Speeches by Ward.

“I will give way one more time to the former Attorney General, and then I will move on.”

“Obviously anyone who made any allegation or report such as that would be treated seriously. I will take that up with Foreign Office Ministers and come back to the hon. Lady, because she raises an incredibly serious point.”

“I will give way once more, and then I will come to the motion.”

“I entirely agree. I could not have put it anywhere near as well as that—and, as I said earlier, my hon. Friend made an incredibly powerful speech earlier. She quoted Virginia Giuffre at length, which was an extraordinarily powerful way in which to make the point, and she made it better than anyone, because it is the vi…”

“I will give way to my hon. Friend. [Interruption.] She is the first Member behind me to whom I have given way.”

“I am going to make some progress, and deal with the motion.”

“Before Mandelson was appointed, there were obviously reports linking him with Epstein. That was looked into as part of the vetting process. Mandelson lied to the Prime Minister and hid information. When new information came out, the Prime Minister removed him. This information will come out.”

“As the Prime Minister made clear, he was lied to repeatedly by Peter Mandelson on this. Information about that is in the vetting report, which will be published for the House.”

“I am going to make some progress. I will give way later, but a number of questions have been raised about vetting, and I want to respond to them. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), outlined the process; I want to clarify that,…”

“As the Prime Minister has said, he was lied to repeatedly by Mandelson. I will come to the vetting process in a minute, but the due diligence is within scope of this Humble Address. It will be released. The House will be able to see the process for itself. Alongside further steps that the Prime Minister has taken in th…”

“The hon. Lady tempts me into hypotheticals that I am not going to get into. [Interruption.]”

“I will give way, just let me complete this point. On Monday, the Prime Minister instructed the Cabinet Secretary to investigate all papers released by the US Department of Justice. The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister also made a statement to this House. On Tuesday, the Cabinet Secretary decided to refer certain m…”

“I beg to move a manuscript amendment, to add to the end of amendment (a): “which shall instead be referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.” I start by thanking everyone who has contributed to the debate—the tone was overwhelmingly constructive, serious, and aimed at getting to the truth. I wan…”

“I know that this issue is affecting a lot of constituents who are former civil servants. I have had a lot of letters on it; I am sure everyone else has as well. The Minister for the Cabinet Office met PCS about the issue recently. He has also, I believe, met the chief executive of Capita. We are committed to holding Ca…”

“I absolutely do. As I have said previously, Britain should become Britain’s biggest customer. We have a procurement budget of £400 billion a year. In my opinion, we do not use that well enough to support British companies, but I am working with the Chancellor and colleagues across the Government to make sure that we do…”

“My hon. Friend raises a really important issue that affects her constituency. As I said earlier, we need to do more to support great British businesses like Alexander Dennis. In the consultation, we are looking at reforming social value. I think it needs to go further; there should be meaningful social value that reall…”

“As half of my constituency is in East Sussex, I am always happy to support East Sussex county council. I think we are slightly off beam with the broad thrust of the topic, but I get the hon. Member’s point about the frustration that constituents, including mine, have with overrunning works. We will follow up with him i…”

“I agree that social enterprises are the backbone of many communities. I pay tribute to the ones my hon. Friend mentions, and there are some in my constituency as well. I agree that we need to do more to open up procurement and to support social enterprises, as well as SMEs and the voluntary sector more widely. We publi…”

“The Government are putting power, opportunity and resources in the hands of local communities and local businesses. Just last week, the House approved measures to reserve around £1 billion of contracts a year for local businesses in the UK. That will make a big difference to businesses in my constituency and that of my…”

“My understanding is that that has been dealt with by way of a reply to a written question that we have already put in the public domain.”