March 2026

The Victims and Courts Bill is part of the Government’s wider reforms of our justice system that will, in the round, better protect victims and improve their access to justice, as well as that of defendants. I really welcome its measures to improve communications with victims, to reform non-disclosure agreements, to ensure that defendants appear at sentencing hearings and to restrict the parental rights of child sex offenders. Today, I will focus my remarks on Lords amendments 4 and 7, which are

Q10. The Government have shown that they take seriously justice and violence against women and girls. In my constituency, I have been made aware of a case in which two children of a convicted paedophile have been trying to change their surname but cannot, because both parents have to agree. They are caught in a trap not of their making. Will my right hon. and learned Friend, and/or the relevant Minister, agree to meet me to hear how the legal system is denying justice to those children, and to d

Parliamentary appearance by Gill German

Parliamentary appearance by Ashley Dalton

Parliamentary appearance by Markus Campbell-Savours

Parliamentary appearance by Dr Simon Opher

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and I wholeheartedly support her campaign for her constituents, given the appalling situation they find themselves in. Does she agree that issues are often also at street level where, sadly, a tiny minority of residents drop off mattresses, old furniture and bags of rubbish, leaving them at the end of the street, causing a local stink and an eyesore? In my area, that is being tackled by the local authority, but we would like more resources. It is impo

The Minister gives the fact that she needs to consult as a reason for turning down the Lords amendments. Is the usual approach not to consult before bringing the legislation, not to bring the legislation then consult afterwards?

It would be easy for anyone watching the proceedings, with not many Members in the Chamber to discuss these Lords amendments, to think this is about some technical issue or minor point of debate, but the votes today really do matter. They matter to victims, who are currently charged often thousands of pounds for the transcripts of the court hearings in which they were involved. They matter for the transparency and openness of our legal system. They also matter to the public, because on this very

The point I was highlighting was the inherent contradictions in the Minister’s remarks. Even now, in her summing up, she has said that the Government are going to go further in 2027, but in her opening remarks she said that they cannot go further because there are technical impediments. The point is that there are inherent contradictions in the Government’s narrative.

That’s patronising.

Parliamentary appearance by Sarah Champion

Parliamentary appearance by Tonia Antoniazzi

I thank the Secretary of State for his prompt action in banning cryptoasset donations and capping foreign donations. The Rycroft review also recommends that foreign-funded adverts be banned and that all online adverts should have imprints to show who has paid for them. Will the Secretary of State explain when and how the Government will take those recommendations forward?

On 10 April we will celebrate the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, which nearly 30 years ago brought an end to the troubles and enabled Northern Ireland to establish a power-sharing Government. In the years since, Northern Ireland has been transformed, and I look forward to working with everyone to make further progress.

I do agree with my hon. Friend, and I do not understand why some are advocating removing the ECHR from the Good Friday agreement. It would be highly irresponsible, and it shows a complete lack of understanding about what the agreement involved. You cannot just walk in and pull out one of its pillars for the sake of party ideology.

I agree with my hon. Friend. The biggest lesson of the Good Friday agreement is that it takes immense political courage to say yes, rather than to go on saying no. To pick up her point, at the end of last year the Foreign Secretary convened the western Balkans countries under the Berlin process at Hillsborough castle, where the First and Deputy First Ministers talked through how Northern Ireland has made this extraordinary progress. That is one example of how the lessons of that agreement are be

The provisions relating to a border poll are clearly set out in the Good Friday agreement. There is one criterion that governs such a decision, and at the moment there is no evidence that there is a majority for a constitutional change in Northern Ireland. I commit to the House, as I have done before, that I will uphold in letter and in spirit that bit of the Good Friday agreement.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that economic growth is the answer to many of the questions that the Executive and the Assembly are facing. Northern Ireland, with its dual market access, along with its innovation and ingenuity, has an extraordinary opportunity. Being in government requires taking difficult decisions with the money one has got. We are giving a record settlement to the Executive; they have to decide how to spend it most effectively.

I do not accept the hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument in relation to the Good Friday agreement. When it comes to the Windsor framework, those who advocated to leave the European Union did not think about the consequences for having two entities and one open border and how we could ensure that goods crossing the border would meet the rules of the respective entity—that is what the Windsor framework seeks to do. The Government are negotiating a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU,