Westminster Hall

Tuesday 23 June 2026

[Graham Stringer in the Chair]

Any hon. Members who wish to take off their jackets have permission to do so. I call Melanie Onn to move the motion.

I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of fly tipping in residential areas and associated impacts.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to see so many colleagues here to participate in this important debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and colleagues who supported my application.

Fly tipping is often discussed as an environmental or waste management issue and a question of local authority enforcement. It is, of course, all those things, but in communities such as mine and across the country, it is more fundamental. It is about pride, belonging and whether people feel good about the place they call home. Residents often tell me they are tired of seeing mattresses dumped in alleyways, household waste abandoned on street corners and green spaces treated as rubbish tips.

Those are not isolated incidents; they become part of the everyday experience of a neighbourhood. The impact goes far beyond the physical waste itself. Surveys on environmental decay reveal that 86% of people living in heavily littered or fly tipped neighbourhoods feel embarrassed by their area. It is terrible that people should feel that. That statistic ought to concern us all. Environmental degradation damages mental wellbeing, erodes civic pride and fuels a cycle of hopelessness that can leave residents feeling disconnected from the communities around them.

People deserve to feel proud when they walk down their street, and to feel that their neighbourhood matters. When fly tipping becomes commonplace it sends exactly the opposite message. It tells residents that standards are slipping, that nobody cares and that decline is somehow acceptable. Once that perception takes hold it can be incredibly difficult to reverse.

We must also be honest about some of the pressures that have contributed to the problem. Across the country, councils have faced difficult decisions about waste services. Public waste disposal facilities have been reduced in some areas, opening hours have changed and restrictions have become more complicated. Residents frequently tell me that local tips can be difficult to use, with limitations on what can be taken, who can take it and how often visits can be made. None of that excuses criminal behaviour; those who dump waste illegally are responsible for their actions. But if we are serious about solving the problem, we need to understand all the factors that contribute to it.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Many of my residents are sick of persistent fly tipping blighting our community. This Government have passed laws that allow us to prosecute fly tippers, but residents are also frustrated by the cost of cleaning up this mess. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is imperative not only to clean up our communities but to make the fly tippers pay for it?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Why on earth should everybody else pay for the mess that others create, particularly hard pressed communities that are already struggling? Adding to their council tax burden or imposing additional costs is not fair.

In my constituency, fly tipping remains a significant problem for local communities. Waste is dumped, and the council acts properly to remove the waste but it comes back again. As has been mentioned, the problem is even more challenging when waste is dumped on private land, and the landowners have to endure the cost burden of removing sometimes hazardous quantities of waste. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need stronger enforcement, which should include greater use of CCTV to catch perpetrators and tougher penalties for offenders, which seems to be the only way to deal with this serious antisocial behaviour?

My hon. Friend makes a number of excellent points. In every community there are hotspots that people go back to again and again. There is provision for local authorities to use CCTV, but it has to be monitored; there is no point in having CCTV if it is not. Local authorities also have powers to use drones to follow vehicles that are committing the crime of excessive tipping. My hon. Friend is also right about the cost to private landowners. Other hon. Members might talk about more rural communities, the impact of fly tipping on rural land and the environmental waste their constituents are then required to clean up. It is incredibly challenging to deal with hazardous waste.

On rural and private land, the Environment Agency in my constituency has said that there is a gap in regulation when it comes to privately owned sites that are used for one purpose initially but gradually accumulate waste and become fly tipping destinations. The Environment Agency has no power to act against that because it is private land, and councils are also struggling to find the right approach. Does the hon. Lady consider that as a significant issue in rural constituencies such as mine?

It is interesting that the hon. Member says there might be a gap in regulations, and I suspect that that is the case for not just rural private land but all private land. I have the same thing in my constituency, where there are alleyways or unadopted areas that are frequently fly tipped. I was going come on to local authorities later, but I will just repeat myself—why not; this place is all about repetition, isn’t it? In those alleyways and on other private land, local authorities will say, “We don’t have responsibility for that.” I do think that the Environment Agency would be much more concerned about the dumping and fly tipping of hazardous waste, which has a broader environmental impact and falls into its area of responsibility.

It speaks to the timeliness of this debate that so many people want to contribute. On that specific point, my local authority of Bromley does very well cleaning up fly tipping, but it is sometimes a bit hamstrung because the waste is tipped on to housing association land. Residents perceive that to be the council’s responsibility, but it cannot do anything about it. Does the hon. Member have any thoughts about that?

The responsibilities of housing associations on their land is a similar issue, as they are facing financial challenges of their own. That is why we end up relying so much on communities to come together and do the clean up. There needs to be a much more holistic solution, but we cannot always rely on communities to step in to do something that has such a fundamental impact on them and the way people live their lives. I am sure that housing associations have an opportunity to work more closely with local authorities to try to come up with an improved solution.

The hon. Member—my Member of Parliament—is being very generous in giving way. Her comment about the community is very relevant. To give one example, there was an action day in Immingham only two or three weeks ago, which involved not only local authority councillors but, in our case, Lincolnshire Housing Partnership. The important thing I want to stress is that the funding was made available by Phillips 66, so does she agree that the private sector can make a contribution by supporting community groups?

I am very grateful for my constituent’s contribution. It is an excellent one, as always. He makes a very valid point; Phillips 66 is a great contributor to community activities across our areas, but I would not like us to rely on that all the time. It is a really welcome contribution and incredibly helpful. We are very grateful and community groups will be very grateful for any funding that they can get, but the fact that we have to rely on it so much speaks to our need to get a grip on this issue.

The hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) will know that recently we had a big fly tipping issue in Weelsby woods. That is just around the corner from where he lives, so he will know it very well. We saw an unauthorised encampment there, with a huge amount of waste left behind. There was no concern for the fact that it is one of our valued green spaces that families regularly attend. The images of what was left behind shocked local residents. What should have been valued green space was turned into a disgusting dumping ground. That demonstrated something important about our local communities and how they pull together, because when the council sent teams to clear the site, volunteers also stepped up to help. It was an encampment for only three or four days, but there were several tonnes of waste from lots of tree work that had been undertaken; all the waste from that had been dumped in the park. Although that incident highlights the scale of the challenge, it also highlighted the strength of community spirit across Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and Brigg and Immingham.

Before discussing policy solutions, I want to place on the record my thanks to the many local campaigners, volunteers, community interest companies like Empower and council staff who devote countless hours to improving our environment. I am referring to people like Zac from PickWalks, whose efforts have inspired countless residents, including lots of children, to take greater pride in their local area; and Frank Sparkes, who has become well known locally for his tireless work cleaning up the North Wall. He also taught me how to tie a fisherman’s net at the weekend, so thank you very much, Frank. I am not sure I can remember that or repeat it, but he was excellent.

I am referring to people like Jim Elliott, who has become known as the canoe river cleaner for spending his time removing rubbish from our waterways by canoe. I joined Jim on the water and quickly discovered that clearing litter while in a canoe requires considerably more skill and balance than I possess. Jim made it look effortless, but I think he spent just as much time trying to keep the boat upright as he did collecting the rubbish. I am referring also to our local Wombles litter picking group, which quietly and consistently makes a difference every week in our local area, and to members of our local Labour group, who have been working alongside these residents and volunteers, have cleared 11 rubbish filled alleyways across the constituency and continue to organise clean up operations throughout the area. That is tough work; it is not just turning up for a photo opportunity. They are grafting to clear the alleyways, and their efforts demonstrate something important—people care deeply about the area in which they live. The challenge for us as policymakers is ensuring that those residents are supported, rather than being forced to fight the same battles over and over again—the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) made earlier.

