Andy Burnham

I thank the Minister for that answer. Sarah Steele was strangled and allegedly sexually assaulted by a US fighter pilot based at RAF Lakenheath. Like in several other cases, some involving child abuse, jurisdiction was wrongly handed to the Americans, with defendants facing a jury of US service personnel. The NATO treaty and the law say that in such cases, our police, prosecutors and courts should be in charge. Victims report charged suspects being free to travel without restriction, dubious acquittals, lighter punishments, and perpetrators potentially avoiding the sex offenders register. I have written to the Justice Secretary about this several times, and so far the replies have been quite general. Will the Government legislate so that any decision to surrender jurisdiction must be approved by an individual Minister?

It is obvious that the Minister does not want to put on record and own up to the fact that those convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour are, according to our understanding, eligible for early release. [ Interruption. ] The Minister says from a sedentary position that I should read; I will pass it on to Paris that he feels she should have just read. The public want clarity from Ministers on these complex matters, and it is right for me to ask this question. How can the Minister justify releasing those convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour early when we know that perpetrators who go on to commit offences like rape often start out with lower offences, like common assault, coercive and controlling behaviour and grooming. We know the patterns that emerge over time. Surely we should tackle this at the first instance and not let these people out early.

Does the Minister think that an apology for the slave trade issued by a Government who have absolutely no responsibility for it having happened, on behalf of a country in which there is no one alive who has any responsibility for what happened 300 and more years ago, will make the people who are seeking reparations more likely or less likely to intensify their demands?

Say yes.

It was great to see local schools like the Priory and Hitchin Boys’ and Girls’ lead the way on keeping phones out of the classroom. Having campaigned with parents and teachers to make this a norm, I am delighted that the Government are leading on this issue. As others have alluded to, the growth of generative AI is threatening to tread on children’s learning in the same way that smartphones did; just as we did with smartphones, we should not treat that as inevitable or unavoidable. How does the Minister intend to support our schools to ensure that generative AI can be used as an effective tool to support learning, but kept out of the spaces where it can be harmful to learning?

I draw the Minister’s attention to the comments that he made about the conversations with world leaders at CHOGM and not being able to engage. Half of the Government’s written statement on CHOGM was about conversations with Navin Ramgoolam around Mauritius and the Chagos deal. The Government are prepared to discuss a shared handover plan before Christmas with regard to Chagos. Last year, they also cited the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea as the main and most proximate threat to our ownership of the Chagos islands. Yet today and tomorrow, the Attorney General and six King’s counsel are in Hamburg at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea discussing British sovereignty claims. Why are the Government prepared to defend against ITLOS with regard to the Falkland Islands, but are prepared to give the Chagos islands away due to the potential threat of ITLOS?

I welcome these measures. Parents and teachers have called for them. This is the right thing to do. The Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams said that Meta would target teenage girls who deleted selfies with advertising for beauty products, skincare and even cosmetic procedures, monetising their insecurity. Tech giants have repeatedly shown that they will not regulate themselves. Is the Minister having conversations with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that algorithms are regulated to protect our kids?

First, I thank the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for the opportunity to attend CHOGM as a Member of this House, along with the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) and for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd). I know the Minister is here in place of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but I want to congratulate him on how he handled himself in the panels that he spoke on, which were about some very challenging topics for this Government. As we all agree on the value of the Commonwealth, what steps will the Government take to enhance the resilience of supply chains across the Commonwealth, to ensure that every part can benefit equally?

In Cheshire, we are leading the way on Esther Ghey’s phone-free education campaign, with 92% of state high schools in the county using lockable phone pouches this school year. That was made possible in no small part thanks to funding and leadership from our Labour police and crime commissioner, Dan Price. Will the Minister visit Cheshire to see the difference that that is making to safeguarding and educational outcomes in our local schools?

Speaking as a former teacher and, indeed, as a parent, I warmly welcome this announcement from the Minister. Our schools should be phone-free environments focused on learning. Furthermore, as a parent, when my daughter Alice leaves the front door in the morning to go to her brilliant Hartlepool school, and when she leaves the school gate at the end of the school day, I do want to be able to contact her and to know where she is. Does the Minister agree with me that schools banning pupils even being able to arrive at school with a phone are going too far, and that lots of parents would have serious concerns about that?

