YouSaid · the spoken record
Dawn Butler
Lines from Political Thinking with Nick Robinson have been withdrawn from this page while we check who is speaking. See the correction.
On the record 2005–2026
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This is everything the corpus holds for Dawn Butler. It is not everything they have said on the record.
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“Maya Angelou said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” The Home Secretary has showed us who she is time and again. Just 9% of stop and searches yield offensive weapons or items linked to burglary. No other organisation would ramp up something that yielded a result of only 9%. Scotland was the knife capital of the UK. It reduced its knife crime by 69% by using a public health approach. Why is the Home Secretary not using a public health approach?”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Johnson knew he was lying. We all knew he was lying, and he knew we knew he was lying, but the system protected him. We have got to change the system, so that the system does not protect the liar or the lies, but protects Parliament and our democracy.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is ironic that two years ago I was thrown out of Parliament for calling Johnson a liar, when if he was not such a weasel and had not resigned, he would have been thrown out of this place for 90 days for lying. Okay, yeah, it would have made me a little bit happy to see him thrown out of the House, but ultimately, it is not about that; it is about our system in this place, and we have to do better. It was not easy breaking the conventions of the House. I got a lot of abuse from some Members on the Government Benches, saying, “How dare she? Bleurgh bleurgh bleurgh.” [Laughter.] That was a Jacob Rees-Mogg impression. I talk about the aftermath of what that was like in my book, “A Purposeful Life”. Sometimes I wonder what the purpose of Parliament is if we cannot hold Ministers to account and if we are just going to allow them to lie.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We must be honest with ourselves and say, “We have got to challenge the rules of this House if they are not working.” We have to challenge the system of this House if it is not working. It is a nonsense that in this House we cannot call somebody a liar if they are lying. People say, “It will degrade the House and everyone will be calling each other a liar.” If people do not want to be called a liar, do not lie—tell the truth. That is the solution to the problem. The truth must prevail and integrity must be restored. All Members of this House are guardians of our democracy, and I am sorry, but we are not doing a good job; we must do much better, and this report does bring some of that back to us.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We sit here time and time again and see Ministers coming to the Dispatch Box. We all stand up and say, “That is not true, that is not true”, and we are told that we are not allowed to say that. We have to say, “They have inadvertently misled the House and they will have to come back to the House to correct the record”, but they never come back. They tell a lie, they sit down with a goofy grin on their face, they walk out and they never come back to correct the record, and that is a problem for our democracy. This House must be able to speak truth to power. Honourable Members of this House must be able to stand up and say, “That is incorrect”, otherwise what is the point or the purpose? We must also not be so obsessed with the archaic rules of this House.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The way we do that is by demanding transparency, honesty and integrity from those who hold positions of power and those who stand at the Dispatch Box. The Leader of the House gave an impassioned speech saying just that. We must not tolerate the casual disregard for truth that has become the hallmark of this Government. It should shame us all. We are honourable Members of Parliament. It is not just a title, but something we should hold dear. We should be honourable in what we do in this place. We should be honourable to the people we serve, because they have elected us. Democracy demands honourable conduct, and we have not seen much of that over the past few years. If we allow lies to go unchecked and deceit to become the norm, our democracy begins to crumble, and that is what has been happening.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Privileges Committee and its Chair, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who has had to sit through some of the strangest speeches I have heard in this House. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for mentioning Mina Smallman, who is an amazing woman who continues to fight to keep the memory of her daughters alive and to change the system, whether that be the police or other systems. This debate is all about democracy. The trust that should exist between the Government and those who are governed has been badly damaged. The question to every single Member of this House must be: how do we repair that damage?”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have re-tabled my early-day motion on that, which I first tabled in 2021, when it got 105 signatures. I hope more Members will sign that re-tabled early-day motion about how we talk about the ministerial code of conduct. To end, the parliamentary record shows that I was asked to withdraw from Parliament for calling Johnson a liar. I will be writing to the House asking whether that can be expunged, or whether some kind of amendment or addendum can go beside it to say that it was actually correct and he was a liar. I will do that, and I put that on record. I will end on Winston Churchill, who I understand is Boris Johnson’s favourite politician and who said: “There can be no democracy without truth.””