That is why I welcome the action already taken by the Labour Government. For too long, fly tipping has been treated as a low level nuisance rather than the serious offence that it is. This Government’s new approach rightly recognises that waste criminals should face meaningful consequences. I particularly welcome proposals for clean up squads. Under those plans, local authorities will be able to issue conditional cautions requiring offenders to undertake community payback—unpaid work cleaning streets, parks and public spaces, including the areas where they have dumped. That sends an important message about accountability. I welcome the plans that will allow councils to recover money directly from offenders to fund clean up operations and ensure that taxpayers are not left carrying the cost, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley also mentioned in his intervention.

Councils already have the power to seize vehicles involved in fly tipping, but Ministers are encouraging local authorities to go further and use the power that they have to crush vehicles used in these offences, increase public awareness of enforcement action and make better use of technology such as CCTV, drones and automatic number plate recognition. Those are practical tools that can help to identify offenders and improve conviction rates. I welcome the fact that repeat fly tippers now face the prospect of penalty points on their driving licence, with the possibility of disqualification for those who repeatedly offend. For some offenders the threat of losing their licence may prove a far more effective deterrent than a fine alone.

Those important reforms deserve recognition, but we can still go further. First, we need much stronger public awareness about waste carrier licences. Many residents unknowingly and unwittingly hand over waste to individuals who are advertising cheap disposal services online or through cold calling. They assume that the waste will be disposed of legally; instead, it often ends up dumped in alleyways, fields and green spaces. Too many people simply do not know that they have a responsibility to check that waste carriers are properly licenced. Public education must become a central part of our strategy.

Secondly, we need to address the cost and availability of bulky waste collection. If we want people to dispose of waste responsibly, the legal route must be straightforward, affordable and accessible. I would like consideration to be given to a more universal approach across local authorities so that residents can dispose of bulky household items without facing excessive costs or barriers. There could be joint bulky waste disposals between residents as well.

Thirdly, there is a role for landlords. In areas with a high turnover of private rented accommodation, waste accumulation often becomes a recurring problem during tenancy changes. Landlords should work much more closely with local authorities to ensure that proper waste disposal arrangements are in place and to prevent alleyways and communal areas from becoming dumping grounds. It will work in their favour too; it is much easier to rent a property in an area that looks like it is being cared for.

Finally, we need to look carefully at the enforcement processes. Local authorities frequently tell us that gathering evidence, issuing penalties and pursuing court action can be lengthy, expensive and resource intensive. If we want councils to make greater use of enforcement powers, we must ensure that those powers can be exercised efficiently and effectively. Reducing the cost, complexity and evidential burden associated with prosecutions would help authorities to take action more quickly and consistently.

Earlier we touched on the “not on our land” approach from local authorities. If local authorities are not in a position to keep an area clean, what are they for? They are there for local people and to take care of our local areas. If local authorities support devolution and want power to be in the hands of those who know their areas better, then they should also be concerned about those areas and not be so quick to say, “There is nothing that we can do about that.”

I do not know if colleagues have found the same but in my local area, when fly tipping is on private land, the local authority has often advised local councillors to utilise their ward funding to come up with a solution. In some cases, people are turning to private companies, as my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham said. That is not what ward funding is intended for. It could all get sucked into tidying that up when it should be used for much more productive, proactive and positive actions.

As for the cost benefit, we could have economies of scale. If local authorities, housing associations and other public bodies that have an interest in keeping our areas clean, tidy and safe came together, it would prove a much more effective use of public money. It does not matter whether it is ward funding, local authority money or housing association money; it is all public money, so let us use it as effectively and efficiently as we can.

I will conclude to allow the many colleagues who are interested to contribute to this debate. Fly tipping is often seen as a hyper localised issued, but its consequences are national. It affects how people feel about their communities; it affects mental wellbeing, health and environmental health; it affects perceptions of safety and security; it affects tourism, investment and neighbourhood confidence; and most importantly, it affects whether people believe that their community is valued. The people of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes have a right to expect to live in neighbourhoods that they can be proud of.

The volunteers, campaigners, CICs and council staff who I have mentioned are already doing extraordinary work. The Government have taken welcome and significant steps to strengthen enforcement and hold offenders to account, but by improving awareness, strengthening disposal options and supporting councils in tackling the wider causes of waste crime we can go further still. I look forward to working with the Government to ensure that communities across the country are cleaner, safer and places that people are proud to call home.

Order. I remind hon. Members that if they want to participate in the debate, they should bob at the end of every speech. I will call the Front Bench spokespeople at 10.30 am. Doing the simple arithmetic, that means there will be a time limit of four minutes on speeches.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate.

In Manchester alone last year, there were around 15,000 reports of fly tipping. That is more than 40 incidents every single day. In my constituency the situation is particularly bad. In Levenshulme, there was one fly tipping complaint for every four households. In Longsight, there were more than 1,000 incidents last year, the highest in Manchester, with Levenshulme close behind on 952. Behind every single one of these reports is a person who cares about where they live and who deserves so much better than having to live with illegally dumped waste in their backyards. The chances are that it is even worse than the numbers show. I regularly speak to constituents who, understandably, have lost all faith in reporting at all, because, too often, it does not lead to any action and the waste remains in our alleyways, in our kids’ parks and on our street corners.

This is not about blaming communities. It is about ensuring that people have clean, safe streets wherever they live, regardless of their postcode. Tackling fly tipping means proper enforcement against rogue waste operators and fraudulent businesses, but it also means giving local authorities the money that they need to actually deal with it, and that is where things just do not add up. In Greater Manchester, we have seen huge development in recent years, with property and construction firms making huge profits. Yet very little of that wealth is being returned to the communities that made it possible. I see clean streets around glossy new developments, while surrounding areas and neighbourhoods are left littered with waste.

A YouGov and Oxfam survey found that 78% of people support a 2% wealth tax on net assets over £10 million. If we are serious about fairness and cleaning up our communities, properly taxing extreme wealth is part of our solution. That is how we give councils the tools and the money they need to fix problems like fly tipping. Today, I ask the Minister whether they will discuss with the Chancellor how to ensure that people who are getting super rich from property development contribute fairly to the communities they profit from to fund the clean up of issues like fly tipping.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for bringing forward this important debate.

Fly tipping is not only damaging to our environment—it makes our communities worse places to live. No one wants to walk past those huge piles of rubbish. I represent Morecambe and Lunesdale, which hosts some of the most beautiful spots in the country. I have a national landscape, a national park, the beautiful Lune valley and of course Heysham and Morecambe, which look out across the beautiful Morecambe bay. Morecambe’s town motto is “Beauty surrounds, health abounds” and I would like to preserve that beauty for my constituents.

Rural constituents contact me about this issue, but as the debate is focused on residential areas, I will limit myself to talking about problems raised with me in towns like Morecambe, Heysham and Carnforth. I put on the record my thanks to the local Wombles groups and the litter pickers, who go out every week in all conditions to help tidy up our community. Residents in Morecambe regularly tell me about their frustration at rubbish left in alleyways and ginnels. They worry about letting their kids go out to play because of broken glass. They are worried about rats—not to mention the expense. Millions of pounds are spent in England every year just to clean up waste.

