Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We do support our churches and the work that those in our churches do, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas. I have a reception for them in Downing Street this afternoon.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

Q9. Before May’s election, Reform in Kent promised that it would improve services and cut taxes. Instead, vital services for older people and those with mental health conditions, provided by great organisations such as Imago and Involve Kent, are to be cut, and taxes are going up. Does the Prime Minister agree with me on two things: that given the additional money provided to the county through the fair funding review, it is beyond belief that Kent is cutting services on which vulnerable people rely, and that Reform’s so-called DOGE unit, which we were told would eliminate waste, actually stands for “deluded, overconfident, gormless and embarrassing”?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend sums up very well how his community has been utterly let down by Reform. While the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is making excuses about his behaviour at school, look at what his party is doing across the country. There is chaos in Kent. Reform’s mayoral candidate in Hampshire says that the Deputy Prime Minister, a black British man born in this country, should go back to the Caribbean. In Staffordshire, Reform’s leader has been exposed as a white supremacist. That is not a coincidence, because chaos and division are the life’s work of the hon. Member for Clacton.