Debate on the Address

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey]

The hon. Gentleman ought to know that although there was a long time when the Conservatives were messing up our NHS, Labour has had two years and has absolutely failed.

Let us turn to Labour’s promises to turn around primary care with more GPs, NHS dentists and community pharmacists. Some areas of the country have been going backwards since this Government came to power. When it comes to people feeling more secure in their lives and their futures, quality healthcare is central. I will not list off our policies for fixing the NHS, except one: care—social care and family care. Not for the first time, I must declare an interest.

I focus on care because it is the central, radical and transformational change that has to happen if we are to fix our NHS. Two years ago in the debate on the last Loyal Address I raised care with the Prime Minister as the big challenge that the Government had to tackle to rescue the NHS. I welcomed promises back then for cross-party working, but what has happened? Almost nothing. True, the excellent Baroness Casey has been dispatched around the country, on a timetable written in the Treasury, but her report will land just before the election so, once again, nothing will happen for care in this Parliament. That is a betrayal of the elderly and disabled who need better care, of their families and of the NHS. We will not let up in the fight to fix social care and to back people caring for their loved ones at home. We will put forward the changes that our country needs for people to feel less insecure when they face old age and illness.

Another aspect of our national life where insecurity has got worse and worse is farming and food. British farmers are world renowned. They are the key to ensuring that everyone has high-quality and affordable food on their plates. Yet they have been let down and forgotten time and again. They were let down by the Conservatives, who undermined our food security with bad trade deals and botched funding. The Conservative Government left England as the only country in Europe where farmers are not supported to produce food.

But somehow the Labour Government have managed to make things worse for farmers, not least with their terrible mess over the family farm tax. That is why we called for the inclusion of a good food Bill in the King’s Speech, to prioritise food security and back British farmers to produce British food. With Trump’s idiotic war in Iran hitting farmers with everything from higher fertiliser costs to higher prices for red diesel, the need for our good food Bill could not be more urgent. If that is coupled with our plans for a much closer trading relationship with Europe, there is a pathway to greater food security and lower food prices, and the Government must seize it.

There are many ways in which our party believes the Government should tackle the insecurity that people across the country feel right now: from quicker, tougher action on the damage being done by social media to our young people and people’s mental health, to backing the case for more community police officers to keep our communities safer, and having a fair asylum and immigration policy that is genuinely effective against irregular immigration but welcomes people who play by the rules and contribute to our great country; and from tackling the continuing scandals in our water industry to building the affordable and social housing that so many families and young people desperately need, and ensuring that children and families are at the heart of reforms to special educational needs.

My right hon. and hon. Friends will set out our approach on all those issues over the course of the debate, but I will end by addressing the threat to our country from another source: populist politicians and extremist parties that sow division, play the blame game and make wild promises, and that are a threat to our very democracy. They are exploiting our broken political system, which both the Conservatives and Labour have failed to fix.

The first-past-the-post electoral system of “winner takes all” was supposed to bring stability. It was supposed to provide majority Governments who could take the tough long-term decisions necessary to deliver for our country on the economy, the NHS and defence. We see how badly it has failed. We have majority Governments, yes, but with six Prime Ministers in a decade—soon, probably seven—we hardly have stability, when so many people now ask, “Is Britain governable?”

The concentration of power undermines so much and leads to the scandals that undermine the standing of our democracy even more: a twice-sacked Member of the House of Lords is handed our most prestigious ambassador post, despite the Prime Minister knowing his links to a convicted paedophile and sex trafficker; a Conservative Prime Minister consistently broke the rules that he himself set for the rest of us during one of our nation’s most severe crises; and a leader of a political party thinks a £5 million gift from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire does not reek of corruption

The threat is clear. Under our electoral system, a Reform party that takes its orders from its American boss at Mar-a-Lago could win a majority on less than a third of the popular vote. We must fix our broken political system before it is too late, but the King’s Speech is not up to that historic, vital task. We need a new Magna Carta to enshrine the rights of citizens and protect us from the populist extremists now threatening our country.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

The results in the Bradford district were some of the least representative, with Reform taking a majority of seats despite getting only 23% of the popular vote there. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, while Reform made gains in seats, it is not what the majority of people in this country support?

[Ed Davey]

I certainly hear the figures from Bradford; the hon. Lady makes the same case that our party makes for electoral reform of both local and national government. In the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), the Liberal Democrats now have every single councillor, but we do not have every single vote, and we would welcome electoral reform in those councils where we are over-represented. I hope the hon. Lady’s Government listen to the voices of Members on these Benches.

It is clear the country wants change—and, given the battering that the two old parties received at the recent elections, it is clear they are not offering it. Worryingly, many people are looking to the extremes on the left and the right, thinking that if we burn the system down, things will improve. Yet I do not believe the British people want Trump’s divisive, unfair America here, even though that is Reform’s offer of change. I also do not believe the British people want a reheated Corbynista agenda put forward by a Green party that no longer offers serious action to protect our nature and our climate.

It falls to the Liberal Democrats, then—the only non-populist, non-extremist party left standing—to offer the real change that people crave. Our change is about building things up, not burning them down. Our change is about bringing people, communities and our country together, not dividing and blaming people. From Europe to social care, from energy to defence, from political reform to our environment, I am proud to lead a party that is preparing for government so that our country can be changed for the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Davis]

I will be careful how I answer the right hon. Member because I have an interest to declare here: I have a disabled grandchild, and her mother is one of the people who suffers the stress he talked about. As I say, we need a humane system that deals with people properly. Our current system for supporting disabled people and people looking after disabled people is incredibly bureaucratic, unpleasant and nasty to deal with. That is not the area of welfare that we need to deal with; it is principally the area of employment that we need to deal with. We want to get people back to work, because there is no better way out of poverty than employment, rather than, as it were, being on the dole.

To come back to the thrust of my argument, what is it that we are talking about paying for? I will pick three issues—I could pick any number, but the top three issues that matter to my constituents are healthcare, education and defence. Our health service needs radical reform. I know we have a Bill in this King’s Speech, but it does not look to me like it will have a sufficiently radical impact. For some reason, we do not actually speak enough about the fundamental aims of our health service. Healthcare must be free at the point of delivery—that is an absolute—but it also must do its job of saving lives, and we turn our face away from that too often. Too many Britons are dying early and avoidably under a system that swallows money without delivering the outcomes. Every year, 125,000 deaths are listed officially as avoidable, and the situation has worsened in recent years. It went from 129 deaths per 100,000 people to 156 in the course of a decade. That is a huge increase and, as a result, we have an avoidable death rate that is higher than all our comparator nations. I am not just talking about rich nations like Japan; we are even worse off than countries like Portugal that are much poorer than we are. It is an extraordinary problem that we have to face.

[Anna Dixon]

I agree that patient safety is not enough of a priority in the NHS. There are too many incidents of patient harm; we see that reflected in the large clinical negligence bill. Does the right hon. Member agree that it is essential that patient safety remains one of the top priorities for not only integrated care boards, but all providers?

[David Davis]

That is absolutely right. My concern is that the reason we have so many excess deaths is not poor doctors or poor nurses, but poor management. We have really, really poor national health service management. To put it starkly, poor management effectively kills 15,000 people a year. If we improved that number, we could get within range of our comparator nations.

That is a huge number of people, and we could do quite a lot about it if we set our mind to it. Experiments within the health service now demonstrate that. Just over the river at St Thomas’, a high intensity theatre programme triples the number of people who can be put through an operating theatre or under the hands of one surgeon in a day. That means we can do something like 17 hernia repairs rather than five, or 12 hip replacements instead of four—those are the numbers they measured. A lot of lives are saved rather than lost, because people are put through the system and are not effectively left waiting until they die, as has happened to a number of my constituents. We need to reflect that efficiency in the management of the health service. It requires a complete change in how we select, train and organise the senior management of the national health service. For the moment, they are not up to the job and we need to put that right, but I do not see anything in the King’s Speech that will do that.

My second point is about education. A number of speakers have already said that there is an intergenerational problem in our society today, and education is where that crystalises. We are failing both very young children and young adults. Evidence shows that one in four children are not sufficiently literate or mathematically capable by the age of 11 to get any benefit from the next stage of education. To put it another way, the state has failed a quarter of our children by the time they get to 11. For poor children—those on free school meals and so on—we can double that number; in fact, we can more than double it.

When I grew up, I was lucky to be at the peak of social mobility in this country. This was one of the world’s leading meritocracies, but that is no longer the case. That is a shame on our nation and we must put it right, starting at the bottom. We must do something about it, and we can. Uniquely, using AI and software, we can do quite a lot to help children at the bottom of the scale, but we do not currently do that, and the Department for Education is not up to it. It is not under this Government and it was not under the preceding one—I spoke about this at the time, and we need to put it right.

It is not just the very young who we are letting down; a whole generation in higher education is being failed. The transition to student loans and tuition fees by the Blair Government has been an unmitigated disaster, shackling a whole generation to mortgages without houses and futures without jobs. I opposed it when it came in, I opposed my party’s decision to uphold it when we came into government, and I oppose it today. It takes away much of the point of university, because at least one in five courses do not give youngsters opportunities that will pay for their education. That means that we have to write off their loans, and in the next 50 years, the Government—the state—will pay £430 billion in unpaid loans in cash terms. From what I have seen of the calculations, I am pretty sure that that is an underestimate.