I asked my constituents what more could be done to tackle fly tipping and an overwhelming number of people cited the cost of properly disposing of rubbish as a driver for fly tipping. Private waste companies and council removal services are expensive and people without a car just do not have any other option, so if money is tight, there is a strong temptation to do the wrong thing and avoid disposal fees. Although I might get very grumpy at the outcome, we have to take an approach of what works and what might prevent the problem. Suggestions from my constituents included regular neighbourhood skip days, where people could use council skips, three bulky item pick ups per year, keeping the restrictions on van trips to the tip but removing the need to book so that people can go on spec, community waste points and incentive schemes. I am really interested in the Minister’s comments on prevention.

Prevention will not fix the problem entirely; we need enforcement. I am really pleased to see the Government publish the waste crime action plan, which takes a zero tolerance approach. The Environment Agency receiving an extra £45 million over the next three years is important to boost enforcement. I really like that fly tippers will face being ordered to clean up their mess and will be required to repay the cost of their illegally dumped waste. That is really important. They could also face penalty points on their licences and, if they are a serious repeat offender, even lose their licences.

Constituents talk to me about cameras. I know that some councils have been using drones as well, and we have to look at all the ways that we can tackle this issue. Lancaster city council covers the Lancashire part of my constituency, and it found that across the whole of their district, fly tipping is prevalent in five wards. Those are the five most deprived wards, so people who already face a lot of challenges also have to deal with their neighbourhood looking like crap. It is just not fair. What surprised me was that the city council said that some people told them that they did not know that fly tipping was illegal—they did not know that it was a criminal offence. I am slightly suspicious of that.

To close, the waste crime action plan allows for tougher enforcement, which is very welcome, and for more resources for that. We also have to make sure it is easier for people to do the right thing in the first place, encourage a sense of pride in people’s local communities and ensure that people take personal responsibility for their actions.

I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for not just securing this debate, but articulating each and every point that impacts the agenda of fly tipping. It is prevalent not just in my constituency, but across the whole city of Birmingham, and, as has been said, across the whole country. The hon. Member said that repetition makes any argument more persuasive, but she has touched on all the key points that I was going to speak about.

Fly tipping is an eyesore. It damages the appearance of streets, parks and green spaces. It attracts vermin, impacts on health and obstructs pavements. Children and vulnerable adults are all impacted. Within certain parts of my constituency of Birmingham Perry Barr specifically, there is an ageing community. While they take pride in their neighbourhood, unfortunately the fact that they are old and vulnerable means that they cannot deal with the issues like fit and able people can.

The ageing community owns properties that have private land at the rear, and unfortunately that has been abused. Not by them—they have been very proud of their back spaces—but by rogue waste collectors who have identified that particular location and regularly fly tip there. Unfortunately, the local council cannot deal with it; they simply say that it is private land and that they are not able to touch the dumped rubbish. Local councillors have not been receiving any community chest award money to spend, so the rubbish is simply piling up, causing immense issues for vulnerable people. It really comes down to finances. It is not an issue in silo, but needs to be dealt with across all departments within the local council.

We often hear that CCTV or drones may assist, but all that comes with costs that cannot be met unless councils are resourced. Unfortunately, we had bankruptcy in Birmingham. We are out of that bankruptcy at present, but that does not mean that we have sufficient resources to be able to deal with the types of fly tipping that we witness almost daily. Those regular hotspots are real eyesores.

I reflect back on when I was growing up in a little town called Aston. As a kid, I used to relish the thought of playing snowballs with my siblings in the morning during winter. By the time we got up, the whole street was clean because every neighbour had got out in the morning and cleaned their front patch. The only place we could play snowballs was in the local park. That is the level of pride that we want to re instil within our communities. It can be achieved only if we have a council that is able to effectively resource and tackle the fly tipping.

There needs to be a national campaign. I do not think this is a local issue for a local campaign. Education needs to be at the forefront: young children need to be taught at school and young people need to be taken out for regular sessions to clean streets and take pride in the local community. We also need methods to report people who offend. We need to embolden our communities. A lot of people out there take pride and want to report such problems, but fear that if they do so, they will be identified and there may be repercussions. It comes down to resources.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. Fly tipping in residential and rural areas is a blight across the communities that I represent, whether it is the most rural communities, such as Belsay and Kirkley Hall, or areas such as Throckley, Newburn and Walbottle on the more urban side of my seat. I pay particular tribute to community organisations, such as the Ponteland Anti Litter Squad and the Hexham Wombles, that take action to clear up local litter and against fly tipping, most of which do excellent jobs. There are other groups in the 200 towns and villages throughout my constituency, but I would detain everyone for quite a long time if I named them all.

I welcome the waste crime action plan. It sets an excellent foundation for taking action to tackle fly tipping, which blights communities across the span of my constituency. However, I am slightly concerned that on the more rural side of my seat, there is a growing problem of individual areas becoming magnets for mega fly tipping. While those areas are not hyper residential, like the areas that many of my wise and well informed colleagues have spoken about, mega fly tipping is nevertheless a blight on the communities that live around them, use those green spaces, and enjoy the countryside and their surroundings.

I have been really heartened to see statistics coming out of Northumberland and Newcastle that show the hard work of council workers in addressing fly tipping. Unfortunately, I think there is a structural issue within Northumberland in particular, where the Conservative administration neglects the west of the county. It directs resources away from the area I represent to areas that it prefers. There is a slight sense, certainly in my constituency, that we are getting short changed—that the Conservatives are putting up our council tax for very little in return in the west of the county.

I want to touch briefly on the Walbottle Road tip in Newburn, which is a major driver of fly tipping and of unease and unrest over fly tipping in my constituency, simply because it is impossible to turn into. It has been a running sore for residents over many years, including when my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) represented this part of Newcastle. I urge the Minister to think about how she can encourage councils to make their tips more accessible to address those concerns. One of the priorities for the new Reform councillors in Throckley, Walbottle and Newburn is to make sure that residents are able to access that tip and that the Mill Vale estate no longer has to deal with either the constant fumes and sheer noise from traffic idling just outside it or the fly tipping we are seeing around it.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for setting the scene incredibly well. I welcome the Minister, who we are very fortunate to have. She is committed to the very things that we are asking for. I wish her well as she pursues these matters. We are not talking about a minor inconvenience or a bit of harmless litter; we are talking about deliberate, criminal environmental vandalism that directly devalues people’s homes, attracts vermin to their doorsteps and robs law abiding citizens of their hard earned money.

I am going to give a Northern Ireland perspective, which will not be a big surprise to anybody, but it is important that we put on record where we are. The Northern Ireland environmental statistics report confirms that public anger has reached a boiling point. A staggering 73% of citizens are deeply concerned about our environment. For the first time, air and water pollution has been officially overtaken as the single greatest environmental anxiety for households in Northern Ireland by illegal dumping and littering, which was chosen by some 34% of respondents.

When I am at home, I live in Greyabbey. The main town is Newtownards, where my office is. I drive up and down that road two to three times a day—maybe more. People litter their KFCs, their McDonald’s, their sandwiches and their tins. They go out the window and are usually hidden in the grass until the grass is cut. When the grass is cut, guess what? The litter that has been lying there for maybe six months suddenly becomes accessible. The National Trust in Mount Stewart is out, as is the council, trying to do something.

We have a beautiful nation. Recent figures show that almost 340 major illegal dumping sites were actively investigated in Northern Ireland in the past year alone. There is an epidemic. My constituency crosses two council areas: Ards and North Down, but I also partially represent Newry, Mourne and Down. They suffer some of the worst littering. They have some 31 major investigated illegal waste sites.