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), is no longer in her place, but she said that as a Prime Minister it was difficult to make decisions about friends. I understand that, because a Prime Minister might make a decision about somebody, then find themselves standing with them in the queue in the Tea Room and feeling bad about it. I completely understand where the former Prime Minister was coming from. The solution should be that we take that responsibility away from the Prime Minister and make it the responsibility of the House to decide when somebody breaks the ministerial code, because we cannot have, as we did, the Prime Minister deciding who is lying and who is not lying, when he was the chief liar himself. That responsibility should become the House’s responsibility.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some people’s privilege extends beyond this House. When they lie in this House, they also have the privilege of their mates in the newspapers and the media then protecting that lie and that privilege. They put that coat of protection around them. Our democracy needs to be strong enough to stop that happening and to expose it. As we get ever closer to a general election, Ministers will try to whip up moral panic and begin to spread further lies. They will push this fake culture war, some of which we have seen on display today. We cannot wait two years for a Privileges Committee to find them guilty of lying or misleading the House, because that would be too late. The question has to be: what do we do, where do we go and who will stand up for democracy and truth? The former Prime Minister, the right hon.”
House of Commons19 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with the hon. Member that we have had firm foundations in the UK. I think that we were ranked as No. 3 in the list of LGBTQI+ friendly countries, but we have fallen down that list quite considerably. Can she think of any possible reason why that might be?”
House of Commons15 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Yesterday, I hosted the Albert Kennedy Trust in Parliament. The trust recalled the tragic circumstance that 80% of people referred to it have been sleeping homeless and been kicked out since the Government started their culture war. Does he agree that things need to get better?”
House of Commons15 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is deeply concerning to see the blatant could-be politicisation of policies and organisations intended to ensure the fairness and security of our democratic process. A recent report by Omnisis for Byline Times indicated that the new rules may have deterred up to 2 million people from voting in the May elections. The justification for the policy was to combat voter fraud. It seems to me that there is a real possibility that the only fraud could be this Government. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether I should report the matter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the police?”
House of Commons16 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am deeply troubled by the recent admissions by the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), regarding the introduction of mandatory voter ID, which have raised the prospect that Ministers may have misled the country about the intentions of the voter ID policy in the Elections Act 2022. Yesterday, the former Minister admitted that the proposal was a deliberate attempt to manipulate electoral outcomes in favour of the Conservative party, a strategy he termed gerrymandering —in other words, the deliberate bending of electoral rules or boundaries for partisan gain—although he said that it had backfired in the recent local elections.”
House of Commons16 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, I have notified him; I informed him I was raising the issue based on comments that he made yesterday at the National Conservatism conference.”
House of Commons16 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) asked the Prime Minister to correct the record as he misled the House last week— [ Interruption. ]”
House of Commons3 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Okay, he inadvertently or unintentionally misled the House last week. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has inadvertently misled the House this week when he claimed that the former Tory Prime Minister built more houses than the current Labour Mayor. Official statistics are not open to interpretation. Last year, the number of new homes in London was up 22% compared with the Tory Mayor’s final year. More than 23,000 new City Hall-funded council homes have been started since 2018, with more than 10,000 in the last year alone. Latest figures show that London started more than double the number of council homes last year than the whole of the rest of England, and Sadiq, the Labour Mayor of London, has delivered more than 10 times the number of the previous Tory Mayor— [ Interruption. ]”
House of Commons3 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why is the Home Secretary not taking any responsibility in her role in the Met? If she does not want the responsibility, for goodness’ sake, will she just stand down?”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am struggling to establish the point of the Home Secretary when it comes to the Met. With this hands-off approach, it is as though nothing is the her responsibility. When the Mayor of London got rid of the last commissioner, the Home Secretary continually attacked the Mayor of London’s correct decision. We have heard about all the other reports, including the 1981 Scarman report on the Brixton riots, the 1999 Stephen Lawrence report, the 2021 IOPC report on Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, and the 2021 report on Daniel Morgan, which found that the police were institutionally corrupt. The IOPC report on the Stephen Port murders found that the police were homophobic, and some of them are still working in Barking. Operation Hotton made 15 recommendations; those recommendations have still not been implemented in the Met.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Chancellor work closely with London Councils and with me as chair of the London parliamentary Labour party to ensure that we broaden the balance of revenue-raising powers available to councils in the longer term, to improve financial resilience and reduce reliance on any single funding stream? Some Government Members have said today that they are sometimes confused about what we on the Opposition side of the House stand for: I want to reassure them by reaffirming that the Labour party and London Labour members stand for a moral crusade for making our country better. I do hope the Government will take some of my points on board.