In my view, we should revise the whole policy radically, and perhaps look again at grants for certain courses—I think the Liberals have talked about this—with a 2% graduate tax to offset it, or something like that. That is better than what we have now, which leaves a loan hanging over people for their entire adult life—a loan they may never pay back. We could have grants for science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine, architecture and design—courses that will contribute to the economic growth of this country—and take the rest from there. We need radical reform, but we will not see it in this year’s education Bill.

Finally, I want to talk briefly about defence. There has been much criticism of the Government, rightly, for taking too long over enlarging the expenditure we put into defence, and the simple truth is that we will face challenges that will materialise much faster than we expect. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) spoke in an earlier question about peace being better than war, and since Roman times we have known that being well armed is the best way to prevent war. Nobody wants warfare. At the moment, our military is depleted beyond value and would struggle in a major war, and obviously we must address that. In addition, we must ensure that our strategy and management are right. Frankly, the management of the Ministry of Defence is a disgrace—to be honest, I cannot pick a better word.

I always think that it is symbolic of the extraordinary priorities of the MOD that we have 134 admirals to oversee 63 ships, many of which are not able to set sail at any point in time—Nelson must be spinning in his grave. That is symbolic, but similarly the UK currently maintains an Army of just over 70,000 people, and the Ministry of Defence employs roughly 60,000 civil servants—a ratio that defies logic. Of those civil servants, just under a quarter are employed in procurement, operating a system that is among the worst in the world. If hon. Members need to, they should look at the Dragon, the Type 45 ships, or the Ajax. If the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee were sitting here now, he could get up and given me a dozen cases of disgraceful scandals in procurement in our Ministry of Defence, and we need to put that right.

If we are to maintain effective armed forces, we must also maintain the morale and spirit of our soldiers. The simple truth is that the first step towards that is to treat those soldiers decently, and we are not doing that. The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which has been carried over into this Session, is exposing soldiers who fought in Northern Ireland to being dragged through the courts, sometimes three times over the course of five years, as with Soldier B in the Coagh case. They are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Honourable people who fought bravely for their country and did nothing wrong are being punished in their old age. That is a disgrace.

The excuse that the Government used when they started the Bill was that the previous legislation was illegal—that is what a lower court found. Last week, however, the Supreme Court overturned that judgment in the Dillon case. There is now no legal basis for the Government’s policy, yet still we are pressing on. I asked the Prime Minister, and he said that they are still pressing on with it, effectively psychologically torturing people who served this country. That is morally wrong, but moreover it is causing people to leave the SAS in numbers—this is now in the public domain and I can say it. Our best and most active regiment is being depleted and destroyed. The regiment of which the rest of the world is envious is being undermined by the Government’s strategy, and they should walk away from that policy and drop it. We should bin that Bill.

I do not want to take any more of the House’s time. I have picked three subjects, but there are many other important issues that the Government need to address. I say again that I hope the Prime Minister succeeds in resetting the Government and giving them new dynamism. At the moment, however, the only attractive part of the King’s Speech for me was the last line, which always says the same thing:

“Other measures will be laid before you.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Tice]

That is interesting, because I spent most of the election campaign in the west midlands, where we absolutely smashed it. We secured full control of councils such as Newcastle-under-Lyme and Walsall, and we are now the largest party in Birmingham, which is truly remarkable. We are also the largest party in Bradford, which is fantastic news. That success is because voters have looked at this Government and the failures of this Prime Minister, and they have said, “We want to vote Reform, and we want this Prime Minister out.” I suspect that what we have seen—

[Anna Dixon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Tice]

Bear with me, because I am in full flow. I believe that we have seen the last important speech from this Prime Minister. Let us see what the next few days bring.

[Anna Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Bradford district, and notes that Reform got the largest number of seats there. Does he recognise that the vast majority of people across the Bradford district—three quarters of them—voted for parties other than Reform UK? Does he also recognise that while Reform got seats, it is not popular?

[Richard Tice]

If we have just won and become the largest party in Bradford, by definition we must be popular. Obviously, I would like to please everybody, but sometimes that is not possible; that is the joy of democracy. The reality is that the voters have spoken.

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[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I would like to begin my congratulating my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), on her humorous and passionate opening speech. It is a true privilege to sit alongside her and, together with Madam Deputy Speaker, to represent our shared home of Bradford. I would also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), though he is not currently in his seat, for demonstrating his commitment to meeting his personal goals—and no, I am not talking about getting a PB in the marathon, but about hitting 400 contributions in Parliament.