That is not counting the mattresses that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes referred to. People do not take their mattress down to the dump; they throw it into the laybys of the Ards peninsula. They do not count the black bins full of rotting household waste, abandoned in the scenic coastal paths of Bangor or the rural lanes of the Ards peninsula. Every single week, local councils are forced to divert immense resources just to clean up after these waste cowboys. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency has spent some half a million pounds clearing up illegal sites just in the past period.

I feel honoured to intervene on the hon. Gentleman; it is often the other way around. Fly tipping is a big issue in my constituency, as it is in his. There is frequent fly tipping around the cemetery in Carmunnock, for example. Does he agree that part of the problem with tackling this is a lack of proper funding for local government? In Glasgow, for example, the Scottish Government have not properly funded Glasgow city council. Does he agree that tackling this requires resourcing for local government?

I certainly do. It is an absolute disgrace that, across Northern Ireland, we see fewer than six successful illegal dumping prosecutions per year. Criminal fly tippers are treating minor fixed penalties as nothing more than a business expense. That must change. We need to back our local authorities in Ards and North Down with the statutory teeth that they need. If a person is caught destroying a residential neighbourhood with illegal waste, the authorities should have the immediate power to crush their vehicle and publicly name and shame them.

Our communities deserve clean, safe and dignified places to raise their families. It is time to stop mollycoddling these criminals, clean up our streets, and restore pride to residential areas in the whole of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I support the comments from the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and look forward to the Minister’s response and the other contributions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing the debate and for her excellent speech outlining all the issues our residents face with fly tipping. Nothing makes me more fed up and deflated than walking round the community where I raise my kids and seeing litter and piles of rubbish everywhere.

Fly tipping is a blight on my city. Portsmouth is a beautiful place, yet a few lazy and selfish criminals can cause enormous damage and make my city look a mess. I have been contacted by countless residents about illegal waste dumping across my constituency. Commercial waste has been dumped behind businesses in North End, attracting rats and harming legitimate local shops and the work they do to serve the community.

This is not just a low level or cosmetic issue; it is serious because fly tipping puts my constituents at risk. These piles of rubbish create environmental hazards, increase fire risks and endanger public health. Unfortunately, the problem has been made worse by the failure of Liberal Democrat run Portsmouth city council to act effectively and use all the levers available to it, be that swifter collections, the use of CCTV or drones, number plate recognition or the crushing of vehicles. They must take some ownership and some accountability, instead of sloping their shoulders and saying it is “not on our land”.

I will give some examples. Outside the charity bins near Cosham high street, piles of rubbish bags and mattresses regularly accumulate. The council puts up notices saying it is aware of the problem and will remove the waste as soon as possible, yet fines are rarely enforced and offenders rarely identified. It is little surprise that people continue to use this site as their own personal tip, because there are no consequences.

I have also dealt with cases where mattresses have been dumped beside the motorway, where responsibility is shared between National Highways and the council. Even when number plates have been captured on camera, enforcement action has not followed. This is not good enough. Near my office in Copnor, forecourts are regularly used as dumping grounds. The council often acts only after repeated reports, even when the waste presents a real fire hazard. One constituent, Tracey, outlined to me her frustrations: “I often wonder why I pay my council tax when all I walk past is rubbish, fly tipping and dirty toiletries on my dog walks.”

That is not what anyone wants to see when they leave their home. Every pile of rubbish sends a message that nobody cares and leaves residents feeling angry, frustrated and disheartened.

I join my hon. Friends in thanking those volunteers and groups who help to clear up our streets: the litter pickers, the shoreline cleaners and the generally brilliant, hard working people across my city. I hope that Portsmouth city council listens to this debate and understands the impact that failing to tackle fly tipping is having on ordinary residents. It is time to raise the game. The council must remove waste more quickly so that sites do not attract further dumping, and it must properly investigate and penalise offenders. It must also look to support initiatives that enable people to dump their larger items swiftly and cheaply.

I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who have launched the toughest ever crackdown on waste crime, and I am pleased to see that Labour’s waste crime action plan will require fly tippers to join clean up squads on the streets they have trashed, because they should take responsibility. The Government will also look to put penalty points on driving licences, and repeat offenders could lose their vehicles. That sends a clear message to the people doing this: “You mess up our streets and you will clean up our streets. There are consequences for your time and your money.” It is not just about individuals. We are targeting the organised criminal gangs behind illegal waste sites through £45 million of new investment for the Environment Agency.

This job of cleaning up and taking pride in our streets has started, but there is much more to be done. I am proud that this Government are taking it seriously and are leading by example and using every available power to crack down on waste crime. I hope that Portsmouth city council takes notes and gives this daily nuisance the attention it deserves, so that residents can once again value and have pride in their neighbourhoods.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this important debate on an issue that affects almost everybody in this room.

The waste crime action plan put forward by the Government contains several promising measures to tackle the persistent issue of fly tipping in our communities. I welcome the additional £45 million allocated to the Environment Agency for waste crime enforcement, which will go a long way to strengthening investigations and addressing the problem at source. However, the measures proposed could go further, because residents like mine in Broxtowe have reported that rubbish is not only being left in the alleyway behind their property but being thrown over their fence and left in their garden. After reporting the incident, they discovered that as the landowner, they were responsible for clearing the waste themselves, as well as the associated costs. I am sure we would all agree that that just cannot be right. Victims of fly tipping should not be left to bear the cost of the crime committed against them, yet this widespread injustice continues across the country.

The legal framework already allows for significant penalties, including unlimited fines, vehicle seizures and even custodial sentences. However, these powers are too rarely enforced. In fact, despite more than 1.26 million recorded incidents, enforcement action remains astoundingly low. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, less than 0.2% of perpetrators have enforcement action taken against them. My residents in Stapleford who live in an area with a communal garden space have repeatedly raised concerns about waste being dumped in that area, and the council continues to clear it. Time and again, the cycle persists, because those responsible are not being held to account.

The core issue is that without resources to properly investigate, enforcement action cannot be taken, and therefore we will never tackle the root cause of fly tipping. I urge the Minister to consider further resources for local authorities that will allow them to form fly tipping enforcement teams that could sufficiently investigate instances of fly tipping so that strong enforcement action can be taken. That would not just be to clear the waste, but to pursue offenders and recover the costs. I hope that the Minister will also consider stronger measures to ensure that offenders are held to account in instances where they are identified, so that they not only face fines but are required to cover the full cost of clearance and disposal, therefore removing the burden from victims.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. We have heard some meaningful contributions so far, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for giving us the opportunity to praise our communities for the extremely hard work they are putting into our areas, but also to call out the situation that has got us here.

In my constituency of North West Leicestershire, I am proud to have some incredibly dedicated litter picking groups. Their commitment to keeping our towns and surrounding areas clean is amazing, but it should not be necessary. I want to thank a number of them today, including the locally known Belton Sam, Coalville CAN for its recent litter pick of Coalville, and the regular litter pickers, including those in Hugglescote and Market Street in Ashby de la Zouch. There are so many more who help from a much wider area and who travel to litter pick across Leicestershire, including my good friends Gibbo and Bob. They tell me that they are reporting an increasing number of fly tips and have seen an increase in the amount of litter dropped in their local communities.

For this speech, I reached out to Carly Hosker, a constituent and member of Castle Donington Litter Wombles. Carly said: “Fly tipping affects everyone who lives nearby. It’s an eyesore, can attract even more rubbish, is a danger to wildlife and often leaves local people feeling ignored and very frustrated when nothing gets done about it. For me, it’s disheartening to see areas that should be enjoyed by residents, walkers, cyclists and families covered in waste.”

