Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Campbell]

The Government are absolutely committed to supporting victims of domestic violence. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns are shared across the House, so I encourage him to seek a Backbench Business debate or an Adjournment debate or to put the point directly to Ministers in Justice questions, so that they can respond.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Older constituents living in the high flats at Callendar Park and Kemper Avenue in my constituency have for years raised the issue of unacceptable antisocial, and sometimes criminal, behaviour. Those flats are the last place that any drug dealer should be rehoused. Can we have a debate in Government time on housing and the operation of the Equality Act 2010 so we can better defend housing historically reserved for older people from the social consequences of Scotland’s drug crisis?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

It must be a worrying time for residents of high flats. Local authorities and social landlords have a range of existing levers to tackle anti- social behaviour, including eviction. The Government expect them to use those levers responsibly and proportionately —but, importantly, where appropriate, we expect them to be used. This would make a powerful topic for a Westminster Hall debate and I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for one.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Campbell]

The hon. Gentleman raises this matter with the tone and respect that have come to be associated with him, and I thank him for that. I pay my respects to the family concerned. It is an unbelievable tragedy when this happens. It happens far too often, which is why the Government are focused on this issue. Work is under way to deliver an updated strategic framework for road safety—it will be the first one in over a decade. Quite simply, the aim will be to reduce road deaths and injuries, and I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman receives an update on that work.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Last Friday, I attended a graduation for STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—students at Forth Valley College. This college is a crucial educational asset and it is vital to plans to re-industrialise our area. However, due to a 20% cut in funding for the college sector since the SNP began its fourth term in 2021, Forth Valley College recently proposed closing its Alloa campus. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that, instead of causing colleges to consider closure, the Scottish Government should be backing all routes for young people to train, learn and succeed?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

I want to send my congratulations to all those graduating from Forth Valley College, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. He is a great advocate for his constituency. This Government have delivered the biggest Budget settlement for the Scottish Government in the history of devolution, and he will know that education and skills policy is devolved. However, I hope that Ministers in the Scottish Government have heard his concern, and I hope they give as much attention and priority to the matter of colleges in their work as the Government here are determined to do.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I am sorry to hear of the trouble that my hon. Friend is having in her constituency and of the challenges in supporting her council and police to take action. We keep powers under constant review to ensure they are effective in tackling unauthorised encampments. I will keep her updated on that.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Blooming Bairns, a group of community volunteers committed to seeing Falkirk town centre flourish, have put in a marathon effort in service of our community. Their planting on Newmarket Street, Vicar Street and the High Street has breathed new life into our town centre. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Blooming Bairns for their 1,900-plus hours of community volunteering and congratulate them on their recent one-year anniversary?

[Lucy Powell]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Blooming Bairns on their community work over the past year.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

Absolutely. I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking all those at the Lavender Touch, and at all the other hospices across his constituency and the country, for all that they do in people’s hour of most need. I think that most of us would not be able to do that job, so we thank them greatly for doing it.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Yesterday, three organisations were proscribed. Two were neo-Nazi and ethnonationalist groups, and the other was Palestine Action—an organisation with unacceptable and often criminal tactics. This House was given a binary choice of voting for or against proscribing all three groups, although many hold substantial concerns about the proportionality of proscribing Palestine Action. Will the Leader of the House clarify what can be done when motions to approve statutory instruments insufficiently capture the views of Members?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which was discussed in the debate yesterday by many colleagues. As the Minister set out, there is a clear precedent for the approach taken yesterday—it happened in 2001, for example, when the motion bundled together 20 other militant groups alongside al-Qaeda. I know the strength of feeling on this issue, but I assure my hon. Friend that the Home Secretary must reasonably believe that any such organisation is concerned in terrorism in any form, and we do not take these decisions lightly. I want to be clear that the proscription of Palestine Action is not aimed at banning all protests that support Palestine by any means. There are many ways in which people can continue to express their support for Palestine without becoming a member of that organisation.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Sadeq Nikzad has been convicted of a horrifying sexual assault in Falkirk in October 2023. Shamefully, Mr Nikzad continues to maintain that he has done nothing wrong; during sentencing, his lawyer claimed that this was due to cultural differences. To be clear, no one from any culture or background in our community believes that his actions were anything other than disgusting and criminal. Will the Leader of the House clarify that, once it is in force, clause 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will ensure that those who commit such serious offences will be unable to claim refugee status in our country ever again?

[Lucy Powell]

Obviously, I cannot comment on specific cases, but this one sounds truly shocking. Clause 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will give the Home Secretary powers to refuse refugee status to those convicted of any sexual offence, even when it does not result in a prison sentence of 12 months or more. We are determined to ensure that those who commit such crimes do not get the right to stay in this country.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend is a real advocate and champion for ceramics in his constituency and beyond. I am delighted to hear that, after this issue has been raised with me a number of times, Moorcroft Pottery has been saved by Will Moorcroft. I thank him for doing that. My hon. Friend will not have to wait very long at all for the industrial strategy.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Sam is a trans man who has been out for eight years. He recently told me about his long-term avoidance of public bathrooms, and due to his lowly place on the gender recognition certificate waiting list, Sam could not marry his fiancée before her father passed away last year. We committed in the Labour manifesto last year to removing indignities for trans people by modernising the law. When do the Government intend to legislate to that effect?