Just 10 days ago, I stood in the other place for the Prorogation of Parliament and proudly heard an account given of the many things that this Labour Government achieved in their first parliamentary Session. Renters are no longer worried, thanks to secure tenure under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. Children have been lifted out of poverty and families have been supported through the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Act 2026, which removed the cruel two-child benefit cap. We now have stronger safeguards through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026. Workers are no longer on exploitative zero-hours contracts thanks to the Employment Rights Act 2025.

I returned to my constituency buoyed up, ready to take the positive message to the doors alongside hard-working Labour councillors defending their seats and a new group of enthusiastic candidates, some standing for the first time. All of them were prepared to stand up for their communities and be a strong voice in City Hall. They all wanted to be part of a Labour-led council that after a decade of overseeing drastic budget cuts handed down by a Tory Government could finally turn a corner.

Our Labour Government in Westminster who believe in local government are devolving more power to local authorities and communities through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, and we have a new fair funding formula that links deprivation to funding, giving places such as Bradford the first significant budget increase for over a decade. There have been commitments to invest in Northern Powerhouse Rail to better connect our city, and I am pleased to see legislation on that in the King’s Speech. I could go on.

There was hope, and there was possibility, but all that was dashed as the results came in. I was devastated to see so many brilliant Labour councillors lose their seats, to see Reform take the most seats on Bradford council, and to see people winning seats who frankly should not even have been allowed to stand as candidates due to racist comments that I will not repeat in this place.

Reform UK was spreading despair. It argued that Britain is broken and cannot be fixed, and it undermined the very foundations of our democracy. Let me be clear: the majority of people in Bradford rejected Reform’s divisive politics, despite it winning the most seats. I fear that Reform is bringing its divisive politics to our beautiful, multifaith and diverse city, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West described so beautifully.

As we begin this second parliamentary Session, we need a bold agenda that delivers tangible and visible improvements in the lives of people in every community across the country. I therefore welcome today’s King’s Speech, but I urge the Government and Ministers, as they bring forward these Bills, to ensure that they go as far and as fast as they can to deliver the change we promised to the people of this country.

I would like to focus on three of the Bills that address opportunities that we particularly need to grasp. I welcome the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill, which will abolish the outdated and, frankly, feudal system by which leaseholders can be held to ransom by unscrupulous freeholders. I have constituents in Bingley and Wrose who have faced massive increases in service charges, failures to carry out maintenance to accepted standards and unexpected bills for large upgrades. I have estates in Gilstead and Cottingley where homeowners have been left on unadopted estates paying out extortionate fees for ground maintenance.

I look forward to hearing more about how the Government propose to strengthen the regulation of managing agents to ensure that this new system works fairly and has the confidence of leaseholders and commonholders alike. I hope that Ministers will ensure that there continue to be ways in which older people looking to right-size can benefit from living in specialist retirement communities when switching from leasehold to commonhold.

While that legislation, together with the Renters’ Rights Act, will provide security for renters and homeowners, for those with no home, those in temporary accommodation and those waiting for a social home, the Government must take more radical steps to accelerate the building of a new generation of social homes so that everyone can have a secure, safe home. I look forward to hearing more about the social housing renewal Bill.

I welcome the Government’s intention to bring forward legislation that will strengthen accountability for the NHS, abolish NHS England and ensure that we continue to allocate funding to the frontline to bring down waiting lists and improve patient care. However, I urge the Government not to wait until the next parliamentary Session to lay the foundations for a national care service. We urgently need national commissioning standards to ensure greater consistency for older and disabled people and a workforce strategy that addresses the need for better training and career progression for care workers. Baroness Casey has made an initial set of recommendations, but I hope the Government will act with urgency and take this opportunity to put in place legislative provisions that will enable us to move further and faster towards our ambition of a national care service as we also rebuild our national health service.

Finally, I welcome the clean water Bill, which will take forward the major reform of the water sector that is needed. However, I am concerned that if we simply take forward the proposals for a new regulator without fundamentally addressing the financial failings of the water companies, we will only perpetuate a broken model. I have urged Ministers to use existing powers to immediately take Thames Water under special administration and use this as an opportunity to explore alternative public ownership models. I also hope to see the Government create a legislative path for bringing other water companies into public ownership in future.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Bournemouth is a footballing town, and we are so excited for the Cherries, who are in pole position to qualify for European football for the first time in our history. That being so, does my hon. Friend also welcome the measure in the King’s Speech to curb ticket touts, especially ahead of Euro 2028?

[Anna Dixon]

I do join my hon. Friend in welcoming that measure. I recently saw Bradford City play at Valley Parade. The team has an important championship play-off match, and I hope that there will not be ticket touts selling extortionate tickets for that much sought-after match.