I have been a regular litter picker over the years and have to agree with Carly’s words. As our constituents’ representatives, it is now our job to back those words with action. Does the Minister agree that those responsible for these issues should be able to deal with those who commit acts of fly tipping, rather than dealing with the communities forced to clean up after them?

I welcome the measures already announced in the waste crime action plan, because the scale of this issue is significant. Across the east midlands alone, there were around 96,000 fly tipping incidents in a single year. My own council, North West Leicestershire, has dealt with about 700, or two every single day. Nationally, the picture is worsening, with over 1.2 million incidents recorded across England in 2024-25—a 9% increase in just one year.

Those figures do not even include the waste dumped on private land, with landowners often shouldering the costs themselves. I worked for a housing association for many years, and fly tipping was a huge financial burden on it. There is also the frustration about the highway, where there is often confusion about who is responsible: is it the district, the county or National Highways? We have hotspots all over North West Leicestershire, including the A42 and the A453, to name just two. They are gateways into my constituency, but they are too dangerous for volunteers, and we have to question why it should be left to volunteers to clean them up.

There is often no clear approach led by authorities. Could the Minister please outline the cross authority work that has been done so that the gateways to our communities—our highways—are not forgotten as “somebody else’s responsibility”. In this House, we owe it to Carly, Litter Wombles across the country and every community volunteer to match their commitment to action.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on securing this important debate.

Scotland is not immune to fly tipping, which has a significant and often underestimated impact on our communities, affecting not only the physical environment but residents’ mental health and sense of wellbeing. In truth, it is a serious criminal act that damages our streets and neighbourhoods and places a growing demand on already overstretched local authority cleansing department budgets.

There have been incidents where rogue traders have lured consumers with cheap cash only rates to clear household waste, only to illegally dump it on our roadsides, countryside and lay bys to avoid paying commercial fees. I have seen at first hand the impact of fly tipping in my hometown and across my constituency: furniture, mattresses and even drug paraphernalia dumped on public footpaths and street corners and even at children’s play parks. Residents complain of waste piling up in the streets, bringing their area down. They cannot understand why the local authority fails to keep on top of this scourge on our communities.

I know that local councils are trying, but they are dealing with the financial hand they have been dealt amid some of the severest cuts to local government since devolution. Budgets have been cut in real terms year after year, and as a result Scottish councils are merely managing decline across our communities, with enforcement staff being stretched ever thinner.

Put plainly, cuts to councils are cuts to our communities. Accumulated waste can make a neighbourhood feel neglected and unsafe, contributing to stress, anxiety and a decline in community pride. When public spaces are repeatedly polluted, it can foster feelings of frustration and helplessness among residents, particularly if the issue is persistent and slow to be addressed.

To take East Ayrshire council, the figures speak for themselves: between 2019-20 and 2021-22, the council recorded over 2,500 fly tipping incidents, ranking 13th out of 32 Scottish councils. More recently, the 2024-25 data shows that over 4,500 incidents were reported in the authority, which demonstrates that there is a huge issue—and it is getting worse.

It does not help when access to the local tip is by appointment only. That is a cost cutting measure, but when legal disposal becomes harder, the risk is that illegal disposal increases. Due to very low prosecution and penalty rates, 50% of Scottish local authorities believe that enforcement is not effective, and there is no consistency across agencies. In Scotland since 2019, over 280,000 incidents have been reported, with only 3,300 fines issued. That means that only a tiny proportion of offenders face any consequences, proving that the system lacks credible deterrence. That needs to change.

I want to put on record my thanks to all the volunteer litter pickers, who play a vital and uplifting role in strengthening our communities, bringing people together through a shared purpose and pride in their surroundings. Their efforts not only improve the physical appearance of local areas but send a powerful message that people care, inspiring others to take responsibility and to respect public spaces. Such efforts are commendable, but they should not be necessary. There is no excuse for fly tipping.

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing the debate, because fly tipping affects every community in this country.

Stevenage was the country’s first post war new town, which is great, because our forefathers and mothers planned a great new town, but there are many green spaces and woods between residential developments. I also have four villages in my constituency—Knebworth, Codicote, Datchworth and Aston—and each has similar issues to the town of Stevenage.

Most of us are rightly proud of our communities, but a few people, who are not necessarily from our communities, wreck all that. Many of us go out week in, week out to clean up our streets. We have our Stevenage Wombles; just like Wombles across the country, they do sterling work, and I have joined them in the old town. Stevenage Labour party also has its own action team, which goes out once a month. We do our bit, and we go into the woods and clear them out, but do you know what? It is sometimes an impossible task. You try moving a fridge with just a few volunteers; it is just not possible. We have also found suitcases with things in them that I cannot possibly mention here. All of that is just not acceptable.

People are reporting fly tipping incidents. Just yesterday, on one of our Stevenage Facebook groups, a diligent citizen spotted an address on a TV licence letter and reported it straightaway. I know that our council will take firm and effective action, but it is dealing with 3,000 reported fly tipping incidents a year and spending more than £1.6 million.

Some Members have talked about funding. Yes, it is important, and we are fortunate in Stevenage that this Labour Government have increased our funding by 9% in the last year. That is great, but the extra funding needs to be matched with powers, so I am also grateful to the Government for their waste crime action plan. We have heard about some of the measures, which I fully support, including clean up squads and taking away driving licences.

However, how will the Government monitor these things, because they will vary across the country? What potential measures does the Minister have in mind to go further? My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes set out some interesting ideas today, which we should follow up. It cannot just be for councils to tackle this; we need private landlords to take action, we need to crack down on the gangs and we need to get the police involved. There is a lot more that we need to do For now, however, it is right that all of us in this place should place on record our thanks to all those in our communities who will not let their streets and green spaces be blighted by this scourge. I am glad that action has been taken, and I can only call for more.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this incredibly important debate.

I pay tribute to the South Park Users Group in Ilford South. Come rain or shine, they dedicate their time to keep our parks and streets clean through regular community litter picks. I also put on record my appreciation for the River Roding Trust, whose members collectively cleaned up 200 bags of rubbish from the River Roding, picking up the slack when Thames Water and the Environment Agency should have acted. I commend them for their dedication to ensuring that the residents of Ilford South live in a cleaner and safer environment.

Fly tipping is a scourge that repeatedly comes up in conversations with residents. Recently, I visited a local school where children as young as 10 interrogated me about the fly tipping that blights our area. The fly tippers may think that they are invisible and that they can dump their waste and get away with it, but fly tipping is one of the most visible crimes in our communities. When people see it on their way to work, on the school run or while walking their dog, it drains local pride, chips away at social trust and sends a message that our streets, parks and rivers do not matter.

As a fellow east Londoner, I know that fly tipping blights our streets and neighbourhoods; it shows a real lack of respect for our communities. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should commend the Government for putting the onus on fly tippers by making sure that they pay—if they do the waste crime, they do the waste time—and making sure that they are responsible for cleaning up their own mess?

I absolutely agree. I have been saying for the last 10 years that that should be done. The Government finally acting is a real positive; we are going in the right direction.

Fly tipping blights our area, but when the council removes it quickly, people feel it is okay to dump rubbish on our streets because someone will pick it up. We cannot win either way; it becomes a vicious cycle. The more that people see the local area as a dumping ground, the more some feel enabled to fly tip, meaning that the problem spirals unless it is fully tackled.

