Debate on the Address

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I am acutely aware that this debate on the King’s Speech is in the shadow of a political moment that is moving at extraordinary speed, a moment on which I have already made my views clear. While I respect the sincerely held opinions of many of my hon. Friends, there are truths that are now too obvious to ignore. Last Thursday’s local election results, in which many hard-working, dedicated and talented Labour councillors in Hartlepool and elsewhere lost their seats, were not a routine protest vote; they were a roar of unbridled anger.

In towns like Hartlepool, that anger did not begin 22 months ago with the election of this Labour Government; it has been building for more than 20 years. People have repeatedly voted for change. When it came to Brexit, they voted for the change promised by members of Reform, and they were failed. They voted again for change under the Tories, with levelling up, and were let down once more. Now, that accumulated anger lands on our doorstep, alongside an understandable fear among many of my constituents that politics will once again let them down. The message last week was unmistakeable. People want a Government who act with urgency, courage and purpose against the crushing pressures of everyday life, and if they do not get it, they will once again roll the dice, even if it means taking a risk on a charlatan, because desperation drives risk, and people are desperate for hope.

However difficult it may be for many Labour Members to admit, it is now clear to me that this Prime Minister can no longer provide that hope. I do not say that with pleasure, but leadership is not only about knowing when to fight on; it is about knowing when your authority has ebbed, when trust has frayed, and when it is time to leave the stage. Some people will say that this is about personality. It is not; it is about policy, and whether we are prepared to meet the moment with the scale of change it demands. This Government have done so much in their first 22 months, and there is much to applaud in this King’s Speech, but caution will not save us now. Incrementalism will not save us now. We must be bolder.

We need a programme of radical renewal that improves the lives of working people in Hartlepool and across Britain. That means abolishing the hated council tax and replacing it with a progressive system that no longer punishes poor communities simply for being poor. It means radical welfare reform that is both compassionate and demanding—support for those who need help, but a clear demand that everyone who can work must work. It means bringing failed monopolies back into public ownership where markets have plainly failed, from water companies to the Royal Mail. It means cutting taxes on jobs and investment in deprived regions, so that opportunity finally reaches communities that have been left behind for decades. It means banning estate management companies altogether, and requiring every council to adopt every street. It means finding the £2 billion that the British Dental Association has said is needed to rescue NHS dentistry. It means lower energy bills for those communities hosting the new nuclear, wind and solar that powers Britain, and while I absolutely support the Home Secretary and stand behind her reforms, if it is necessary, it means declaring a state of emergency at our borders and turning boats back. It means banning southern councils from discharging their homelessness duty by shifting the burden to communities like mine, simply because our housing is cheaper. It means taking defence spending out of the fiscal rules and spending what this dangerous world requires now. It means giving councils the power to simply seize empty shops, abandoned homes and derelict sites where absentee owners refuse to act. It means finally standing up for justice for our WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—and it means delivering a national care service, not eventually, not someday, but now.

I do not want this country to fall prey to Trump-style populism, but the truth is that only we on the Labour Benches can prevent that. We have the parliamentary majority, we have the mandate, and we still have time, but if we do not use those things to deliver visible, meaningful change—if we do not give people hope that they can feel in their wages, their streets and their communities—then others will inevitably fill that vacuum. If that happens, the responsibility will lie with us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

Security Vetting

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I acted on the information that was provided to me in the due diligence process. The information that was dealt with in the security vetting process was not made available to me—nor can that detail be made available to me. It is the recommendation that should have been made available to me.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

One of the things that I find most difficult to understand in this process is why, when this scandal erupted in September of last year, before the Prime Minister made statements in this place and elsewhere—statements that he must have known would have involved talking about the vetting—he did not simply order officials to share the vetting information with him. Why did he not do so, and does he regret it?

[The Prime Minister]

I did ask Sir Chris Wormald to carry out a review. I worked on the basis that all the relevant information would be shared with him. It was only last week that I found out from Sir Chris that he himself had not been provided with information that he should have been provided with when he was carrying out the review on my behalf.

