Speeches by Thomas-Symonds.

“I am not hiding from the fact that we have to make changes to the appointments process. Indeed, the Government have changed the process for all direct ministerial appointments to make sure that due diligence and national security vetting have to take place prior to appointment. It is absolutely right that that change w…”

“We have set off a surge of interventions. I will give way to the hon. Lady and then the right hon. Gentleman, and that is it.”

“I think some Conservative Members would be quite happy to have Gladstonian principles in government. I really do reject the point about a cover-up, and I reject it for this reason: this process was quite rightly driven by and led by officials without political interference, working with the Intelligence and Security Co…”

“On the subject of someone who might be keen on Gladstone, I will give way.”

“I do not expect that to happen, but of course if it did, we would consider it. I will finally give way to the right hon. Member for Islington North.”

“It was an official-led process. Let me just make that clear, because the right hon. Gentleman points towards a pretty important issue. We had the Humble Address and its wording—hon. Members can read that wording—with the quite extensive list drafted by the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the hon. Member fo…”

“That was another important part of what was done, and the House should also take reassurance from that. I made the point about precedence to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and the Government also sought to take that independent legal advice on their interpretation of complyin…”

“That of course strays into the conflict of interests class of documents, which is still one of the classes that is with the Metropolitan police. I conclude by saying again that it is very important that the House has this debate today. From the debate in February to today, I have certainly taken my duties, and indeed t…”

“I will take an intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, but then I need to make a bit more progress.”

“I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is just that if he looks at the wording of the Humble Address, he will see that it lists a series of classes of documents, and then it says, “except papers”—those that were referred to the ISC. That is our compliance with the motion. Let me turn back to the process, which, as I…”

“On Palantir, I refer my hon. Friend to the methodology statement at the start of each of the three volumes, where it is made absolutely clear that there is a recognition that Palantir is a matter of interest to the House; indeed, there are references to Palantir within the documents. As I am sure the House will underst…”

“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Officials leading the process will have heard the exchange—and this exchange—in relation to that specific point about Ian Collard. As the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister set out in his statement on Monday, the documents with the Metropolitan police fall into several categori…”

“As ever, my right hon. Friend makes her case forcefully. I am treading carefully in my language because this process has been led by officials working with the ISC. The officials working on it will have heard the request that she just made.”

“To the right hon. Gentleman’s direct question, I have not been part of the process or been given precise dates for when the Metropolitan police said what. However, I will say this: the documents with the Metropolitan police have been viewed by the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee,…”

“It is, quite rightly, for the police and not for Ministers to determine the way in which they want their investigation to proceed and to identify documents that they feel are reasonable lines of inquiry. However, to give the House reassurance, even that class of documents was viewed by the Chair of PACAC—obviously, und…”

“My hon. Friend talks powerfully about the impact of long covid, and it has had that impact on many people following the pandemic. The most recent module 3 report from the covid inquiry covered this issue in detail. Of course, the Government will carefully consider the inquiry’s work on this in our full response—it abso…”

“The Government are absolutely committed to promoting and protecting the human rights of LGBT people worldwide. Our UK-EU security and defence partnership is underpinned by shared values, and I absolutely give that commitment. We will continue to work closely with EU partners to uphold those values.”

“My hon. Friend can be assured that we will continue to drive forward to deliver on our commitment. The electricity trading negotiations are absolutely vital, not only for energy security but to bear down on household bills.”

“We are taking forward negotiations with the EU to drive investment, jobs and growth for the UK pragmatically. On ideological grounds, the Conservatives and Reform would undo it all, and Green party foreign policy—let us be frank—is a dangerous fantasy.”

“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s assessment of Capita’s lamentable performance on the civil service pension scheme. We have to take individual decisions on contracts. For example, yesterday I cancelled Capita’s contract for the Royal Mail statutory pension scheme. I am robustly holding Capita to account, includin…”