I know from working with my local council that decisive steps are being taken to tackle this blight on our communities. For instance, it maintains free bulky waste collection, removing a lame excuse for fly tipping. It is cheaper to pick up from people’s doorsteps in a controlled manner than from the streets once the waste has been dumped. Redbridge council has implemented not only that policy, but the wall of shame, which is an approach that has been adopted by other councils: naming and shaming to expose the waste cowboys who impose their mess on us. That sends a clear message that such behaviour is unacceptable in Ilford South and that those who fly tip on our streets will be held accountable.

I welcome the decisive actions the Government have already taken to support local authorities battling fly tipping, from expanding council powers to crushing the vehicles of serial fly tippers and making offenders clean up the very streets and parks they have ruined. We need to go further to target the very worst offenders. The council needs to be able to set larger maximum fines to generally deter serial fly tippers and to demonstrate that although fly tipping may seem inconsequential to them, it is one of the worst forms of antisocial behaviour. With tough enforcement, councils could use extra revenue to fund detection—

Order. Your time is up. Before calling the Front Bench spokespeople, I remind hon. Members that although there are often good reasons for being late to a debate, it is a courtesy to both the Chair and other hon. Members participating in the debate to put in a note explaining those reasons. I call Sarah Dyke.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this important debate.

The Government estimate that there were 1.26 million fly tipping incidents across England last year and that waste crime costs the economy more than £1 billion a year. Such incidents represent an upward trend, with 3,000 incidents reported to Somerset council alone. However, those figures exclude incidents on private land and cases involving large scale illegal dumping. Moreover, as is always the case, a substantial number of waste crimes are never recorded.

I want to recognise the work being done in Somerset to tackle the problem head on. Somerset council’s Recycle More initiative handles more than 170,000 tonnes of household waste every year. Major infrastructure investment in 2020 upgraded facilities and introduced more frequent collections. Somerset’s flexible plastics trial—now concluded—demonstrated clearly how targeted local innovation can reduce fly tipping in residential areas. That trial is proof of what is possible, yet without sustained national funding to back such local initiatives, progress stalls. The will is there, but the resources are not.

Waste crime has been dubbed the “new narcotics” by the former chair of the Environment Agency. That simply cannot go on. We must recognise it for what it is: a national emergency. We need to hold the perpetrators of these crimes to account. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to clean up illegal waste sites, catch those responsible and finally get a handle on the true extent of this environmental disaster. Organised crime gangs are making millions of pounds through illegal waste activity, without any regard for local communities, public health or the environment.

Earlier this year, a spotlight was thrown on to the issue when an estimated 21,000 tonnes of illegal waste was found at a site near Kidlington in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller). I thank him for his tireless campaigning on the issue, which led to more than 400 lorry loads of waste being removed from that site alone. There are at least 11 other similar sites identified across England, demonstrating the scale of these organised crime networks.

We are not just talking about a nuisance; this is waste crime on an industrial level. Unfortunately, it is clear that the Environment Agency is not currently equipped to tackle it. Enforcement responsibilities are dispersed across multiple agencies, with no single body explicitly accountable for both prosecution and clearing up waste crime. Local authorities and the Environment Agency have powers, but no duties to enforce, which weakens their overall enforcement effectiveness.

The Minister for Nature made that point well in a debate on the Kidlington site earlier this year, highlighting the lack of a coherent body to which to report waste crime. If citizens are not clear about where to report, they are likely to do nothing. The Environment Agency is responsible for large scale incidents or where waste contains hazardous materials. Smaller incidents are handled by local authorities, unless it is on private land, of course, where councils handle prosecution but are not responsible for clearing up the mess. The responsibility is on members of the public to be aware of complicated regulations and then report to the correct body. Given the clear under reporting of crime, that is simply not happening effectively.

That is why the Liberal Democrats have called for a single national hotline for waste crime, to improve reporting, mapping and detection, because those responsible must be caught. Only 31% of incidents are currently investigated and more than half of those result in no further action, with only 13 custodial sentences handed down in England in 2024-25. As the National Rural Crime Network’s report into waste crime makes clear, the legal framework is not the problem. Unlimited fines can be levied, vehicles can be seized and prison sentences of up to five years can be handed out, but those powers are rarely used. In addition, there is an enforcement postcode lottery depending on where the offence occurs.

A recent House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee inquiry concluded that serious organised waste crime is significantly under prioritised, despite its environmental, economic and social impacts. It was therefore disappointing that the Government rejected the Committee’s recommendation for an independent review into the entire system of waste crime. The Liberal Democrats call once again on the Minister to reverse that decision, come forward with a review and set out a Government strategy to tackle illegal dumping, including measurable metrics and targets. The Environment Agency and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime must also be adequately resourced to tackle this crime.

It is impossible to talk about enforcement without also addressing the conditions that allow this criminal market to thrive in the first place. We must review the current household waste recycling system that in part creates a market for criminal gangs to exploit. Further, decades of local authority budget cuts have eaten away at local services, with many now placing charges on the use of household waste recycling centres—an issue some residents in my constituency now face. Dorset council’s recent decision to charge Somerset residents an £8.50 fee to use the Dorset council household recycling centre in Sherborne has forced residents in Milborne Port, Henstridge, Charlton Horethorne, Corton Denham, Templecombe and surrounding areas to make a round trip of up to 28-miles to access a free household waste recycling facility in Somerset.

In addition to increasing the environmental impact of residents’ waste disposal, the new charge risks pushing people to consider illegal methods of waste disposal. Criminal gangs know that, and they are ready to exploit that temptation. I brought a petition to Parliament on this matter earlier this year that had garnered significant local support. The solution is clear: fix the recycling system, or accept that we are handing criminal gangs a business opportunity. The choice is really that simple.

The waste industry estimates that 35% of waste crime is committed by organised criminal groups, and there is reason to believe that that figure is increasing. The national rural crime unit took a report on waste crime and its links to wider rural crime to DEFRA, but it has not been published, despite repeated requests. I ask once again: will the Minister publish the report and show that the Government are committed to tackling organised crime gangs operating in the countryside?

As with a lot of rural crime, local police forces can struggle to deal with waste crime effectively due to its organised nature and the cross border tactics deployed by criminals; yet it falls short of the National Crime Agency’s responsibility, giving criminal gangs free rein to exploit this gap. The Liberal Democrats are calling for the National Crime Agency to take over investigations into illegal dumps in the most serious cases and to improve co ordination with local police forces. The new national police service, which was announced in the King’s Speech, will assume responsibility for serious organised crime operations, but we wait to see how organised waste crime fits within that.

I have raised my concerns about the Government’s lack of understanding about the specific needs of rural communities on many occasions, yet the policing White Paper from January made hardly any reference to rural crime. In fact, only 619 police officers and staff were assigned to dedicated rural crime teams across 37 police forces in England and Wales in 2024, representing a paltry 0.4% of the workforce.

In Somerset, there are only two—sometimes a couple more—dedicated rural crime officers covering more than 1,300 square miles; rural communities know all too well what that means in practice when crime strikes. A farmer in Long Sutton told me they were recently hit by their second break in within 12 months; thousands of pounds of equipment was stolen but, unsurprisingly, they received little meaningful police action. That is not an isolated failure; it is what under resourcing looks like on the ground. Proper reforms are urgently required to increase both capability and capacity. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a “countryside copper” guarantee for properly resourced dedicated rural crime teams or specialists to be embedded in every police force. I hope the Government will consider taking those proposals forward.

