. What that soldier said is, I am afraid, consistent with what I saw. I have never appeared in an inquest, but I have appeared in a Diplock court in Northern Ireland. [ Interruption. ] Sorry, am I being heckled? I saw the same: the lawyers were interested in rewriting history. The IRA would welcome the restarting of the Loughgall inquest. They would view that as a victory in its own right, because it would allow them yet another attempt to rewrite the history of the troubles. I will make an aside, which in a way goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), although it is the converse of it. One of the soldiers at Loughgall got the military medal.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our exchanges on fondness will get the Secretary of State into trouble. He talks about balance; who has that balance or who governs that balance is important. Will he tell the Committee how many of the substantive amendments were either shown to or discussed with the Irish Government before they were brought to the Committee?”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State, with every good intention, talks about preventing “rinse and repeat”, yet the moment we introduce this situation into a coroner’s inquest, the opportunity for judicial review arises—multiple stages of judicial review. As we have already seen with inquests, “rinse and repeat” cannot be stopped, so a soldier may be going through three or four judicial processes, all of them painful, whatever the Government say.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They must accept the scrutiny of themselves that they demand of others, and we might start with an independent review of their role in the Omagh bombing, which we have heard something of today. I am afraid that this is a nation much of whose politics is hostile to Britain—we should not avoid that fact. Britain must not sacrifice its soldiers for an illusory diplomatic advantage. This vexatious use of lawfare is designed with one intent: to re-present the behaviour of IRA killers—vicious, psychopathic murderers—as somehow liberators and heroes, by destroying the reputations of our own soldiers. The Government must not pursue this course. The Government must drop this evil Bill and start again.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If this Bill was really about human rights and justice, the first coroner’s inquest would not be about whether the killings at Loughgall were unlawful; it would instead be about one of the 1,800 murders carried out by the IRA, every single one of which was unlawful. The Government, unfortunately, have prioritised their relationship with Dublin over their duties to their own veteran soldiers. Ireland will undoubtedly come to regret its own role in this Bill. Scrutiny of its actions during the troubles will show that it was never the impartial party it tries to present itself as now, but instead a partisan and a criminal insurgency. The Irish Government provided active sanctuary for IRA terrorists, and justice cannot mean relentless scrutiny for British soldiers but selective scrutiny for the Irish Government.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the Prime Minister sitting next to him, I hope that it will not influence the future of the Secretary of State when I tell the House that he and I are very long-standing friends and even occasional allies. He has obviously done all he can to mitigate what is a morally flawed Bill. A year after the Government introduced this Bill, the central question remains unanswered: how will it deliver justice without subjecting soldiers who served lawfully and honourably to endless punitive investigation? My judgment has not changed since October’s debate, nor April’s. The Bill was sold as a defence of human rights and the rule of law. I yield to no one in this House on human rights and defence of the rule of law, but this is not that. Instead, it is morally bankrupt and makes a mockery of both.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the rush to fit my speech into three minutes, I omitted to draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, some of which has direct relevance to Northern Ireland legislation. I do so now.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on putting a Bill in front of the House that has support from literally everybody in the Chamber? That is not true of the next Bill, which would protect our veterans from gratuitous prosecution under the Government’s new legislation. For that reason, the Government Whips Office does not want it to be properly debated or to progress today. The Bill we are debating is important, but it seems to me that we need to make time for another important debate about protecting our veterans. In view of that, I shall beg to move the closure.”