The only thing that is exceptional about Britain’s record on slavery is that we were the first country in the world to abolish it. We are the country of William Wilberforce. We are the country of the West Africa Squadron. Why are we entertaining this performative far-left nonsense? Why does the Prime Minister not just focus on what the British people actually want, which is to cut the cost of living and do something that helps our own constituents? [ Interruption. ] Government Members can groan as much as they want, but I wager this: what I am saying is more in tune with the people of this country than anything that we have heard from them today.

Today the Prime Minister has not come to the House to answer questions on his trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Not answering questions is becoming a pattern. The Prime Minister broke with convention by not allowing journalists with him on the trip to ask questions on this matter. Is it because he is running scared and only likes to answer soft-soap questions on social media, or is it because he is partway through changing his mind on giving reparations to these countries, just like he changed his mind on Brexit and let down the country and his Makerfield constituents?

I am delighted to come to the House today to welcome a proper phone ban in place for schools. The Government have finally done the right thing, but they have been on what I would euphemistically describe as a journey. We should remember that the former Prime Minister told us that a legislative phone ban was “completely unnecessary”. The previous Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), stood opposite me here and, in her warm and friendly manner, dismissed it as “a headline-grabbing gimmick”. When I raised this topic at Education questions, a then Education Minister told me to think of something better to go on—not condescending at all. When I asked the Government in this House to rule out a “not seen, not heard” policy, they refused. The stats that the Minister is citing today are correct, but they are essentially the same as the stats we quoted a year ago in this House, and the Government refused to act on them. Let me remind Labour Members how many times they voted against a legislative phone ban in schools: not once, not twice, but seven times. Even the Minister, who I am sure has agreed with me all along, was forced through the voting Lobbies time and again, and the new Education Secretary, who also voted against it, has clearly had a change of heart. The Conservatives and, to be fair, the Liberal Democrats, who also supported the ban, were told by Ministers that the majority of schools had a phone ban in place and that the existing guidance was working. It was therefore quite something this morning to have facts that I was repeatedly told in this House were incorrect being used by the Education Secretary, in the media, to justify the new guidance. We must also remember that the guidance was put on a statutory footing only a month ago. One month, and already the Government have to come back and toughen it up. We could have saved a lot of time and confusion for schools if the Government had just listened to us in the first place. The Minister has confirmed that the guidance will only come in next September. That is a self-inflicted whole extra year of lost learning time while schools have a previous set of guidance, issued only a month ago, that the Education Secretary admitted this morning is not working—all because the Government refused to listen to the evidence. That is at best frustrating and at worst chaotic. We have got there in the end, however, and this is a significant moment. I pay tribute to the many campaigners who have fought for this, the many parents who have spoken out and the many pupils who have bravely spoken about their own experiences. Smartphones in schools are a disaster for learning, a disaster for safeguarding and a disaster for happiness. This is an important step forward in giving children their childhood back. I welcome the news that the Government are consulting on an independent safety certification for edtech. Will the Minister clarify whether the review will look at all edtech products currently being used in schools or just new edtech products entering the market? Will he also confirm that the review will look at education outcomes as well as safeguarding? Does he have a timeframe for the consultation? How is the review consistent with rolling out unevidenced AI tutors for the most disadvantaged? Those are the very pupils who need evidence-led, teacher-led support. Will the Government commit to not rolling out the programme until they can guarantee the safety and efficacy of AI tutors? I welcome the Government finally getting to the right place. A full phone ban in schools is the right thing for behaviour and attainment in our classrooms. It will keep schools as places of learning and will turn the tide on the pervasive screen creep that is destroying childhood. We must never accept that just because something is new, it is progress; just because it involves technology, it is automatically better; and we must never again allow anything into our classrooms that has not been proven to be safe for children.

On the conversation about exclusions, may I make the case for young carers not to be excluded from the freedom to learn because of the distraction of what might be going on at home? That is why I have been calling—in conjunction with MYTIME Young Carers, a wonderful local charity—for a young carers champion in every school. I have written to the Minister to ask for a meeting to discuss that. Will he now agree to meet me to see how we can protect young carers not just in having a single point of contact, but in everything we do for them in our schools?