There is still time to make the fundamental and radical changes that we desperately need. We need to show the public that we are not going to let privatised water companies profit from polluting our rivers and seas. Above all, our most urgent priority must be to renew our democracy. I welcomed the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) about how we clearly need to protect our democracy against threats. From my point of view, the local election results show clearly that two-party politics is dead. The vote has fragmented, and people have stopped tactical voting. Therefore, I urge the Government as part of the Representation of the People Bill to set up a democracy taskforce that will look at electoral reform for both local and Westminster elections.

In conclusion, I sat today in the Royal Gallery amid much pomp and ceremony and plenty of bling. I can honestly say that it seemed a world away from the realities of my Shipley constituents: the single mom who is working two jobs and struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month; the pensioner who, despite a modest private pension, is having to cut back; and the young person living with their parents, unable to get employment, training or a place of their own. The Labour Government have begun the work of rebuilding Britain after the failures of the past. We must now push on and be bolder and more ambitious in delivering for people across every community of this country and delivering a fairer society for all.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I absolutely welcome the Erasmus scheme—indeed, I wanted to retain the scheme during the endless debates on the withdrawal agreement, because I can absolutely see the value of it. I also see the value of overseas students coming to this country; we should be encouraging them, but they are put off by the very high student fees. Something has to be done about that.

Many colleagues have brought up issues with the services within our society. The water industry has come up many times. I am a London MP and therefore fall within the purview of Thames Water, whose record is appalling and atrocious at every conceivable level. The water industry as a whole has had more than £70 billion taken out of it in profits and dividends since privatisation. We have had statements by every Secretary of State that I can remember for the past 35 years, saying that they will look at the regulation model to make sure there is proper control of what the water companies do. Yet every year the sewage pouring into our rivers and streams gets worse. The chalk streams are destroyed; the fish on our coastline are polluted and killed. It just gets worse and worse.

It is surely pretty obvious that the private ownership model, where the motive is profit, not service, has absolutely failed. We should take the whole water industry back into public ownership. It was public ownership that cleaned it up, it was public ownership that constructed the reservoirs and all the infrastructure, and it is public ownership that will deliver clean water in the future. However, it also needs to be democratic. We should not just have the appointment of a national water company or regional water companies, where the Secretary of State decides who the directors are. We should include the workforce, the local trade unions, the local business community, the local authority—we should make it a matter of community pride to be part of the water industry and the water company.

[Anna Dixon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the need to strengthen the regional water authorities, and to have a greater focus there on the consumer voice? Would he also agree that the special administration regime for Thames Water might offer an opportunity to explore alternative public ownership, such as mutuals, where we could have workers sitting on a board alongside consumers?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Yes, the water authority obviously needs to be strengthened and we need to explore all the options. The hon. Lady has probably got the gist of where I am going on this issue: wanting a more democratic form of ownership. Involving local government in that would be the obvious thing to do. After all, the London County Council had a big say post the Metropolitan Water Board and so on. We need to think about how we improve local involvement, because local people are the best guardians of the water service, making sure that we do not pollute our rivers and streams and that we do provide good-quality, safe water for everybody.

There are other areas of public ownership. I welcome the development of Great British Railways and the public ownership of the rail companies, particularly the train operating companies and the infrastructure. However, there is no public ownership of freight, and the retention of the principle of open access to our service is, to me, a sort of Trojan horse to bring the private sector back on to the railway network. Surely we need to look at that—and when the Government look at it, I would be grateful if they would also look at the ludicrous railway fares in Britain compared with any other railway anywhere in Europe, which are far cheaper and far more efficient to run.

I have a couple of other things I want to say before I sit down. Last year the world spent $2.4 trillion on warfare and weapons. This year it will be more than $3 trillion. Pretty well every country in the world is spending more and more on defence. I have heard the Prime Minister say that he wants Britain to go up immediately to 3%, and ultimately to 5%. The same kind of language is used across Europe, and in other countries as well, including Russia, China and so on. Everyone is massively increasing defence expenditure, and that defence expenditure ends up in the wars and in massive profits for the arms companies around the world.

It is a bit sad that the King’s Speech said nothing about funding the United Nations properly, or about peace initiatives to try to promote a ceasefire, difficult as that would be—I understand all that, but it has to happen—in the ghastly war between Russia and Ukraine, or the crazy war in Iran that President Trump has got us involved with. Despite the British Government telling us that they are not part of this war, in reality the bombing takes place from RAF Fairford and other bases in Britain. Surely we need an agenda for peace, not an agenda for war.

Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza is an act of genocide against the Palestinian people. It is abominable and appalling, and we as a country have maintained the arms supplies to Israel throughout that conflict. We have allowed the use of RAF Akrotiri. We have had the overflying of Gaza, so the RAF know exactly what happened in Gaza, because they took all the pictures of it. Would it not have been good if the Government instead had said they would join with the Hague group of nations in the UN, who are determined to adhere to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court decisions?

