Speeches by McDonnell.

“For the last few years, I have chaired a group of unpaid carers—the Minister has met them—who struggle to manage on carer’s allowance as it is. Under the Government’s proposals, 150,000 unpaid carers will lose the carer’s allowance. Already, 1.2 million carers live in poverty and 400,000 live in deep poverty. I fear th…”

“Following the right hon. Gentleman’s track record on issues like this—he has been proved right on virtually every occasion—I agree. In addition to the mass surveillance, the extent of the information that can be sought and interpreted from the Bill is extremely wide-ranging and open to challenge. What has annoyed me is…”

“Sometimes in these debates, we are trying to influence those on the Front Bench; to be honest, on this legislation, I have given up on that. I just want to get on the record, for my constituents, why I am concerned about this piece of legislation and why I support amendment 11. We have all prefaced our speeches by sayi…”

“The memorandum of understanding is significant, and the message to the Minister about the recognition of the state of Palestine is equally significant. Member after Member has raised the famine in Gaza and its implications. We are seeing pictures of children who, as a result of malnutrition, are not surviving the hospi…”

“I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group and have worked with Equity through the Performance Alliance and the Musicians’ Union for the last 25 years. I just want to get on the record the union perspective. As other Members have said, often in these debates the workers have been portra…”

“That is exactly right. One of the key issues raised by the hon. Member for Bury North is that lack of transparency, because people are not even aware that their stuff is being used until a later date, and then they are outraged. The role of Government is to ensure that they can enforce that the AI being developed is co…”

“I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a member of Unite, and I am very proud of that; I think four generations of my family have been members. Not to rise to the provocations of Conservative Members, but there is a difference between having three military advisers and having troops o…”

“Before the hon. Member moves on, and to save people from going to the website, can I mention Brunel University? I have been on the picket lines with UCU, and there are large numbers of job cuts being threatened. It is a successful university that is doing everything asked of it by Government to provide skills training …”

“I do not know how to follow that speech. I just want to thank the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon). I can understand how tough it was. I also put on record that we all agree that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) is a star, who has been working on this throughout, and so are Hope Virgo and Dr A…”

“I raised with the Minister the reform of disability benefits, which will have implications for sufferers and their carers. My understanding is that the universal credit health element is to be denied to those under the age of 22. In addition, it will be halved and then frozen, and the PIP criteria are changing. As I sa…”

“I think I still have the largest number of asylum seekers in hotels in the country, with more than 2,000, and I have experience of Clearsprings and Stay Belvedere. It would be really helpful if the new contractual arrangements involved full consultation with some of the organisations working at the frontline of support…”

“The Secretary of State is outlining the process by which essential infrastructure needs to be built, but she will forgive me for coming back to Heathrow expansion. I would be extremely grateful if she could set out for us—perhaps not today, but later or in writing—the exact process for considering the expansion of Heat…”

“Heathrow is in my constituency, as is the substation that caught fire, so I join other Members in thanking the firefighters who worked so hard to get this incident under control so quickly and at some risk. I also thank the police and the council officers who helped to evacuate 150 of my constituents from their homes. …”

“Mr Speaker, you know that there are decisions made in this House that stay with you for the rest of your life. This is one of them. We all agree with the Secretary of State’s objectives of trying to ensure that disabled people have the resources they need for a decent quality of life, and that those capable of work hav…”

“One of the lessons learned through the work that people have done on the ESN scandal is about the role of unconscious bias. We hear from parents, experts, teachers, educational psychologists and others that unconscious bias has the same cause as exclusions. One of the reasons why people are calling for an inquiry is to…”

“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I wish to deal with new clauses 8 and 9, which relate to recognition of the POA’s right to strike. I therefore also declare that I am an honorary life member of the POA. The word “honorary” means that there is no financial relatio…”

“I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Just to inflame matters more, I am the chair of the RMT parliamentary group as well. Next Monday is the third anniversary of the P&O scandal. Members might recall what happened: 800 members of staff—RMT members, largely—turned up for work and were…”

“I think that across the House it took a long while to recover from the anger at the behaviour that was displayed in front of the Select Committee. The chief executive was acting with impunity because he had been able to price in those sorts of fines, and it was a cross-party view that we were angry about that behaviour…”

“I was referring to Ian, actually. With us what happens is that the Whip is suspended, the party membership continues, and, as I say, you are obliged to follow the Whip, which we do, and you are entitled to operate as a party. I went to the Labour party conference; I am allowed to go as a party member, not ex officio, t…”

“Yes, exactly that. In our procedures, again, the suspension of the Whip is very rare. It has happened in the past, Aneurin Bevan and people like that, Harold Wilson. There are real prospects for people who have been suspended, but in our—”