Speeches by O'Brien.

“A £6 billion hole has been opened up because those on the Labour Front Bench cannot get those on the Labour Back Benches to vote for their own policies. As a result, No. 10 is today conspicuously refusing to rule out a wealth tax. If we tell business people and wealth creators that their money will get taxed if they le…”

“Churches across the country are doing amazing work tackling poverty, but they could be doing more. Many of my constituents will be surprised that the Church Commissioners have already spent £5 million on Project Spire when it is not within their charitable objectives, and that they plan to spend £100 million when the C…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this important debate, which he opened by telling a frightening story about his own child. I am sorry that he is also suffering in a smaller way this afternoon, but we never would have kn…”

“The hon. Gentleman has taken the opportunity to put on the record an important point of clarification. I understand that the Leader of the House is looking at modernising the terms that we use in this place—the word “Bill” will be scrapped, perhaps—so the next time we come to this Chamber, it may no longer be a Westmin…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this very important debate. They say that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, and in my case that is directly true: the only reason I am here is that the band th…”

“The Minister talks about the next financial year. Can she be clear about which school years are covered? People going into the start of the school year in September 2026 will be covered, but the Government have not made a commitment for those starting in September 2027—I just want to check that that is correct.”

“Q10. Labour has invited proposals from cities to expand their boundaries, and the Mayor of Leicester wants to expand the city to swallow up areas like Oadby, Wigston and Great Glen, but local people do not want that, and thousands have signed our petition against it. It is not just about the higher council tax; they wa…”

“I am glad that the hon. Member has prompted me—he must have a copy of my speech. In the last Parliament, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, real-terms spending per pupil went up by 11%. I thank him for allowing me to make that point. So why are so many teachers getting the sack? It is partly because that is…”

“Before the election, Labour said that increasing VAT would pay for more teachers. Even in December, the Chancellor said that “every single penny of that money will go into our state schools”. More recently, however, the Prime Minister has claimed that this will instead pay for investment in social housing. He said “my …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I will not detain the Committee for long, because this is a technical piece of legislation simply updating regulations to reflect new qualifications and, in a sense, maintaining the principle that we established during our time in government of devolving the…”

“Let me pay tribute to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for leading this important debate and for doing such a good job in setting out all the different issues at stake. Although he covered a huge amount of ground in his opening statement, we also heard some excellent speeches from across the House…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Although they did not mention it before the election, Labour is committed to abolishing every district and borough council in Leicestershire. It has also invited proposals to expand the city’s boundaries, and the Mayor of Leicester has put forward such a proposal. This is universally not wanted i…”

“Ministers recently announced that they were axing level 7 apprenticeships. Strangely, they made the announcement during recess; and also strangely, it was only the day after the announcement that they finally answered my parliamentary question from April, revealing that they were making a 90% cut in those apprenticeshi…”

“Asked whether the Government were planning to restrict EHCPs so that they apply only to children in special schools, the Government’s strategic adviser on SEND, Christine Lenehan, recently said: “I think, to be honest, that’s the conversation we’re in the middle of.” Is she correct to say that Ministers are considering…”

“The last Conservative Government added 27,000 extra teachers. Although we would never know it from the Minister’s answer, there are 400 fewer teachers in our schools than last year. Labour promised 6,500 more teachers, but it is ignoring the loss of 2,900 primary school teachers, because apparently they do not count. T…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this important debate. We have had some fantastic speeches, and any debate in which Johnny Ball gets a shout-out is a good debate in my view. Our profession, politics, is awash with mathematical metaphors. Lyndon Johnson famousl…”

“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The truth is that the families benefiting from today’s announcement are the same ones who are paying for it, because the same group of people are hit hardest by Labour’s national insurance increase. Labour promised not to increase national insurance, but it broke…”

“I am happy to agree that we can bring maths into many other things, and that is also a fun way of teaching maths. In return, I put back to the hon. Gentleman that there are limits to that. If we want to have more time for something else, we have to say where it is coming from. The improvement in those international lea…”

“Under this deal, we will be paying billions of pounds for the privilege of having our own territory taken away from us. The Secretary of State talks about the threat to the base as if Mauritius, a country with no navy, is about to steam in or pick a fight with the United States. That is implausible. The whole House wil…”

“It is, Mr Speaker. Earlier, the Minister said that funding had remained below 2010 levels. I am sure that was an innocent verbal slip. However, according to the widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, “Coming on the back of an 11% real-terms increase in spending per pupil between 2019–20 and 2024–25, this allows…”