April 2026

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak to the new clause that is tabled in my name, which I do not intend to push to a vote. It would require the Lord Chancellor to conduct and lay before Parliament a review of the impact of clause 3 after 12 months, and again after no later than 36 months. At its heart, the new clause is both modest and reasonable. It does not seek to block the Government’s proposals outright, nor does it attempt to rewrite the substance of

I will be very brief, as I am not attempting to audition for a BAFTA, unlike some colleagues. Neither am I trying to attempt any factional point scoring, as some colleagues have done today. The Prime Minister himself said yesterday that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed as our ambassador to the US, so let me ask simply this: can the Chief Secretary tell the House how the Prime Minister has changed the way due diligence and security vetting will be conducted before appointments are

We welcome the Government’s announcement on cutting the link between wholesale gas and electricity prices, which will help to shield families across the UK from volatile fossil fuel prices. They are using the very measure that the Liberal Democrats proposed more than a year ago. It is now time to go further and faster to fix a broken energy market that results in households and businesses that are powered by solar and wind not having cheaper energy bills, and even having to pay on their energy b

Like many, I spent the weekend door-knocking in my constituency. People in Bicester and Woodstock are frustrated by delays to medical appointments, fed up with rising prices and fearful about the war in the middle east. Yet a number of them raised the Prime Minister’s handling of the Peter Mandelson saga. Their overwhelming emotions were disappointment that a Prime Minister who promised change has delivered so little, and anger that a Prime Minister who said he would be better than the Tories ha

This morning the Foreign Affairs Committee learned that officials in No. 10 put pressure on the FCDO to find a job as ambassador for Matthew Doyle, a close friend of a convicted sex offender. Does the Foreign Secretary see a pattern here? Does she find it incredible that No. 10 told FCDO officials not to tell her predecessor about this proposal? Will she commit to investigating and publishing all records held by the FCDO about this proposal from No. 10? Is she concerned that political decisions

My constituents have shared with me their concern that Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet is committing international war crimes in Gaza, the west bank and Lebanon, under the cover of the war that he launched with Donald Trump. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) has just said, the Government were right to finally recognise the state of Palestine, yet the actions of the Israeli Government on the west bank are explicitly intended to destroy the prospect of a two-state s

The conflict in the middle east has again highlighted just how vulnerable our off-grid rural households are to fossil fuel-driven energy shocks. Does the Chancellor agree with me that the warm homes plan is a major opportunity to upgrade rural housing and cut bills? Will she confirm what further steps the Government are taking to encourage the take-up of low carbon technology?

Following the Minister’s answer to Question 1 on illicit finances, we still do not have publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership in the overseas territories, nearly 10 years after this House passed the necessary legislation and made it clear that they must be set up. When will the Government put their foot down, say that there has been enough delay and obfuscation, and fully open up these registers to proper scrutiny now?

I beg to move, That this House has considered windfarm development on protected peatland. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I am glad to be introducing this incredibly important debate, which I have personally secured. It is particularly timely because, right now, Brontë country—a delicate mosaic of precious peatland and an historic heritage landscape, straddling Haworth and Stanbury in the Worth valley in my constituency across to Hebden Bridge in the Calder valley—is

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He makes an excellent point: the developers have failed to ascertain that the positives of the project outweigh its negative impacts, including the impact on the ability of the peatland to sequester and store carbon. That is before even considering all the negative impacts on highways, the impacts of the infrastructure that has to be developed and the impact on local communities. The renewable energy scheme will be incredibly detrimental; the peatland will hol

The right hon. Member makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right, because the decommissioning costs are not necessarily built into what the impact will be on our environment, our protected peat or our wildlife. I know that because the developers themselves say that once the site finishes its usage, parts of the development will not be removed—such as the piles, the infrastructure for the road, the foundations—but simply remain in situ. Worse than that, however, should an additional wind fa

Perfect intervention there, but we have had an intervention from only one of the five neighbouring Labour Members of Parliament I invited to this debate, of which only two turned up. I wrote to all those Members of Parliament—crikey, it must have been about seven months ago—inviting them to join me in a cross-party consensus so that we could join forces in opposing this scheme. Despite the hon. Member for Shipley’s intervention, I am yet to hear that she is opposed to this scheme. I invite her,

Sir Alec, not only did I inform them today to remind them to come to this debate, I wrote to them last week inviting them to come to this debate and I wrote to them maybe six months ago asking them to join me. They are well aware that this debate is taking place. It is very disappointing that they did not turn up to stand up and speak on behalf of their constituents. Renewable energy could be an essential part of our future, but not like this—not here, and not at the cost of everything the Bront

The hon. Member seems to be dancing around the edges. This debate is on the matter of “windfarm development on protected peatland” but she has not mentioned anything to do with wind farms yet. I am keen to understand whether she is for or against the Calderdale wind farm.

I know that on 30 March the hon. Member wrote to the Secretary of State asking for clarity on the guidance associated with the national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure, EN-3, and its relationship with peatlands. I hear him speak about the importance of protecting peat, but I am less certain about what his position is on the Calderdale wind farm. Is he for or against the development of the Calderdale wind farm in his constituency?

The right hon. Member is making an excellent speech. Another key challenge in building the turbines is the infrastructure, because a huge amount of aggregate to facilitate the piling of the foundations and road infrastructure must be brought in from elsewhere, which could be a long distance away. That is exactly the challenge we are finding at the Calderdale wind farm, where aggregate will have to be brought from miles away—nowhere near the actual proposal. Does the right hon. Member agree that

The very point the Minister is making is the reason why the application for the Calderdale wind farm has come before us: because this Labour Government removed the onshore wind moratorium put in place by the last Conservative Administration. Given the concerns that I raised about the protected nature of that peatland and the impact on the precious peat, and all the concerns raised by Opposition Members, what is the Government’s position when there is an application that is on protected peat?

I recognise that, but I have written to the Secretary of State urging the Government to extend the consultation period that is in place right now—it ends on 10 June. Given that the developer put this consultation in place in the middle of local elections, the two key councils, Bradford and Calderdale, cannot comment formally until after those elections, and it is also likely that there will be a change in leadership in those councils. Will the Secretary of State, via the Minister, consider at le

The reason for calling this debate is that we are dealing with a real and live challenge, particularly in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies. The debate has been very worthwhile, but I have major concerns. There was a moratorium in place under the previous Conservative Administration, which has been removed by this Labour Government, enabling these sorts of developments—wind farms on protected peatland—to take place. Yet all the Labour Government can offer is guidance, which simply

This morning, Sir Olly Robbins appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee. What I saw was a dedicated public servant who, over 25 years, has held some of the most senior roles in the civil service. The Prime Minister would like us to believe that he was let down by officials such as Sir Olly, but in truth it was the officials who were let down by the Prime Minister. They were let down by a Prime Minister who decided to appoint to the highest diplomatic post in the Foreign Office a person who