Speeches by Paul.

“Q11. Coughlan’s Bakery, which was founded in 1937, has announced the closure of all its stores, five of which are in my Reigate constituency. The reasons given by Sean Coughlan include recent employer national insurance and business rate hikes. That much-loved family business, which has survived a world war and multipl…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for securing the debate. This is a really important topic, and I do not think there has been enough focus on it in the last few years. Her speech was very powerful, and the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) made really important points about corridor care …”

“I would expect the Minister to know the numbers, and this question has been asked many times, so I am going to give him another attempt: how many rapists and sexual offenders will be released early under the Sentencing Act?”

“12. What recent progress he has made on implementing the Humble Address agreed by this House on 4 February 2026.”

“I am concerned about the Bill’s impact on families, which the Minister has touched upon, and I am worried that positive, healthy interactions within a family could potentially fall in scope of the Bill. It is good to hear that she does not think the Bill will cover such interactions, but it is written quite broadly and…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. Can he explain why his Department was apparently willing to appoint Mandelson as ambassador, and provide him with access to classified briefings, without conducting any security vetting, given that his close links with Russia and China were already public knowledge befo…”

“It is obviously really important work. Could you set out for us the work that you are doing with the Social Mobility Commission on this?”

“Equality of opportunity is so important, is it not?”

“Have you met with it in the last two years?”

“Thank you, Secretary of State, for your time. I just wanted to thank you for laying down the code; it is very much appreciated. I know it is an incredibly emotive and difficult topic. One of the issues that we have had—obviously this was before your time—was that the original code has misinterpreted the law, shall we s…”

“I have a quick question. Dame Nia raises really important points on the GRA. One group that was obviously quite impacted by the Supreme Court ruling was long-term medically transitioned trans women. Obviously, they went through the process and acquired a GRC in good faith and expected certain things to happen; the Supr…”

“I thank the hon. Member for that excellent question. I obviously always respect and listen to different clinicians, but what is happening with this debate is that one set of clinicians with one view is being listened to. Let me remind everyone about lobotomies. Lots of very respected people came out for lobotomies; in …”

“Yesterday, even the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care conceded—the second one to do so—that he is “uneasy” and even “uncomfortable”. I suggest that his discomfort is nothing next to the lifelong damage that the trial will potentially do to an extremely vulnerable cohort of children, whom we should be protec…”

“I frankly cannot believe that we are here again. When the Pathways clinical trial was paused earlier this year, I felt that there had finally been—[Interruption.]”

“I am not saying that it is a negative thing; I am trying to explain why we have seen an increase in the numbers of young people with gender dysphoria. I am stating facts; we were just talking about the importance of doing so. In 2009, only 51 patients were referred to the NHS Gender Identity Development Service for chi…”

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend; a child of this age cannot possibly consent to the life-changing, irreversible changes that come from puberty blockers. We need to remember that almost all children who start puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones, and there is no going back from that. We need to remember t…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. No child put on puberty blockers at the earliest stage of puberty and whose natural puberty is permanently blocked will ever have an orgasm or be fertile. No child can consent to that. Around 2,000 children have already been given puberty blockers for gender distress, s…”

“You pledged to recruit 6,500 teachers, yet you have excluded primary schools when measuring against that pledge—why?”

“Julie Robinson, the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said that 105 independent schools have closed since this policy was introduced and that she expects more to close. One fifth of those were in London and the surrounding areas, and it appears that pupil numbers in independent schools have come down …”

“Chair, do I have time to move on to tax?”