Speeches by Hayes.

“I am again grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It seems to me that there is a mood across the House tonight that more must be done. This Minister, as an experienced Member of the House, will have gathered that that mood could easily, from this small beginning, become a crescendo that might endanger the very safety of his o…”

“The Minister is absolutely right, of course. Contract law is well established and business contracts are enforceable in the way that he sets out, but the problem with franchising is that it is a hierarchical relationship that creates a kind of dependency. The franchisee is dependent on the larger business, so there is …”

“I will give way once more and then will make a little more progress.”

“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in these matters, and that is precisely why I posed the earlier question to the Minister about how closely he and others had looked at that merger. I will say no more about it than that, but it does seem to me to be a legitimate question to ask: were tho…”

“I think my right hon. Friend is referring to the £500 he still owes me from the days when I used to work for him. The point is that nowadays the connection between customers and suppliers has become at best detached and at worst remote. As I say, now you would have a conversation with some remotely situated person who …”

“The Secretary of State was right: welfare reform is tough, and Governments tend to duck the issue, with notable exceptions such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). However, if a Government are going to change welfare radically, they should surely review the optio…”

“My hon. Friend is right that this is a problem felt across Britain, as banks abandon their customers and close branches in my constituency in Crowland, the Deepings, Holbeach, Long Sutton and Sutton Bridge. The key thing about this issue is that it affects those least able to bank online; it also affects all of us who …”

“It was in that guise that my hon. Friend came to see me on the subject when I was a Cabinet Office Minister. We had some success in that venture, as he will recall, and subsequently, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), we had further success. We worked together to ensure that fl…”

“The hon. Lady is making a powerful point and she is right about the number. The Payment Choice Alliance, to which I have already referred, estimates that if every community with a population of 5,000 or more were provided with a banking hub, there would be about 1,200 of them. Ministers want solutions, not just questio…”

“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On Monday, the High Court ordered a £60,000 cap on contribution to the Government’s legal fees by campaigners seeking justice for the change in the pension age—the so-called WASPI women. This is a major breakthrough for that campaign, which has had support from across the House, includi…”

“The Foreign Secretary is an old friend and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), is a Lincolnshire neighbour whom, in all his innocence, I regard with a degree of paternal care, so I ask this question more in sorrow than in anger. The …”

“9. What changes were made to the draft agreement to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos islands to Mauritius between October 2024 and May 2025.”

“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I have known her since she first came to the House, and she knows that she has my respect and regard. Swimming is critical. It is true that people who can swim still get into trouble, but if someone cannot swim at all, they are at much greater risk. Will she work with colle…”

“I am trying to reconcile the two things that the hon. Lady has said. She talked about the significance of the 1967 Act. When Lord Steel—David Steel as he was then—spoke on its Second Reading, he said that it was not his aim “to leave a wide open door for abortion on request”,—[Official Report, 22 July 1966; Vol. 732, c…”

“I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that I, too, will be supporting her amendment. There has been a lot of talk in this place in recent weeks about coercion—in a different Bill and in a different context. The kind of coercion that she describes is a reality. It is all fine and well to have a fanciful middle-class vie…”

“There is a calumny at the heart of this, which is that these new clauses are compatible with the ’67 Act. When breaching an Act of this Parliament ceases to be unlawful, it loses its force and therefore its purpose, and that calumny cannot be allowed to stand on the record.”

“Will the hon. Lady give way?”

“I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I entirely support his argument and his amendment. This is the difference between, in his estimation, accepting a request and promoting a service. Advertising is about the promotion of a service to doubtful, fearful and vulnerable people, and that is precisely what his amend…”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“The reason why what my hon. Friend has said is so important is that it is yet another important safeguard, particularly given that, as we learn from analysis in the impact assessment, much of this is outsourced to private organisations. Those organisations need to be regulated in precisely the way he has described.”