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is there money, too, to provide additional investment for the refurbishment of existing housing stock to treat damp and mould and address fire and building safety issues? Last time Labour came into government it had to put a lot of money into making social housing right. It is especially important in London to remove all restrictions on how councils can use right to buy receipts, to sustain affordable housing delivery without placing additional demands on the public purse. These are all things that could be done if we had a bit of imagination from the Government. London’s devolution settlement is over 20 years old. The Government’s commitment to deepen devolution should apply equally to London as elsewhere, to enable London boroughs and the Mayor of London to tackle the 21st-century problems facing the capital.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because of the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis, local authorities will have to make savings of at least £100 million next year to balance their budgets. That is not sustainable for local authorities such as mine in Brent. We have a homelessness problem, too. Shelter recently reported that 1 in 58 Londoners are homeless. Will the Chancellor increase the local housing allowance rates, which have been frozen since 2020, to help tackle homelessness, and also increase discretionary housing payment allocations? These are all steps the Chancellor could have taken if he was really interested in investing in growth in our country, because local authorities can only do so much.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“London’s businesses are struggling in the face of increasing labour and energy costs and sustained high inflation. Will the Chancellor commit to keeping the energy bill relief scheme under review and materially improving the discount for businesses, and will he reform the apprenticeship levy to make it easier and cheaper for employers to recruit and retain talent? As we have heard, many employers are buying equipment rather than investing in people. As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, we should reintroduce the VAT retail export scheme too, to make London and other UK destinations more competitive for overseas shoppers. That would add a net gain to the public purse.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know the devil will be in the detail, but the pension announcement, as far as I can make out, is for the wealthy—those who can afford to put away £60,000 a year. It also seems like the only permanent tax cut in the Budget is for those who are very wealthy. The Chancellor could have stopped all the strikes if he had only made an announcement on public sector workers’ pay today, but he chose not to do that. As we have heard from other Opposition Members, there was also nothing on capital gains tax or income tax. That is very strange. The UK economy cannot be improved without London’s contribution. London Councils has five key priorities: housing and homelessness; health and care; supporting businesses; helping London deliver net zero; and greater devolution to local government.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), and I actually agree with something that she said about VAT. While I am in a positive mood, I thank the Chancellor for his announcement on prepayment meters, because I have been championing that campaign for the past seven years. I feel like there is a lot missed in this Budget. At the moment we are facing a profit crisis, while many people are struggling. The Office for Budget Responsibility has stated that real household income is due to fall by 5.7% in the next two years, which is the largest two-year fall since records began. It will be lower than pre-pandemic levels. The Chancellor has missed a huge trick here.”
House of Commons15 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I was a teenager, I used to question why there are so many ways to tell the relationship status of a woman—Mrs, Miss, Ms—but there is just a Mr. I am still wondering that as a grown woman. Articles always include the age of the woman after her name, but only sometimes the age of the man. Why is that? Our laws and language are designed to keep women vulnerable and exposed in a particular way.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out those names today and that list never gets shorter. This is an epidemic.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Emma Pattison was killed, along with her young daughter, by her violent husband and this was reported with the headline, “Did living in the shadow of his high achieving wife lead to unthinkable tragedy?” Another headline read, “Husband of Epsom College head who ‘killed her and their daughter before turning his gun on himself’ said he was ‘desperate to do more with his days’ after his business failed”. Why on earth would we accept our media reporting the murder of a woman and a young child in that way in our country? It is unacceptable and in this House we should be able to legislate against that, which is why we need a new, enforceable editors code. It is not an isolated incident when a woman is killed every three days by a man. My hon.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is extremely damaging because it reinforces negative framing around the victims, and what is seen as acceptable or “deserving” behaviour of the woman—as it often is—who is killed. Thus, “sexism”, “misogyny”, “extremism” or “terrorism” are never words used when describing violent men. Why not? We have an epidemic in our country of domestic violence, domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. Level Up introduced the UK’s first guidelines on this and the BBC, The Mirror , The Guardian and the Metro have all taken that on board, but more needs to be done. The recent coverage of Nicola Bulley, Emma Pattison and Brianna Ghey shows us that the media reporting of women who are violently abused or killed is out of control.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She is doing her very best to change how the judicial system works, but she is just one woman, powerful as she is. Today, I am campaigning for and championing the work of Level Up, and calling for a clause in the Independent Press Standards Organisation editors’ code on reporting fatal domestic abuse. The code needs to be one that journalists are legally bound to, not a voluntary code, and I will tell the House why. The way in which the press report domestic abuse is often inaccurate and undignified, and prioritises sensationalist headlines over responsible reporting. There is often negative framing of victims, and when this goes viral it is amplified over and over again.