The Stanway school in Colchester gained national attention through a Channel 4 documentary called “Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones”, in which phone-free experiments saw pupils who took part reporting lower anxiety, improved concentration and an extra hour of sleep each night. Does the Minister agree that the experience of students in Colchester demonstrates the benefits of smartphone-free schools? What support will be in place to help more schools adopt those policies?

This Government’s early release scheme has put 80,000 criminals back on our streets. They have gone on to commit crimes again and again. Last year, more serious violent and sexual crimes were committed by ex-offenders than in any previous year on record, and around 40 prisoners a day now leave prison homeless. If the Government will continue to release unrehabilitated criminals on to our streets, why have they allowed 11 probation hostels—the very places meant to supervise them—to close under their watch?

Devon and Cornwall police cover one of the largest force areas anywhere in the country. When someone released early breaks their licence in a rural part of my region, officers have to go and find them and bring them back. I am sure that the Secretary of State can understand the constraints, given the large geographical area and their limited resources. What assessment has he made of the cost to local policing of recalls under the early release scheme?

Like you, Mr Speaker, I expected the Foreign Secretary. The Minister has been a friend these many years, and nobody is happier to see him than me, but it does somewhat surprise me—no doubt it surprises him, too—that the head of our delegation at the Heads of Government meeting has decided that it is not worth his effort to come and brief this House. Clearly he has better things to do than answer to the British people, whom I thought he was sent to represent. Anyway, we shall move on, because the understudy’s understudy is in their place. This statement, much like the meeting, will not answer the questions that we need answered if we are to shape a future for us all. It has instead, sadly, been overshadowed. Let me set out why. First, our Government, by failing to be clear right at the beginning—before CHOGM began, in fact—about their position on reparations, allowed the discussion to be diverted from the future and towards the past. I will not rehearse the arguments; Members will already know my position on the tragedy of slavery, and the endurance of this abhorrent crime against humanity—in Mauritania, for instance, where it continued until 1981, which is two years before the Minister was born, and in the Arabian peninsula, where slavery existed right up until the 1960s. Nor will I rehearse the slave raids from Algiers on to the Cornish coast or the courage of those sailors and soldiers who fought the evil slave trading kingdoms of Dahomey, which King Ghezo referred to as the glory of his people. Of course, Britain’s part in the slave empires was shameful; the past of the whole of humanity in slavery was shameful. The pride of Britain is that the Royal Navy, the West Africa Squadron and our people fought it when others were still defending it. Today, we can share the blame or we can look at the future. Instead of looking at the past, why are we not focused on the truth of modern slavery: the Uyghur detention facilities in Xinjiang; and the human trafficking enabled by Moscow that sees so many die in the Sahara and the Mediterranean? Let us not go over that; instead, let us focus on where we should be with the Commonwealth. Half of the Commonwealth is India. What lessons has the Minister—perhaps even the Foreign Secretary—drawn from the non-attendance of the Indian Prime Minister at this CHOGM and indeed past CHOGMs? What has the hon. Member learned about the importance of African nations in the Commonwealth membership? Countries like Nigeria demonstrate such vibrancy and such energy and could benefit from the capital of London. What has he learned from the green energy projects of Kenya about future opportunities in shared data networks and opportunities for growth? Indeed, given that the Prime Minister met the leaders of both Kenya and Nigeria, why have we heard nothing more about that? What is going on with an Africa strategy that would tie us together and give Britain an opportunity to develop the depth of relationship that is, sadly, being taken by China? Furthermore, where is the consistency in our dealings? What lessons have been learned about the Prime Minister’s swapping sides again and again on Chagos? First, he agreed with the Mauritian Prime Minister; then he agreed with the US President; and now, in echoes of what I can only describe as the Blairite 2000s, there is a consultation and a pledge waiting for resolution at the end of the year. Perhaps the Prime Minister will honour us by outlining what he has made a promise to do this time; perhaps he will have the grace to tell Parliament instead of hiding again. Given that the importance of the Caribbean to Britain is one subject on which I think we can all agree, what conversations has the hon. Member had on reversing the Chinese infiltration of those islands in the Americas so that we see islanders treated with the dignity they deserve—not, sadly, like the islanders Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong? It is always a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Bridgend. I hope that he enjoyed his trip in the sun. Sadly, he has returned without even a tan and with little else to show for his troubles. At least we have all learned one thing: while our Government waffle and waver, the King commands respect for his clarity and leadership. Thank God, at least, for that.