House of Commons4 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the investigation, the police had further questions for Sturgeon, but prosecutors stopped them from putting them. Those prosecutors worked for the Lord Advocate, the principal legal adviser to the Scottish Government—a clear conflict of interest. There is a clear pattern of secrecy, obstruction and power used to protect power—a pattern started by Sturgeon. Scotland needs a fresh start. That starts with a judicial inquiry into this entire sordid scandal, because it is a scandal that cost Alex Salmond his life.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Senior Scottish Government figures created a procedure for dealing with sexual harassment allegations that deliberately targeted Salmond. The procedure was so biased that a judge ruled it “unlawful” and “tainted by apparent bias”. Having lost that, senior figures brought prosecutions against him, but Salmond was acquitted on all charges by a majority female jury, before a female judge. It now appears clear that those actions, to destroy a man’s reputation and life, were motivated by a desire to hide their own crimes. There are many unresolved questions. What happened with the £60,000-worth of items that were dropped from the indictment: the hair stylers, the lingerie and the books by Sturgeon’s favourite authors? Murrell was clearly protecting Sturgeon by removing items that incriminated her.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sturgeon told colleagues at the meeting where those first resignations happened: “There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances”— no reasons. And when the treasurer resigned, she ignored it. Sturgeon was part of a cover-up, using her position to suppress justice. She behaved dishonourably and dishonestly, but her most evil act was stitching up Alex Salmond to hide the truth. When he was considering going on the national executive himself, the risk to the conspirators was clear: here is a numerate man who could not be silenced. So what did they do? In Salmond’s own words, there was “a malicious and concerted” attempt to remove him from public life in Scotland by “a range of individuals within the Scottish Government”.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My view on Sturgeon’s denial is clear: she is lying. She knew full well what her husband was doing and how those luxury purchases were funded. That Murrell was a thief was obvious in the 1980s, when he stole from Alex Salmond. Salmond told Sturgeon it was deeply unwise to keep her husband on as chief executive, but she kept him in place, enabling his crimes for years. Eventually, in March 2021, three members of the SNP’s finance committee withdrew and resigned, blaming “chaotic” and “incompetent” financial management. In their own words, they were on the receiving end of a “hostile” backlash, driven by Sturgeon’s “toxic culture”. They resigned in protest and were later followed by the treasurer of the organisation.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last month’s sentencing of Nicola Sturgeon’s husband exposed the real reasons behind the Scottish Government’s persecution of Alex Salmond. From 2010 to 2022, Peter Murrell abused his position to embezzle almost £500,000 from the SNP to buy luxury items. He used SNP money to buy a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf. Then he stole £57,000 to buy a Jaguar car. Further luxuries included handbags, an £850 gold pendant, four separate coffee machines costing £9,000, luxury kitchenware, at least 26 fountain pens costing nearly £21,000, and two £350 Dyson hairdryers—for a man with no hair. Really? Then, of course, there is the infamous £124,000 motorhome. Did Sturgeon not wonder where he got the money for all the vehicles, the kitchenware, the handbags, the pens, the pendant she loved? After all, who used the Dyson hairdryers in that household?”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Structural failure, institutional failure, and medical incompetence or even malevolence—every one of those explanations must be dragged into the light, and the unvarnished truth exposed.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“An inquiry that overlooks credible evidence is not comprehensive—it is compromised. A major failure of the trial was that the jury was not shown evidence from authoritative sources such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that offered a credible alternative explanation for the spike in deaths. The inquiry must not replicate that failure, and it must not lend its authority to what may be a major miscarriage of justice. It owes the parents who lost their babies, and future parents of future babies at risk, the absolute truth. It must follow the evidence and fear no conclusion. If facts are left unexamined, lessons are left unlearned. The inquiry should heed the warnings of Ockenden and Amos, and the countless voices emerging in Miss Letby’s defence.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Not a single doctor spoke to them about this, while nurses repeatedly told them that their baby was “fine”. Against that backdrop, he recalls that Lucy Letby stood out as the only staff member who took time to explain his baby’s condition. The hospital itself later told him that Lucy had “saved” his daughter’s life and had gone “above and beyond the call of duty.” He stated bluntly that the jury in Miss Letby’s trial was not given the full picture—the systemic problems, lack of communication and overall disorder. History judges institutions not by how confidently they defend themselves, but by whether they had the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. The Thirlwall inquiry now faces that test. An inquiry that refuses to ask difficult questions is not fearless—it is formulaic.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A mother of three triplets who moved to Liverpool Women’s Hospital said she “noticed a different level of cleanliness compared to the Countess” as there were “clear hygiene protocols” at Liverpool, where, she said: “We were told to wash our hands before entering the Unit and then again before entering the room”, which was not the case at the Countess of Chester. One father of a baby born at the Countess of Chester in May 2016 described the unit as “chaotic” and “failing”. He described an atmosphere of tension where “it wouldn’t take much more” for the unit “to blow up.” His daughter had had a difficult delivery and could not breathe at birth. He and his wife discovered three years later that she had been the sickest baby on the unit for over 24 hours.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What investigation did they do [into this?] I’m yet to see any clarity on this.” Even the parents themselves had initially assumed that if something had gone wrong, it was likely because of the hospital’s failings. One mother giving evidence against Lucy Letby during her trial admitted that “I thought, the hospital’s old, it’s not very nice. It was dirty, and I thought it was along the lines of medical negligence. It never entered my mind that there was somebody intentionally harming babies”. That is the hospital we are talking about—old, not very nice, dirty—and it does not look as though the medical management of the hospital did anything to mitigate the risk arising from those problems.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One nurse suggested that an infection on the unit could be to blame. Letby agreed, describing sewage coming from the sink and overflowing toilets. She added: “The unit needs properly assessing, I don’t think the equipment gets cleaned properly…we haven’t got the space, facilities…to maintain hygiene.” Those messages predate any criminal investigation, and the hospital’s plumber confirmed under oath that human waste was backing up into handwashing basins. On top of the other microbiological concerns, human waste contains E. coli—another hazard to vulnerable new-born babies. Professor David Livermore, a professor of medical microbiology, is right to say: “Infection was such an obvious cause of a spike in deaths.”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