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have campaigned on domestic abuse policy, and trying to allow 10 days’ paid leave for people, particularly women, when they leave abusive relationships. In those 10 days, it could save a life because that is when they are most vulnerable. You are not safe when you leave an abusive relationship; you become more vulnerable. I have campaigned for changes in the use of language by the Met police, for instance, when they deliver briefings and press releases about missing and murdered women. I have also campaigned for changes in the judiciary, which is filled with many—please do not take offence at this, Mr Deputy Speaker—old white men with outdated views. I need to recognise the work of Judge Anuja Dhir KC, the first person of colour to become an Old Bailey judge.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. We talk about equality and equity not only in actions, but in language. It all needs to be looked at, because certain systems and structures are designed in a certain way. As I said, it is to keep women exposed and vulnerable. For example, for sex workers, working alone is okay, but working in pairs is illegal. How on earth does that keep women safe? Just this week, during the debate on buffer zones around abortion clinics, many men were telling women how they should think, what they should do and who they should listen to about their bodies. Our structures are riddled with misogyny, racism and so much else, and it is time that we change how women are written about. I have campaigned for many things in this House.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, let me correct the hon. Lady: this is not becoming an epidemic; it is an epidemic. It is an epidemic when a woman is killed every three days by a man, and we need to start—”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These headlines are shocking. There will be people listening to this debate who will say, “Well, Dawn can’t be telling the truth; she must be lying.” I am not lying. Those are actual headlines. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) talked about culture and language, and I must say that this fake culture war going on at the moment is extremely damaging to women and to other minoritised groups in our society. People say, “Why can’t I say what I want to say? Why can’t I do what I want to do?” This sort of language is having a damaging effect, and it is why we will not make progress.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I need to finish my point. We need to start referring to it as such. Yes, some good work is being done and there is good practice, such as some police forces having independent domestic violence advisers, but it is still not working because a woman is still killed every three days. So yes, we can acknowledge the good work, but I am not here today to do that; I am here today to push for changes in legislation so that we can save lives. Women and girls who are victims of abuse are never responsible for the abuse, and we need to start at that point. It is the perpetrator who is responsible, and media reporting must reflect that. Let me read out a few more headlines: “Husband jailed after he snapped and smothered nagging wife to death”, “Henpecked husband killed wife”, “Wife jibes about penis size drove hubby to murder”.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is really damaging. I want to end with two well-known sayings: “A world that does not love, respect and protect its Women is doomed to perish! Because Women are Mother Earth!” G.D Anderson said: “Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong, it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength”.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Wayne Couzens and another police officer had a joke when they saw a young drunk woman on the train. The officer was asked: “Did you finger her to see if she was ok?” The officer responded: “I considered it. But she was a right old lump. So I just raped a bystander instead.” There is more of that on the police WhatsApp groups. It is absolutely appalling and disgusting. It is time for us to legislate, and to recognise that words have consequences. Domestic terrorist groups in our country are on the rise. We have seen the growth of incels. We have nearly 3,000 incels in our country and they are very much underground, which is concerning. Teachers have been asked in the classroom, “Miss, have you ever been raped?” That is the kind of language that I have been talking about. The incels talk about how they can watch women being murdered.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an uncomfortable truth, but it is a truth that must be aired. When our police forces, jurors and judges are drawn from a society that allows outdated and damaging portrayals of domestic violence, the damage is clear: there is still one woman killed every three days by a man. It is time for us to make this long-overdue change if we are to reduce the number of women killed every year. I recognise that some work has been done, and that some work is being done with the Met police, but it is not enough. I wondered whether I should read out these WhatsApp messages to the House, and I have decided that I am going to read out a couple. This is a police discussion on domestic violence. The police said that the women who suffer from domestic violence have one thing in common: they are women who do not listen.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my honourable friend. When a woman has been killed or murdered, the media will try to find a picture of her in a nightclub, or holding a drink, or with her hair down, or wearing a short skirt or dress, as if that was the reason she was killed or murdered. The misogyny that exists in our structures must be rooted out. I do not just talk about these things. I have worked hard on the House of Commons complaints procedure to change how this place works and operates. I am also working with the police. Wayne Couzens and the messages from the WhatsApp group prove exactly what black people have been saying for a really long time: structures built for the promotion of a certain type of white man are riddled with racism, misogyny, homophobia and everything else that tries to belittle others.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. On the subject of women, the NHS and medical interventions, does she agree that structures such as body mass index, which was created to identify the average body of a man, does not relate to women? We have to look at all the systematic, structural misogyny that exists in our systems.”