It remains crucial that the Government engage wholeheartedly with our friends and partners in the Commonwealth, especially now, in an insecure world, when other partnerships may be fraught. While I am pleased to see CHOGM emphasising the challenge of food insecurity, protecting our oceans and tackling climate change, it added up to warm words but sharp cuts in UK aid to Commonwealth nations. The aid budget to the Commonwealth has been slashed from £546 million in 2024-25 to £131 million in 2028-29, with over half of that going to Nigeria alone. All this is happening while humanitarian crises are continually underfunded and El Niño is already causing havoc around the world and is likely to force many millions more people into acute food insecurity over the next year. The King attended the launch of the Commonwealth nature initiative, but the UK Government failed to make a contribution. These cuts to official development assistance are hurting our partnerships in the Commonwealth, our international understanding and our influence. The Prime Minister has talked about Labour values driving his agenda and not making the mistake of wearing too many Tory clothes. Does the Minister agree that presiding over the deepest aid cuts this century—deeper than Donald Trump’s in America—looks like trying on the last Conservative Government’s clothes, and that Labour values would involve a return to the 0.7% aid target, which has been legislated for by this House? Will the Minister lay out a timeline to do this? I applaud the Foreign Secretary’s desire to take action on development finance and tackle unsustainable debt, but with the G20 fast approaching, will the Minister make a statement on how he will do this, alongside taking action on illicit financial flows and multilateral development bank reform, and with COP31 in Antalya this week, will he reassure the House that the UK will uphold its commitments to tackling the climate crisis?

May I first send our condolences to those who were killed in Poland? I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing the urgent question, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for all your support and protection for Members. It is, however, extremely disappointing that the Government did not come forward with their own statement. Members of this House and the other place—including Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani)—have again been targeted by the Chinese Communist party. Money channelled through Ministry of State Security front companies was used to secure kompromat to be weaponised by the Chinese state. This is an attack on our democracy, yet it was not significant enough for a Minister to come here of his or her own accord. Most shockingly, those targeted found out from the press. The Government did not brief them—and it is unfair to say that they could not be briefed, because the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), and I were briefed 10 days before the arrest of Christopher Cash, so people absolutely can be briefed in advance. The FBI arrested two individuals in Serbia in April 2025. They were indicted and fled to China, where they remain under Chinese Communist party protection. When did the Government first know? Has the relationship with the Five Eyes become so degraded that intelligence normally shared by the United States was withheld for over a year, or were they told and did they then decide that Members just did not deserve to know? This is a damning indictment of the Government’s approach to the Chinese Communist party. In June, the Five Eyes warned of economic honeytraps. In July, Chinese Communist party staff threatened Tibetan protesters with illegal tasers, and there have still been no repercussions. In September, MI5 warned that more than 100 university staff had been contributing to projects run by Chinese intelligence fronts. In October, the United States designated Confucius Institutes a national security threat, yet this Government have refused to implement protections that I secured in law which would enable them to be closed. This month, United Front networks reopened the overseas police stations that the shadow Foreign Secretary shut down in 2023. Meanwhile, Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong remain imprisoned in Hong Kong for speaking out for democracy. There are still zero registrations on the foreign influence registration scheme for anyone working for China, and the annual report is 133 days late under this Government. These are not incidents to be dismissed. This is an onslaught against our Parliament and our country, and the Government sit here pretending otherwise. Mandelson’s China reset has failed. It was dreamed up in conjunction with the National Security Adviser, whose vetting process was opaque at best and who remains missing in action from Parliament. This Government’s one token achievement was lifting sanctions. [ Interruption. ] Mr Speaker, to quote something you said recently, you were far more lenient with the others. What does the Chinese Communist party have to do for the Government to act? They should put it in the enhanced tier of FIRS and protect our country.