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I want to join Members across the House in commending the Minister for his steadfast commitment to this issue and, in particular, for the way in which he has consistently listened to members of the community and acted on what they have said. My constituent, Alex Robinson, lost her father to the scandal in 2006. I spoke to her just a few moments ago on the phone, and she remains concerned by the speed at which applications are being processed. Can the Minister outline what steps he is taking to speed up the process and deliver the justice that Alex and so many others deserve?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend’s constituent is entirely right to continue to hold the Government to account on the speed of delivery of the compensation. Particular targets were put in place, including paying the first affected person by the end of last year, and we met that target. On infected people, we have now paid out over £2 billion in compensation. To answer his specific point on how we will continue to ensure that we process the payments at speed, while IBCA is of course operationally independent, I always stand ready as the responsible Minister to assist IBCA in any way that it sees fit. I can assure my hon. Friend that my dialogue with IBCA on this point will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are committed to ending the use of all asylum hotels; there are now just under 200, compared with the 400 under the previous Government. Where military sites are used, the safety and security of local communities is our priority.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q7. Hartlepool now has the third highest number of children in care in England—a number fuelled by southern councils shipping families to my town. This is blowing a £6 million hole in our budget, a deficit that my brilliant Labour council has halved, but there is now nothing left to cut. Percentage increases in funding mean less in Hartlepool than almost anywhere else in the country, but a child in care costs exactly the same in Hartlepool as elsewhere. The fair funding settlement announced in December does not go far enough. I am fighting non-stop for a better deal for my town, because I will not accept one of the poorest communities in the country being condemned to higher taxes or devastating austerity. We need support. Will the PM commit his Ministers to working across Government to fix this for Hartlepool?

[The Prime Minister]

It is because of strong local Labour MPs like my hon. Friend that towns like Hartlepool, treated as an afterthought by the Conservatives, are having their future restored. We are making billions more available so that councils can properly fund social care, and we are driving down the cost of living for parents and their children, including with three free breakfast clubs in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and more than 3,000 children there no longer incapacitated by the two-child limit. That is the difference a Labour Government make.

Lord Mandelson

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The Prime Minister answered that question at Prime Minister’s questions. He was lied to about the depth and extent of the relationship.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I stand here acutely aware that I am the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, and I think today I speak for Hartlepudlians when I look at the evidence before us and say: undoubtedly, Peter Mandelson is a traitor. On that basis, it is important that the public have confidence in this process. Does the Minister agree?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I absolutely agree; my hon. Friend expresses the anger felt by many across the House.

Digital ID

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

That is exactly what a constituent of mine emailed me about—a constituent who voted Labour in 2024. They said, “If they can’t even control the leakage from the Government, how on earth can they control our data?”

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Like many Members, I have been inundated with messages. My Hartlepool constituents are hugely concerned. Does the hon. Member agree that part of the problem is that we got an announcement without the detail? I have written to the Minister with a number of questions that my constituents have put to me. Does the hon. Member think that Government Ministers owe our constituents answers about the detail of what they are proposing?

[Robbie Moore]

I could not agree more, but I suspect that the Minister will come out and reiterate the lines from the Prime Minister that he was given before the debate.

Just look at the social credit system in China. Facial recognition linked to ID penalises people. Blacklisted citizens cannot buy train or plane tickets, book hotels or apply for certain jobs. This Government have already indicated that migration work and renting will be tied to ID, but how long will it be before future Governments push further and accessing state services is brought under the control and monitoring of digital ID?

We are already seeing signs of such a framework in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the Online Safety Act 2023 and the One Login system. Combined with a formal digital ID, those frameworks would create a world of control for Whitehall and a soulless dystopia for the rest of us. Together, they replace the honesty and decency of human-to-human interaction with an opaque, mechanical “computer says no” future. The scary truth is that control and ID cards hold an appeal for anyone who has access to power. It takes a conscious effort by every one of us to resist the temptation. Power does corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

G20 and Ukraine

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We had a pretty good tone up until now. I am not here waving some piece of paper; I am working with Ukraine and with other countries to try to bring about a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. We all want a just and lasting peace, but it will not happen if we do not have negotiations. We have to have those negotiations with clear principles about accountability and with strong security guarantees. The hon. Member is not doing this House a service by undermining a serious effort by international partners to bring about a just and lasting peace. It is very easy to speak in this House; it is much harder in practice to negotiate an end to a conflict on just grounds. We will do so, as we have done from beginning to end—and as the last Government did, in all fairness—by being clear that we are the closest ally of Ukraine and the most supportive country. I am proud that that is the approach we have taken in this House.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister rightly said in his statement that Putin continues to seek to undermine our security. Those efforts were aided and abetted by Reform’s Nathan Gill when he took Russian bribes. He is a traitor to this country. How plausible does the Prime Minister think it is for that just to have been an isolated incident? Does he think that Reform’s refusal to investigate its own party and find out how many more Putin puppets and traitors lurk there tells its own story?