House of Commons9 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making an extremely powerful speech. We often hear the argument, “Let’s forget what happened.” Reparations are about making amends for centuries of violence and discrimination against those countries. It is interesting that people say, “Let’s forget what happened,” when those countries are still in debt, their jewels and artefacts are in museums in this country and we refuse to give them back. A lot of reparation is needed, whether it be economic reparations or an acknowledgement of what happened. Does my hon. Friend agree that any arguments against that are not only a betrayal, but collusion in what happened many centuries ago?”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making such a powerful speech. Does he agree that development aid is often given to developing countries through a middleman, and not directly to the countries, or to small businesses in those countries that do valuable work? It is often difficult to find out who the middlemen are, but we know how they worked during covid.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is explaining powerfully that justice delayed is justice denied. We have members of the Cammell Laird 37 with us today in the Public Gallery. Is it not important for anyone watching or listening today that we have justice? It is about time. All the documents should be made public as soon as possible.”
House of Commons7 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I just want some clarification. Is the Minister saying categorically that there are no documents in any Department relating to Cammell Laird that are not in the public domain?”
House of Commons7 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirdly, the cost has been significantly reduced due to smart meters, so the energy companies cannot use that as an excuse, but the scandal of smart meters is that energy companies can switch people remotely. Will the Government ensure that that can no longer happen and is outlawed?”
House of Commons6 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It should not take a journalist going undercover for the Minister to finally decide to wake up. I have been campaigning on prepayment meters since 2015, and the Government are still relying on energy companies to do the right thing. They are not going to do the right thing, so the Government need to force them. We have seen how quickly the Government can put legislation through. Can I ask the Minister to confirm three things? First, in addition to providing compensation, will he remove prepayment meters from vulnerable households? Secondly, will he make prepayment meters cheaper per unit of energy? That is when the energy companies will start changing how they act.”
House of Commons6 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On Wednesday the Prime Minister stated that there were no outstanding issues. By the weekend, he had ordered an independent internal investigation. Can the Minister ensure that all the information that escalated this from “nothing to see” to an investigation of this kind is placed in the Library of the House?”
House of Commons23 January 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We must thank Dean Kirby from the i newspaper for his campaign—he called me because of my 2016 campaign on prepayment meters, and I also informed him of my experience as a magistrate. I am disappointed that it has taken so long to ensure that people on prepayment meters do not pay the extra tariff. An elderly constituent of mine who had had a stroke had no gas in their home. The unintended consequence of smart meters is that they can be switched remotely, and the Minister cannot rely on energy suppliers to do the right thing. Can he please take emergency action, and will he please realise that winter deaths have increased by 20% this winter?”
House of Commons23 January 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q7. When I had breast cancer, I had phenomenal nurses. When I had to be rushed to A&E, the ambulance crew looked after me. Unison and GMB are on strike because nobody is negotiating with them. For the first time in the history of the Royal College of Nursing, its members are on strike today after being balloted. I have spoken to the general secretary of the RCN, and she is adamant that she wants to end the disputes; she just needs a meeting with the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister show leadership and meet the RCN? It is a simple yes or no.”
House of Commons18 January 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The new commissioner, Mark Rowley, has said that he needs more support in being able to sack officers, not another review or report. He needs things to change. As chair of the London parliamentary Labour party, I wonder whether the Secretary of State is willing to listen to voices from the London PLP and work with us, as well as the Met Commissioner, to change the law on this issue.”
House of Commons17 January 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