Criminal gangs are running sophisticated multi cross border operations, and the only response available is from fragmented agencies with under resourced enforcement and powers that are almost never used. The problem is not the law, as there is already the option to levy unlimited fines and five year sentences; they simply are not being applied. More penalties on the statute book will change nothing, if no one is resourced to enforce them. What we need is co ordination, accountability and the political will to treat waste crime as what it is—organised crime. I urge the Minister to show that this Government are finally ready to do that.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for bringing us this important debate. We have heard many contributions about the impact on local pride, sense of belonging and importantly mental health, but it was uplifting that pretty much all Members spoke about the great work that volunteers do to tackle litter and fly tipping in their area. It seems that everyone has some Wombles in their area—I am not 100% sure of the collective noun for Wombles, but I think it might follow the wombat and be a wisdom of Wombles. I am very pleased to say that in Epping Forest we have the Loughton town council Wombles.

They are not Wombles, but the Strangford Lough and Newtownards Wildfowlers clear the foreshore at Strangford Lough every Sunday—they did it this Sunday past. Their work as volunteers is very much admired.

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. We have heard great contributions from across the House today.

Let me turn to some of the figures, which speak for themselves. Councils in England dealt with 1.26 million incidents of fly tipping in 2024-25. That was a 9% increase on the previous year, and both the fifth successive annual increase and among the highest figure on record. The majority of those incidents, 62%, involved household waste. The most common sources were not lorry loads from organised criminals, although that is an issue I will come to, but car boots and small vans—everyday domestic dumps.

Across the country, our constituents have sadly become all too familiar with the sight of dumped bin bags, mattresses and white goods including fridges, freezers, washing machines and dishwashers. The effects are serious. As well as the obvious awful environmental consequences and the effects on nature and wildlife, fly tipping is a public health problem, as dumped waste attracts vermin, creates fire risk and can contaminate soil and local watercourses. The harm is not only physical. Antisocial behaviour such as fly tipping causes real anxiety and distress to residents who live with it.

Sadly, my constituents in Epping Forest are not immune to the blight of fly tipping and its harmful impacts, with many serious cases across our area caused by shameless criminals who should face the full extent of the law. Fly tipping threatens the precious wildlife and biodiversity that our forest of Epping Forest is so privileged to enjoy. As a positive counter to that situation, I have been privileged to meet unsung heroes, litter picking groups right across Epping Forest, including Waltham Abbey community group and Theydon Bois parish council, who selflessly give up their time to clean up our communities, as I have seen at first hand on joining their litter picks.

However, the sight of copious numbers of discarded large nitrous oxide canisters, used illegally for drug misuse and then chucked on the side of roads for those who do the right thing to clear up, is incredibly concerning. As I have raised in the House many times—I raised it with the Minister just last week—any activity to clear up waste needs to address that issue as a priority for urban, rural and semi rural communities alike. Will the Minister outline the steps that the Government are taking to tackle the illegal use of nitrous oxide and the subsequent discarding of dangerous canisters, damaging our environment?

The previous Conservative Government understood the fly tipping problem and the need for further action. We increased the upper limit for fixed penalty notices for fly tipping from £400 to £1,000 and established the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, a multi agency taskforce bringing together key stakeholders, including the Environment Agency, the police, the National Crime Agency, the British Transport Police, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management. Through intelligence sharing and resource prioritisation, it has supported hundreds of operations contributing to arrests. I am pleased that the current Government are continuing with that measure.

We Conservatives also introduced several projects across England that sought to crack down on fly tipping in residential areas, including portable CCTV cameras to patrol and capture footage across Northumberland, anti climb fencing to protect neighbourhood areas in Hyndburn and larger recycling bins in better locations in Mansfield to ensure that the public have access to the correct disposal facilities. Those projects had demonstrable positive effects.

In Durham, which received funding from the last Government, the county council introduced educational bin stickers and permanent signage and installed CCTV on existing lighting columns. As a result, fly tipping was cut by more than 60%. In Hyndburn, installing fencing and gates to prevent access to fly tipping hotspots saw fly tipping decrease by 100% in those areas in the following three months. The council saved approximately £4,000 in waste removal and clean up costs over that period.

In addition, the Conservative Government passed the landmark Environment Act 2021, which laid the foundation for electronic waste tracking, a measure the current Government are now implementing. I had the opportunity to discuss that with the Minister just last week as we passed a necessary piece of secondary legislation on that subject.

The Minister will be aware that His Majesty’s official Opposition tabled amendments during the passage of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 that would have added points to driving licences for fly tipping. That was a Conservative manifesto commitment and it is most welcome that the Government have finally adopted that policy.

On the subject of manifestos, the Labour manifesto included this commitment: “Fly tippers and vandals will…be forced to clean up the mess they have created.”

I am sure that the Minister will have had the same conversations as I have had with farmers and landowners about the issue of fly tipping on private property: that is not the responsibility of the local authority, whereas on public land it tends to be. We have heard about that from across the House today.

When the fly tipping is on private property, the landowner in many cases is left to pay sometimes thousands of pounds to clean up someone else’s mess. To make the situation worse, the landowner may sometimes face landfill tax liabilities despite being the victim, not the perpetrator. Meanwhile, offenders frequently face little or no meaningful action. Once again, the figures speak for themselves: nine in 10 members of the Country Land and Business Association report being targeted within the past year, with over three quarters suffering a significant financial impact. Although stronger enforcement and prevention measures will help to reduce incidents happening, can the Minister outline what support is available to landowners and farmers who are being particularly targeted?

I would like to touch on the fact that although fly tipping happens all over the country, some areas suffer more than others. The last Government provided targeted investment to the areas most affected by fly tipping. Furthermore, just as the very act of fly tipping varies geographically, so too does the rate of enforcement action. Only 31% of fly tipping incidents are investigated, and over half the investigations result in no further action. Across England in 2024-25, there were just 13 custodial sentences for fly tipping offences.

The Government have issued guidance to local councils, but guidance is one thing and action another. The Minister may be aware that the Countryside Alliance has called on the Government to incentivise local authorities to use the enforcement powers available to them. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that suggestion.

We are united across the House in our shared desire to end fly tipping and to ensure that those who commit this crime are punished appropriately. To do that, local authorities need the right resources and tools, but more importantly they need to use them. We can do more to tackle fly tipping, and I hope that the Government come forward with ambitious proposals.

It has been great today to see so many people from across the House talking not only about this issue, but very much about what it means to their local community. A sense of optimism comes from highlighting the great work that local volunteers do. To conclude, I thank for their great contributions and interventions my hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) and for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) and the hon. Members for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer), for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan), for Hexham (Joe Morris), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell), for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones), for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) and for Ilford South (Jas Athwal).

Order. I ask the Minister to leave a couple of minutes for the proposer of the debate to wind up.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this very well attended debate. Let me also thank hon. Members from across the House who have made valuable points. It is great to hear from the Opposition Front Bench spokespeople about everything that this Government need to do, but it was under the coalition Government and their cuts that the beginnings of this public squalor occurred. In the so called big society of David Cameron, we did not realise we were all going to have to become litter picking Womble troops, set up our own food banks to feed our communities and end up being lollipop crossing wardens as well, because of the severe cuts that happened to local government on the coalition Government’s watch.