[Lucy Powell]

I am sorry to hear of that story. Everyone deserves dignity and respect in our society. We committed in our manifesto to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Our immediate priorities for the trans community are a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices and strengthening the protections from hate crimes, which we discussed in the House yesterday.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

As hon. Friends in the Scottish parliamentary Labour party are sick of being reminded, it has been another distinctly fantastic season for football in Falkirk. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating everyone at Falkirk football club on securing back-to-back promotions and a return to premiership football for the first time in 15 years? Will she also congratulate them on the restoration of the youth academy and congratulate Steins Thistle in Allandale on becoming the first Falkirk-based club to win the Scottish amateur cup in over 100 years?

[Lucy Powell]

These things do not always go down well with everybody, but I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Falkirk FC on its back-to-back promotion and all its success this season, which I hope continues in the next.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I know that many colleagues, and many members of the public, will have heard that important speech by Tom Fletcher at the UN Security Council. We had an extensive debate in the House about these matters yesterday. I reiterate that the Government want to see an end to what is happening in Gaza—an end to the bloodshed and the airstrikes—with aid getting in, an urgent ceasefire and the hostages returned, alongside work towards a long-term, diplomatic solution. It is not for the Government of the day to make an adjudication on whether genocide has happened; that is a matter for international courts, and we absolutely respect the international courts and what they do.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

A constituent who worked in the banking sector all her life is now being told that, because of an abatement clause in her contract, she may receive 20% less of her pension than would otherwise reasonably be anticipated. Will the Leader of the House support my call for the Government to identify those affected by underhand pension clawbacks and support them in seeking due redress?

[Lucy Powell]

On pension clawbacks, it is important to ensure that pension customers are treated fairly and decently. We will shortly introduce a pensions Bill that will contain additional consumer protections, and my hon. Friend may wish to raise those matters then.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

He is a very popular Member of this House. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] There we are.

The shadow Minister raises a matter that is very important to me: timely and full responses to written parliamentary questions and correspondence. I take this matter incredibly seriously and will continue, as always, to raise it with Cabinet Ministers, collectively and individually, when they fall short.

The shadow Minister also raises the issue of net zero. I am sorry, given his glittering career, that he felt the need to read out from the latest Whips’ crib sheet on net zero. The blinkered vision that the Conservatives have shown on the opportunity of net zero and the transition that we need to make is why they did so little in their time in office.

Let us look at what is actually happening. The North sea basin is diminishing; it is a finite resource. That is why the workforce in the North sea has fallen by a third over the past 10 years. There is a global race for the new technologies of the future, and we are now in that race—something the Conservatives failed to do for many years. We are making sure that the North sea has the opportunities of the future, and there are some great opportunities. That is why we are setting up Great British Energy in Aberdeen and why we have announced £22 billion for carbon capture, which will be critical to the future of the North sea basin. It is also why we are looking to reindustrialise the future with things like hydrogen, nuclear and other energies.

The shadow Minister mentions the former leader of the Labour party, but he might want to look at what some of his own party’s former leaders have said in recent years. I thought Theresa May spoke very wisely last autumn, just as the Conservatives were performing a complete volte-face over net zero, when she said:

“When the sceptics say that the green transition will cripple business, we say they could not be more wrong…When the critics say transitioning to renewables costs too much, we say it’s wrong to see it as a cost. It’s an enormous investment opportunity”.

She was right, wasn’t she? He knows she was.

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the local elections, I am sure that we can have an exchange of statistics, but the one that I will leave him with is that council tax bills for people living in Labour councils are, on average, £300 lower than elsewhere. That is the one thing that people should be thinking about today of all days.

I do not want to be too harsh on the hon. Gentleman, because I am fond of him. Having said that, we are now six months on from the Leader of the Opposition taking up her position. Today will be her first major electoral test, and I wonder how the Conservatives think things are really going, because they have been veering from one side of the road to the other. They have been taking just about every position possible. Even on Monday, they voted against their own Football Governance Bill. They actually wrote it, and their poor, mortified shadow Secretary of State, who had previously called it an excellent Bill, had to put up the best act that I have seen in a long time of speaking against it from the Dispatch Box.

The leadership of the Leader of the Opposition is being backseat driven by the shadow Justice Secretary, who is on constant manoeuvres. He is no doubt spending the day on the phones—not to the electors, but to his future backers. He has promised this electoral pact with Reform, but the truth is that the two parties are indistinguishable at the moment. I cannot tell the difference between the once great Conservative party and the Reform party, because we all know that voting Tory today means voting Reform and that voting Reform today means voting Tory.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Bagpipe music is undisputedly the finest instrumental music around. Earlier this month, the 37-strong Falkirk schools pipe band, accompanied by 30 dancers from the Denny high school’s dance academy, participated in the Tartan Day parade in New York, commendably representing Scotland and Falkirk district. Starting less than three years ago, they have quickly developed into the pride of the town and the district. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating these immense young people and the community, parents and educators who made their immense performance in New York earlier this month possible?

[Lucy Powell]

I am delighted to hear about the bagpipe musicians from my hon. Friend’s constituency going to New York. That sounds like a really fantastic visit. I thank him for raising it here and join him in congratulating them on their endeavours.

Business of the House

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Valley Thai boxing club and its fantastic haul of medals. It is great to highlight that growing sport in his constituency to a wider audience.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Ben and Melanie have paid thousands over the odds for their energy bills because their energy provider failed to provide accurate billing on their prepayment meter and wiped thousands in credit from their account. That energy provider has now missed nine appointments that it scheduled with Ben and Mel. Will the Leader of the House support a debate on how Ofgem can improve service standards and hold energy companies to account when they fail my constituents?

[Lucy Powell]

I am really sorry to hear of the experience of Ben and Melanie. I hope that the energy provider that he highlighted has heard this case and will quickly sort it out. The Government are working with Ofgem to reinforce our expectation that if rules are not complied with, it will enforce them. I will ensure that Ministers have heard that.