Steve Barclay

Army Reserve

The hon. Member is right. I represent the rural constituency of North East Cambridgeshire, and I recognise the point that he raises; that plays into the issue of overall numbers and into the second point that I am coming on to, which is about the commitments for the existing numbers. Let me set out the crux of the issue. Media reports suggest that the MOD has been asked to make efficiency savings of £3.5 billion this year. My concern is that quite often, areas of the budget are locked down—they

Army Reserve

I know that the hon. Member has a long-standing commitment to the cadets and the military in general. The cadets is a recognised pipeline into the armed forces, and I am sure the Minister recognises its importance in giving people their first taste of military experience. Again, I think that is an area of agreement. The first point I want to land is that in the first two years of this Government, the number of reservists has fallen overall, if we take the quarterly statistics published in April

Army Reserve

That commitment is the most important point, but it can wait until after the hon. Member’s welcome intervention.

Army Reserve

I beg to move, That this House has considered the Army Reserve. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. It is also a pleasure to have the Minister in her place; she brings with her a distinguished service record and is recognised across the House as having a genuine commitment to our armed forces. I am sure that she, like me, recognises that the role of the Army Reserve has changed in recent years. When we debate this issue, we are not simply talking about training days with

Army Reserve

I say this very gently, because there is huge agreement on this, but I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the Public Accounts Committee, which has a majority of Labour members, says no movement is expected on that until the next decade—so not this Parliament. Does she agree on that, or does she think her colleagues are wrong?

Army Reserve

Could the Minister perhaps write to me?

Army Reserve

It is worth putting on the record that there are many good employers who recognise that. At the same time, we want to make it as easy as possible for those willing to be reservists to do so. I want to flag that and some of the consistency across Government. I will come on to some solutions. I talked about the context of the £3.5 billion efficiency savings this year—the money is next year, 2027—and the pressure of that. I remind Treasury colleagues that reserve pay and bounties is less than one q

Army Reserve

Again, there is a lot of agreement in the House about these points. With that in mind, I will suggest a couple of potential solutions—I always think it is better to come with solutions than with problems—and ask the Minister for an update. First, it would be great to have a clear signal to units about reserve service days. Secondly, the Minister will be familiar with the case of Major Milroy, which goes to the issue of fairness. The Government have lost twice in tribunal. There was a debate on t

Army Reserve

I completely agree. The Government say they are committed to tackling things such as the cost of living; everyone in the House is very worried about the growth in youth unemployment and other pressures, and we want society to come together in more integrated ways. The armed forces are a unifier within society, so the hon. Gentleman’s points are extremely pertinent. Let us look at this key point of reserve service days in the context of what has happened in the first two years of the Labour Gover

Security Vetting

In the readout of the Prime Minister’s meeting on 15 April on vetting, it states: “There is no evidence that the decision to grant DV despite the UKSV advice had been disclosed to anyone outside FCDO and UKSV” until the vetting document itself was shared with the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office. Is the Prime Minister therefore saying that neither the Chair of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security nor the National Security Adviser were aware of the security risk with our most

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

The Government’s own documentation contradicts what the Minister has just said. Sections 9.1 to 9.4 of the explanatory memorandum to the Government’s SI present the draft regulations as not requiring an impact assessment, and say that these are purely minor technical changes that will have no impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies. However, when we look on the Government’s own website, it is interesting that there seem to be no firms on the prohibitions list. The Minister will be fami

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

I am grateful that the Minister will write to me, but I simply point out to the House that this development was so notable that the Housing Minister raised it in opposition—he tabled parliamentary questions on this issue and flagged it in advance of the election. Two years on, it seems odd that Ministers do not know what has happened with it. In reference to the question asked by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, can the Minister name a single firm on the prohibitions list? If

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Hopefully we can get an update on that, Sir Edward.

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Of course, but I am sure that he, as a constituency MP, would diligently lobby his colleagues in the appropriate way to take action. I would also think that the Housing team as a whole would share his view that where a developer in the constituency that he represents has behaved in a way that has led to a £7.8 million fine, that might be within scope of the decisive action talked about in the Labour manifesto. What I find remarkable is that the Minister does not seem to know. She has come to the

Draft Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

I rise because I listened carefully to the Minister and there was an inherent contradiction in her opening remarks. The legislation was presented as minor, technical and not significant—in fact so insignificant that it has no impact assessment, as is referred to in paragraph 9 of the explanatory memorandum. Yet it states in paragraph 5.3 that the legislation deals with “developers who refuse to remediate life-critical fire safety defects”, so we are talking about a hugely significant issue, on w

Victims and Courts Bill

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?

Victims and Courts Bill

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

Victims and Courts Bill

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.

Victims and Courts Bill

That’s patronising.

Defence

Does my hon. Friend agree that one way to respond to a crisis and to deliver mass quickly would be to scale up the reserves during this Parliament? Does he find it surprising, as I do, that the relatively small cost—in a £60 billion budget—of scaling up the reserves would help to deliver some of that response?