Speeches by Mullan.

“Q I am Kieran Mullan, the shadow Minister and MP for Bexhill and Battle. I want to take you back to the process of your appointment and ask whether, prior to your appointment, you had any discussions with Ministers or officials about your views on the right to elect and the use of jury trials. Sir Brian Leveson: No, al…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. He is proving himself to be a consistent and doughty champion of victims and the issues that they raise with him. I also …”

“I wish that the Minister got as angry about the fact that her Government are releasing thousands of rapists, paedophiles and perverts from prison early. If the Government will not tell us about the reality of the consequences, surely they should at least tell the victims. One of the worst aspects of this policy is the …”

“Right now there are potentially thousands of rapists, paedophiles and perverts, who are responsible for some of the worst offences against women and girls, who this Government are going to let out of prison earlier. That is a disgrace, and at the very least the Government should be transparent about it. When I asked th…”

“I cannot possibly do justice to the frustration of my residents about their local roads in one minute, but I will try my best. They contact me all the time to say how appalled they are at the quality of their local roads. The Labour Government fail to understand the challenges in rural communities, making the situation…”

“Does the Minister accept that the changes to the funding formula have made rural areas worse off—yes or no?”

“Will the Minister give way on that point?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“The problem with these sorts of scandals is that as time moves on, more and more people are tarnished by them. Last week, when the papers revealed that Mandelson received £75,000, I asked the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister whether the Government were worried about what he might say at an employment tribunal. He …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell)—who I consider a friend—on securing the debate. I could characterise him as a romantic perhaps, given his decision to focus on this topic,…”

“The Minister will know that the Government have a Bill about the duty of accountability and candour going through the House; one of his colleagues on the Front Bench will confirm that that requires Ministers to answer questions with candour. Several weeks ago, three Members of this House asked him what Mandelson’s pay-…”

“Not yet. We must have a serious discussion about why that is. It was disappointing for those who sought to put forward a credible analysis of what has happened that the Justice Secretary and most Labour Members did not mention the word “covid” once. In reality, the backlogs in the Crown court under this Government befo…”

“I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman read the entire statement. What the institution actually said was that the modelling “relies on several assumptions—some of which are highly uncertain.” Did he read that part of the statement? I do not think he did, because it claims that there will be reductions of only 2% in trial …”

“It has been a positive debate in terms of the exchange of ideas, and there have been some fantastic contributions. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Members for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for the very personal way in which they made their cases. There is consensus that for …”

“The only country that has successfully tackled illegal boat crossings similar to ours is Australia, and it did so not by paying people £40,000 per family to leave, but by sending them to a safe third country. I noticed that the Minister completely failed to answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for N…”

“Members of Parliament and the public are also perfectly within their rights to say that they think they are a bad idea. It is a free speech issue, as much as anything. If a museum wants to put on an exhibition and then introduce all sorts of other political elements, the museum’s members and politicians—all of us—are p…”

“The right hon. Member helpfully reminds me that I forgot to mention that Bexhill is also putting itself forward for town of culture. I am happy to bribe him any time.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this debate, which I think may become a battle royale of whose constituency has the best museums. I will begin with Bexhill and Battle, which has a remarkable number of both local museums an…”

“As the Minister said, at the heart of this is the question of whether our enemies and malign actors fear the consequences of hostile acts against us. That question is why many of us say that the embassy should be paused. Why would the Chinese be worried about consequences of spying, when this week, another malign actor…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not wish to put the Chair in the position of having to give an immediate answer, but as others have said, there are rumours online that the individuals arrested for spying include the partner of a Labour MP. I do not know any suggestion that that Labour MP has done anythi…”