Speeches by Gilmour.

“I hope you do.”

“I see that the spring statement forecast for 2025 says that overpayments would fall to the pre-pandemic level of 3.1% by 2028-29, which you have just referenced. That does not sound to me to be very ambitious. In fact, it seems to be rather unambitious. I am wondering how confident you are that, in due course, you will…”

“Yes, you did say that.”

“I am going to finish—sorry. We risk returning to a brutish bygone era in which tyrannical thugs take what they want. Who wants to live in such a world? We all want peace, but appeasement of the Kremlin is not the chess move of a pacifist or an anti-imperialist. It is not anti-war; it is the acceptance of revanchist thu…”

“I was in Ukraine in September with colleagues from the Labour Benches—I was the lone Liberal in a Government delegation. Against what seemed to be mountainous odds, the Ukrainians have defied a superpower that has unleashed a torrent of wanton death and destruction. In war, truth is often the first casualty. Propaganda…”

“I have a charming elderly constituent who, after a series of major medical interventions, has been left in excruciating, uncontrolled pain after her opioids were withdrawn, pushing her to suicidal ideations. Can the Prime Minister shed light on what plans His Majesty’s Government have to help people manage pain in orde…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this debate. We have Shelter’s vicious cycle: “No home? No address. No address? No bank account. No bank account? No job. No job? No home.” Rural homelessness is a unique challenge. In a way, it is unlike homelessness in urban centres; it is less visib…”

“Not an ultra-right—”

“I absolutely agree with you. Not that I have ever been a prisoner, but I know that works because my mother was a criminal lawyer. I absolutely know that works. I am still less than impressed with the overall Report. I would be dishonest if I did not say that today has not been a good day.”

“I wonder whether you had ever considered that the answer to my colleague’s question was that, yes, you would accept responsibility.”

“It was quite astonishing that there were so many caveats there. I would like to ask about the extent of poor probation performance influencing worsening outcomes such as reoffending and recalls to prison, which is not a happy situation. Could you expand upon that part of the Report, please?”

“You referred to paragraph 13, but paragraph 3.16 notes that an internal review said you would need to go beyond the 25% to allow time for learning needed to improve performance. That is just for the learning. It is not the improved performance.”

“Could you replace the word “open” with “desperate”?”

“Funnily enough, I was sitting on a board this afternoon talking about digitalisation and the changes that it could make, so it is particularly pertinent to my brain at the moment. As a follow-up question, my constituency is Tiverton and Minehead. I have a higher than normal elderly population and a higher than normal d…”

“But it is desperate, is it not?”

“I will remember to tell my constituents that when they have been mugged for the third time by a reoffender.”

“Going back to the concept of risk, what progress have you made in setting clear risk thresholds or red lines for the Our Future Probation Service programme?”

“No, it definitely is not.”

“How often do you rely on anecdotal evidence when you are looking for facts?”

“As a Liberal, I am very supportive of restorative justice, but I just want you both to absolutely clarify this point. You can both absolutely say, hand on heart, that there is no correlation between the very poor performance of the Probation Service and the number of people reoffending and/or being recalled to prison. …”