May 2026

I posed this question to the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for the Armed Forces, when he was last at the Dispatch Box: where is the DIP stuck? He seemed to point the finger at the Treasury, but can I get an update on where the DIP is actually stuck?

I want to bring a bit of good news to the House. Last month, I had the honour of cutting the ribbon on a new banking hub on Oxford Street in Ripley. It is an important facility for my constituents, but it is actually the first of its kind. It did not go through the Link procedure; it was identified as a site by Cash Access UK. It is run by and staffed entirely by Cash Access UK, so a continuing team is involved there. Will the Minister recognise the great achievement of Cash Access UK in my town

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for securing this debate and choosing this topic. He is so right that there are older and vulnerable people who are not able to access banking services or to access cash because of high street bank closures. Does he share my view that the Government’s introduction of the Financial Services and Markets Bill today in the other place presents a great opportunity for them to consider how banking services and access to cash can be provided in rural

On the point about Ukraine, we learned today about the delay to a ban on jet fuel and diesel made from Russian crude oil and refined in places like India and Turkey. Does the Secretary of State accept that the British people do not want to contribute one more ruble to the Kremlin for use in its war machine against the Ukrainian people?

The Labour Government are the first in a decade to publish a digital inclusion action plan, to ensure that everybody benefits from our digital society. Seventy-three per cent of the £11.9 million digital inclusion innovation fund supported charities, many of them grassroots organisations. Through the digital ID work that I lead, we are supporting digital inclusion, and we are engaging expert grassroots organisations directly to ensure that we get this right, and that they are included.

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point; I know that he has an excellent record in this area. The digital inclusion fund was designed as a one-year programme to allow us to understand what works in digital inclusion. I share his concerns. We remain committed to building a digitally inclusive society, and that includes our public services, which we are making more personalised, joined up and digital, so that everybody is included and benefits from them. We all expect our public services

Parliamentary appearance by Suella Braverman

Meur ras, Madam Deputy Speaker. This King’s Speech makes it clear that defence readiness is changing. It will always be about the strength and professionalism of our armed forces personnel and their families, but it is also about energy security and digital capability—new challenges in a new era. The threats that we face are rapidly evolving. Hostile cyber-activity, damage to critical infrastructure, global instability and climate pressures increasingly affect our national security, our economy

I put on record my support and recognition of the bold and principled speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) earlier today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) for his support of the Government’s defence agenda. Does he share my deep disappointment that British manufacturing scale-up Aeralis has gone into administration? Aeralis was potentially about to create the UK’s replacement to the Red Arrows’ Hawk jet, and with i

Things feel insecure right now, whether that is because of the war in Iran, the cost of living pressures on families or the sense that systems are not working quite right. In Clwyd North, I hear that all the time. When families are struggling and young people do not feel that they have a fair chance, it erodes their trust in the belief that things can start getting better, and it creates a feeling of insecurity. Building up that trust starts with clearly defining what we have put in place in our

Order. Before the Minister responds, I can tell that the question is incredibly serious and the right hon. Gentleman needed to give detail, but we are very short on time and over 40 people wish to contribute, so interventions and responses must be short.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Order. I was not talking about anything. Please do not use the words “you” or “your”.

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

After the next speaker, we will go to a speaking limit of seven minutes.

I call my constituency neighbour, Mike Martin.

Q5. This month’s local elections saw the biggest ever gap between votes and seats in England, with five parties estimated to have won more than 15% of the vote. It is increasingly clear that the public have had enough of Westminster business as usual. Does the Prime Minister still have full confidence in the first-past-the-post system to deliver strong and stable government?

I do welcome the new sanctions. My concern is over the temporary use of licence agreements, which goes to a bigger issue for the country. We keep talking about the supply side of petroleum instead of the demand side. We need to have a frank and honest conversation with our constituents and the public, as our Australian colleagues did with the Prime Minister down under. Can I encourage the Minister to have honest conversations with the public about the cost of the conflict within the middle east,

Q8. At 19, I was in a coma after contracting bacterial meningitis. I lost 70% of my hearing and needed open-heart surgery. The menB vaccine has saved lives since its introduction in 2015 for infants, but there remains a gap for the high-risk adolescents who were not vaccinated under the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation guidance. Following the devastating outbreaks within this cohort in Reading, Canterbury and Weymouth, the JCVI is finally reviewing the evidence base. Can the Prime

Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that no party and no victims’ group in Northern Ireland supports the Conservative party’s approach to the past, and that even the Dillon judgment last week did not in any way rule it legal? Would he not agree that soldiers following the rule of law is a matter of recruitment, too? No soldier wants to be painted with the brush of not having followed the rule of law. Would he care to tell the House how many of the 300,000 soldiers who served under Operation Ban