[The Prime Minister]

The way I would put it is this: if the leadership of Reform were confident that there are no other pro-Russia activities and links in their party, they would surely want to have the investigation. The very fact that they will not look at this tells me that they are not confident of that, and they do not want any of us to know about it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Member must have overlooked the fact that there was a UK-EU summit earlier this year, in which there were 10 strands to the change that we have already agreed in relation to the relationship with the EU, including closer trading relationships and closer work on defence and security; that is an iterative process that we will continue into next year. But he is absolutely right about the botched deal of the last Government and the damage that has done to our economy. We are just seeing some of the figures coming through in relation to that. That is one of the factors behind the way they crashed the economy.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q4. Football is a game based on fairness, yet brilliant clubs that unite communities every week, like Hartlepool, are being held back by a fundamental unfairness. The 3UP campaign—backed by 72 national league clubs, including Hartlepool United, and championed by Hartlepool legend Jeff Stelling—seeks to grant a third promotion place from the national league to league two. This simple change would be transformational for these historic clubs, many of which are over a century old. While I accept Arsenal may never directly benefit from such a change, does the Prime Minister agree that this campaign to put football first would help the new football regulator to protect club heritage, ensure stability, and put fairness and fans back at the heart of our game?

[The Prime Minister]

Can I start by wishing Hartlepool United the best for this season? My hon. Friend will appreciate that the structure of the leagues is a matter for the leagues themselves, but I commend his campaign and everything that he is putting behind it. I also pay tribute to the staff, fans and players of Sheffield Wednesday at this difficult time. We have delivered the Independent Football Regulator to stand up for fans and to make sure that clubs have fit and proper owners. The Conservatives used to support that, but now they oppose it.

Middle East

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and, of course, the peace deal. I also welcome his crystal clear statement that there can be no lasting peace or viable Palestinian state in which Hamas is involved in any way. Similarly, there can be no lasting peace without the reconstruction that is now desperately needed. The Prime Minister has said on a couple of occasions today that the public will be surprised when they see the extent of the devastation that has taken place. Right now, 400,000 tonnes of rubble need to be removed before a single bit of reconstruction can take place. Will he reject the isolationist calls from some quarters and agree that this country will rightly play its full role in ensuring that reconstruction takes place?

[The Prime Minister]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I genuinely think that that is the position that most Members across the House would want the Government to take and that they would support it.

Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response

Jonathan Brash Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

To the right hon. Gentleman’s point about potential criminal sanctions, I have always said that I stand ready to provide whatever evidence might be requested of the Cabinet Office and across Government to any investigation. To his point about a duty of candour, Sir Brian Langstaff said that there was not an explicit conspiracy; rather, there was a culture of institutional defensiveness whereby individual public servants put personal and institutional reputation above the public good. As I said earlier in response to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), the Government will bring forward legislation on a duty of candour. However, it is not just about legislation, landmark though it is; it is about leadership across public service to change culture, which will be important in the years ahead.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I thank the Paymaster General for his statement and for his correspondence on this issue on behalf of my constituent Alex Robinson. Alex lost her father in 2006 to this scandal, having already lost her mother as a child. She was her father’s carer from the age of 13. She is concerned that when a deceased victim leaves no spouse or partner, the estate is not entitled to the same compensation, irrespective of the role any member of that estate may have played in the victim’s life. Does the Minister agree that there are exceptional and unique cases, such as Alex’s, and that they need to be looked at differently? Will he meet me to explore how we can ensure that that happens?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I think the thoughts of the whole House are with my hon. Friend’s constituent, Alex, regarding the loss of her parents. On the point about carers, they are eligible for compensation under the scheme. If my hon. Friend is willing to write to me, I will be more than happy to have an individual discussion and correspondence on that case.