We need to look to the real issues facing this world—climate change, environmental destruction, global inequality and poverty, or the 70 million people worldwide who are refugees—rather than just the language of more and more money on arms and more and more preparedness for war. Can we not have an agenda for peace? If we cannot talk about peace when a war is going on, what is the point of ever talking about peace? I would hope that something could happen with that.

This was supposed to be, the Prime Minister said, a speech for hope for young people. Well, fine—I want hope for young people. I admire the young people of my community and others for what they do, for the efforts they put into so much, and for the joy and music and everything that they bring. But those who have been to university all tell me they are saddled with massive university debts. They cannot get anywhere to live; they are sharing flats into their 40s or beyond because they cannot afford to pay off a student debt and buy anywhere, and they cannot get council housing because they are not eligible. Others are working in the gig economy, being ripped off by delivery companies that do not pay them properly. Many of them are in school but not achieving everything they could, because we are over-competitive in the way we run our schools, and we are not inclusive enough.

Let us give some hope to young people; let us listen to young people, including young people with special needs and disabilities. They want to be part of our society too, not to be told that we are spending too much money on personal independence payments or on benefits. They want that support. Give hope to people. We cannot achieve everything that we want to achieve—at least, I guess most of us do—if we persist with the economic inequality within our society and the social injustices that follow from it.

This King’s Speech is such a missed opportunity. It could have been so good. It could have put so much hope in so many people’s minds. The lesson of last Thursday is that if we do not give people hope, they can go off in all kinds of directions. We can end up in a very nasty and a very dark place if we take away any opportunity for hope within our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Q6. Like many MPs, I will head up to my constituency later to campaign for the local elections. When I am out on doorstep talking to voters in the Shipley constituency, I am proud of the difference that this Labour Government are making. Renters are no longer worried thanks to secure tenure, families are supported by free breakfast clubs and extended free childcare support, and workers are no longer on exploitative zero-hour contracts. What is the Prime Minister most proud of, and what is his message for voters in my Shipley constituency and across the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. This is the first Government in a generation to take key services back into public ownership, to give rights and powers to workers, renters and the less fortunate, and to invest in public services and lift children out of poverty. As we face war on two fronts, we will do more. A stronger economy, stronger energy security, stronger on defence—that is the difference that this Government are making.

Middle East

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the permission to use our bases is strictly for defensive purposes, and in particular to protect our nationals in the region. We have 200,000 or 300,000 of our nationals in the region. Iranian strikes were coming into their range and into the Gulf states that I visited last week, hitting infrastructure and being deliberately aimed at our service personnel. It is my duty to protect them and I will continue to do so.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in thanking our armed forces who are protecting British citizens in the middle east, and I thank him, on behalf of my constituents, for his cool-headed leadership and firm decision not to join Trump’s illegal war. Will he reassure my constituents, who are worried about the cost of energy, that he is doing everything in his power to secure peace, reopen the strait of Hormuz and ensure that consumers are protected against rocketing energy prices?

[The Prime Minister]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance—that is what we have been doing particularly intensively in the past two or three weeks. We will continue to do so later this week when President Macron and I host the summit together.

Lord Mandelson

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewin]

The only thing that matches his number of interventions in Westminster Hall is his decency as a man and a parliamentarian.

The focus today has rightly been on Mandelson. There is unity in contempt for his actions: his scandalous and brazen leaking of Government information, and the way in which he undermined the Government and his colleagues seemingly at every turn. His actions will offend every British citizen, every public servant and every Member of this House. That is why decisive action was needed, and it is why this afternoon’s debate is so important.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s proposal to allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to determine which documents are to be released. I commend the courage not only of those who made that argument earlier today, not knowing whether they would be successful, but of the Government who accepted those recommendations.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has articulated very eloquently how we have come together in this House both to roundly condemn the role that Mandelson played in the corrupt web around Jeffrey Epstein and to say together that the full facts must be laid bare. I hope that he will join me in congratulating the Government on tabling a manuscript amendment proposing independent scrutiny by the ISC, so that it will oversee the disclosure of the appropriate documents.

[Andrew Lewin]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. That is why I began my remarks by saying that this has been an important day for the House. I sincerely believe that we are collectively in a much better place now than when we started the debate.

Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) not only for securing this important debate, but for her excellent opening speech, which set out comprehensively and with passion the impact that this issue is having on our constituents all across the country.

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I am well aware of the problems with the civil service pension scheme and contributed to the report that was published on it in October. In that report, we highlighted a range of issues that we have heard about already in this debate: poor customer service and staff retention at MyCSP, long waits for pension options to be set out for those wishing to withdraw pensions, a failure from the Cabinet Office to manage transitions between suppliers, and concerns about Capita’s readiness to take the scheme over and about whether the scheme administration overall was delivering value for money.

The Cabinet Office’s response, in the Treasury minute published at the beginning of December last year, reassured the Committee that, yes, everything was in place for the success of the transition, that Capita had sufficient staffing, and that the Cabinet Office had sufficient penalties for poor performance in the contract with Capita. Does the Minister agree that the Cabinet Office underestimated Capita’s ability to take on administration and that it should indeed face consequences for severe failure?

Those issues are evident in my own constituency; I can briefly talk about a couple of them. One constituent has been trying to claim civil service pension since May 2025; they have faced long waits on the phones, emails unanswered and documents going missing. Since Capita took over, they have had new problems, such as the portal not allowing log-ins and eventually getting through on the phone only to be cut off. My constituent is suffering from financial hardship, and still waiting for the lump sum.

Another constituent, approaching 60, wanted to claim a deferred pension from January this year. The forms were posted in August. He was told he would receive a quote in November, did not receive it, and was unable to speak to Capita despite persistent attempts to contact it. The deferred pension would allow him to remain financially secure. Instead, he has reduced his hours and is now facing financial hardship. A third constituent is waiting for a lump sum to be paid on partial retirement. Again, the correct forms were sent in, but the lump sum was not received and there have been no communications.

Such examples are rife. Given the terrible hardship and worry that this fiasco has caused, I urge the Minister to explain what urgent action she is taking to rectify the situation and ensure that Capita, and not our public service pensioners, pays the price.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this important and timely debate. The situation is an entirely unforced error by Capita, and it has caused real and significant financial distress to thousands of former public servants—people who dedicated their working lives to serving this country. The people affected are individuals who planned responsibly for retirement and relied on the integrity of the civil service pension scheme, but have been left anxious, frustrated and, in many cases, desperate.

Like other hon. Members, I have had several constituents contact me to say that they have been left without any income to fall back on. Mark contacted Capita several times at the start of this year without any reply at all, and he now finds that none of the links in the previous letters and emails from MyCSP work anymore. There was no transition.

In many of the cases reported by colleagues from across the country, those affected are suffering missed mortgage payments, unpaid bills and the indignity of having to borrow money simply to get by. That should never happen to anyone who has served the public in good faith.

[Anna Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman sets out many of the hardships and challenges, as other hon. Members have in this debate. Will he take some responsibility? Under the previous Government, when this contract was let, these problems should have been foreseen and the contract never awarded to Capita.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s flagging that point, and I was coming to that. I have taken the quite unusual step of bringing a print-out for colleagues, which will be available at the end of the debate and will be shared with colleagues more widely. It has an email address on it. I am keen that hon. Members bring their cases directly to us. Of course, we are addressing the wider issues, but it is a cause of great concern to me that, where cases are raised with Members of Parliament, they should be brought straight to our attention.

The McCloud pension sector remedy work was raised. We know how important it is for the many members awaiting an update. We have agreed a separately resourced project to deliver the remedy with Capita. Many of these cases are very complex, and we hope the majority will be issued by April ’27. We are working with the Pensions Regulator, and we will provide progress updates to the members affected and to MPs.

The new contract with Capita includes a number of key performance indicators, which colleagues have rightly raised, with financial penalties to be applied where they are not achieved. We reserve all commercial rights at present. We have already withheld millions of pounds of payments for failure to meet transitional milestones. We continue to contractually monitor service level key performance indicators linked to payments, and we have refused to waive service levels, ensuring that Capita remains contractually liable for performance.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked whether there was a cause for termination. There is an option to terminate in any contract of this kind. These are complex and commercial requirements, and terminating the contract and moving to another provider would mean another massive upheaval of data and everything else. I am sure colleagues share my view that the priority right now is to resolve people’s immediate concerns and issues, make sure people get their money and undertake a review of exactly what happened. However, everything is on the table. As I said, we will do a full review of these contracts, but our priority is to get people the support that they deserve. It has now been two months since Capita took on the new contract, and we are very clear that members of the pension scheme deserve so much better. Our focus is on taking fast action to resolve the most critical issues for impacted individuals while simultaneously ensuring a detailed recovery plan that brings the commercial contract back within service level agreements as quickly as possible.

I want to reassure every member of the pension scheme that their pension is safe and their data is secure. We are working, and will continue to work, tirelessly with Capita to support the recovery programme until such time as we are wholly satisfied that the service is fully recovered. We are committed to ensuring that every member is treated fairly and with respect, and that no one suffers a permanent financial loss due to these administrative failures. We are holding Capita to account and are going to kick backside, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. We are making sure that members are at the heart of the recovery plan, and we will use every commercial lever at our disposal to ensure that Capita delivers effectively.

I thank all hon. Members who brought the voices of their constituents to the Chamber today. I have brought a handout for colleagues, and I urge anyone with constituency cases to raise them with us. We will do our best to accelerate them, but I am conscious that we have to resolve this matter not just for those who are brought to our attention but for absolutely everyone. We will hold further drop-ins to assist hon. Members and their teams, and we are doing our absolute best to make sure people get their money as quickly as possible. The House has my word, and that of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office that we will not rest until the service is stabilised and our civil servants receive the support that they have earned after so many years of dedicated service—for which, once again, we thank them.

[Anna Dixon]

On a point of order, Ms Lewell. I would like to apologise. I need to declare an interest: I also hold a civil service pension and would like to put that on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising those examples of hatred in his constituency. He is right to raise them and we should all condemn them. Hatred in all its forms should be condemned by all of us in this House, and that includes anti-Muslim hatred as well. We intend to act on it.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Q13. This week I met my constituents, Mike and Sue. Their autistic son Jimmy was imprisoned as a young man. The judge recommended a sentence of two and a half years. Jimmy is now in his 40s. He has been in prison for nearly 20 years on an indeterminate sentence for public protection. His doctors say that he is safe and well for discharge, and a supported living flat is waiting for him in Shipley. Will the Prime Minister please help by ending the injustice of these IPP sentences and help to get Jimmy home?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raised this case with me in the Lobby last night. It is a really shocking case of two years leading to someone being in prison for over 20 years and not yet released, and with delays in the release process. The Justice Secretary will look into this case and meet her to discuss her concerns to see what more can be done. It is right that IPP sentences have been abolished, and we are committed to supporting the progression of all those who are serving such sentences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Net zero is of course not easy, but it is a huge opportunity to boost our growth, our jobs and our economy. The hon. Member knows my views on that. He complains, but Reform would have better ideas if it stopped fawning over Putin. I understand that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) wants to be Prime Minister, but he cannot even lead a party that fits in the back of a taxi.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Q14. One in five disabled people in social housing, and one in three disabled private renters, live in inaccessible housing. One of my constituents with severe fibromyalgia and post-traumatic stress disorder lives in a first-floor flat with no lift access. As we build the 1.5 million new homes that the country needs, will the Prime Minister ensure that they are built to be accessible and adaptable so that disabled and older people can live independently for generations to come?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that everybody needs to be able to access a home that is suitable for them and meets their needs. The planning rules already mean that councils must consider the needs of disabled people when planning new homes. We will go further, setting out our policies on accessible new homes very shortly. We are boosting the disabled facilities grant by £172 million, helping more people to make vital improvements and live independent lives.

Covid-19 Inquiry

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

I thank the hon. Member for his two questions. I have said what I said on the speed of the state’s admission when things go wrong. We do need to think about that and look at it. As for the results, the findings of the exercise will be made public, and let me repeat my prediction: they will probably show things that have gone wrong and areas where we need to improve. Anyone who carries out such an exercise and does not expect that will face a nasty surprise.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

One of the positives we saw during the covid pandemic was an outpouring of neighbourliness. Churches and faith communities played a key role in mobilising support for those most in need, delivering meals, shopping and prescription medications to those who were advised to stay at home. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to all those volunteers and assure the House that faith communities and other community organisations will be involved in the local resilience forums, so that they are integral to both the resilience planning and incident response?

Covid-19 Inquiry

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

The hon. Member is right that groupthink is identified in the report, so it is important for the Government to have access to the widest range of advice, but no part of that, for me or the Government, will be about engaging in anti-science rhetoric or anything of that nature. A diversity of views, yes; a denial of the facts, no.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Yesterday evening, I walked alongside the covid memorial wall and was moved by the number of hearts, each one representing someone who died from covid. I extend my sympathies to all the bereaved families who lost loved ones. Many people of all ages continue to suffer the consequences of the lack of resilience and preparedness due to long covid, so will my right hon. Friend reassure Members that those children and adults who continue to suffer with long covid—such as the young granddaughter of one of my constituents in Shipley—will not be forgotten as the inquiry continues its work?

[Pat McFadden]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Again, I echo her comments on the memorial wall. Following the election, we have a lot of new Members in the House; if any of them find themselves with a spare hour, they could do a lot worse than go to the memorial wall, contemplate, and look at the outpouring of grief that is reflected on that wall.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about long covid, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. When we think about the pandemic, of course we think about those who were lost and their families, but there are also people several years on from the pandemic who are still living with those consequences.