It is fitting that we are having this debate at the beginning of London Climate Action Week. Everybody’s environment starts at their front door—it is not something out there in the oceans and forests; it is about stuff that is literally in the streets where we live. As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) said, this is a matter of social justice. It is about environmental justice, but also about the poorest people bearing the consequences of environmental crime. It is an epidemic that proliferated under the coalition and it became a pandemic from 2015. The failure to implement any new policy and the starvation of local government that saw local tips close led to this criminal activity and this waste crime epidemic.

Fly tipping scars our streets and parks and takes pride away but it also robs us, as taxpayers. In the 2024-25 financial year alone, waste criminals—they are not cowboys; they are criminals—evaded at least £1 billion of landfill tax. Every fridge and bit of kitchen equipment dumped as a result of a refurb has not been disposed of correctly in either landfill or incineration; that is unacceptable. We are determined to take back control of our streets, parks and countryside from those criminals.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) talked about setting up the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. Since coming into office, we have boosted the Environment Agency’s enforcement budget for the current financial year by 50%, from £10 million to over £15 million. Over the next three years, we will give the Environment Agency an additional £45 million, so that budget is going up from £10 million to £15 million this year and then up to £30 million—we have trebled it. We are not producing action plans, but putting our money where our mouth is. That will mean more boots on the ground and more drones in the air.

We have pursued major regulatory reforms and boosted the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. Since the Government came to power, the EA has stopped illegal waste activity at over 1,500 sites and has achieved 125 prosecutions, with 10 people going to prison. Crimestoppers has launched a national campaign encouraging the public to play their part by calling 0800 555 111 to anonymously report suspicious activity. I encourage all hon. Members to amplify that campaign, which is running on social media at the moment. Our waste crime action plan is the next step and it is a scale up. First, we are preventing illegal activity before it starts; secondly, we are strengthening enforcement so that offenders are caught and punished; and thirdly, we are cleaning up the most harmful sites. Let me take each of those points in turn.

First there is prevention. Stopping waste crime means putting legislation through Parliament that will replace the outdated paper systems, an issue neglected under the previous Government, with mandatory digital waste tracking: a single UK wide platform that will monitor waste movements in real time. Regulators will be able to spot diversion away from legitimate pathways and spot fraud, such as misdescription of waste, at a much earlier stage in the chain.

We have laid secondary legislation that will overhaul the regulation of the waste carriers, brokers and dealers system so that there will be no more Beau Vines registered as waste dealers. We are moving from a light touch system to full environmental permitting. We are removing widely abused waste permit exemptions on tyres, end of life vehicles and scrap metal, and tightening up seven other waste permit exemptions. We are also going after the tax avoiders. HMRC is expanding tax check rules to the waste sector, so if someone’s tax record is questionable, we will ask them questions before renewing their licence.

Will the Minister give way?

I will make some progress. We are matching prevention with tougher enforcement and pursuing the criminals with every tool in the box. We are increasing the Environment Agency’s budget, as I mentioned, and giving it new police style powers to intervene earlier, disrupt the criminals and bring them to justice before their illegal operations become established. We have to nip this in the bud when it happens; that is what we know works.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will finish my point. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime is strengthening its hand. It is bringing together environmental watchdogs, police forces and the National Crime Agency to dismantle the serious organised crime networks that blight our communities. The penalties for waste crime must match the harm it causes. The carriers, brokers and dealers reform will increase penalties for offenders to up to five years in prison. We know that sometimes those offenders will not be prosecuted for environmental crime but potentially for money laundering because they are not just criminals in one area; they have an entire criminal enterprise of which waste crime is just one branch.

On the clean up, we are going after the criminals to make sure that they pay. We have worked with other Departments to publish criteria for cleaning up those sites where intervention is most needed. We are currently funding clean up for Bolton House Road in Wigan, Alan Ramsbottom Way in Hyndburn and Worthing Road in Sheffield. We will go much further to prevent land owners picking up the bill in the future and work with the insurance industry to explore new models to shield farmers, business and land owners from bearing the cost of waste in their areas.

We recognise the role that councils have and the different challenges that they face. Thanks to this Labour Government, they have more powers at their disposal than ever before: issuing fixed penalty notices, prosecuting offenders and launching investigations. Ealing council, for example, has issued 1,993 fixed penalty notices for fly tipping in 2024-25. When councils say that they do not have the money, it is often that they do not have the will or the skills. They can also seize the vehicles of suspected fly tippers and crush them—or, for those interested in reuse, as I am, sell them. We have published best practice guidance and case studies on vehicle seizure to give councils the confidence to use those powers.

The National Fly Tipping Prevention Group, chaired by DEFRA officials, has that guidance and Members may wish to bring it to the attention of their local councils. We have secured powers in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 for courts to impose up to nine penalty points on driving licences for fly tipping offences. That is a strong deterrent and will make people think twice before they do such a job for their mates on the weekend.

We are also consulting on a proposal to give local authorities powers to issue conditional cautions to suspected fly tippers. Those are a range of pre court community based sanctions. We all want to see these guys—it is mostly guys—going to prison, but this Government inherited a court backlog along with prisons full to bursting. However, these cautions could see offenders cleaning our streets or parks in an unpaid capacity, and being required to pay back the cost of cleaning up the waste that they have dumped. It gives local authorities another tool in the box.

I pay tribute to all the volunteers who have worked in this area, not least in my own city of Coventry, including at Destination Ball Hill and the Reverend Matthew Bull at St John the Divine, where I spent a very sweaty two hours cleaning up Willenhall last Friday.

Will the Minister give way?

I will not.

I went back on Saturday and already someone had littered their Burger King wrapper out of a car. The issue is about people and it is very annoying. As a cyclist, I remember posting a cigarette box back through the window of a motorist who had just littered it right in front of my bike; that was one of my more fruity exchanges.

We need to follow Coventry city council’s lead and have a wall of shame and CCTV, as there is in areas such as Clements Street in my constituency. Regarding the situation in Hexham, there is Waste and Resources Action Programme guidance on the accessibility of household waste and recycling centres. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) to bring that guidance to the attention of his council. It is also important that we have more tidy Fridays. Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe has been seconded from the Metropolitan police to the National Police Chief’s Council to co ordinate this work between police forces across the country.

I am disappointed to hear about the Lib Dems in Portsmouth. It is really important for us to work with National Highways and crowd everybody into this space.

I thank the Minister for that response. I welcome the news about the tax checks and greater intervention of HMRC and the Organised Crime Task Force. Perhaps it would help to bring Louisa Rolfe into Parliament for a roundtable to discuss how police forces are co ordinating on this matter across the country; there would be widespread interest, judging by the number of people who have contributed today. I am very grateful to colleagues for turning up and supporting this debate.

I am keen to explore what the point about councils having the funds but not the will or the skills means in practice. Fundamentally, the issue is about an agreement between the people and the state. We pay our taxes with an expectation that services will be provided. The social contract is quite fragile at the moment and easily undermined. It is disappointing that so many of our fellow citizens are undermining it for the majority in the country. It is worth remembering that the social contract remains and continues; perhaps we should focus on the positives, given that so many people believe in it, reinforce it and give their time.

I thank Members for their time and contributions. It was all incredibly thoughtful. I look forward to continuing discussions with the Minister.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of fly tipping in residential areas and associated impacts.

I beg to move, That this House has considered UK Ireland co operation on border security.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Ten years ago today, the citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. That historic decision should have ushered in a new era. People voted to strengthen our borders, reclaim our sovereignty and put the safety of our citizens first.

During the negotiations that followed, Northern Ireland was repeatedly assured that our place in the United Kingdom would be respected and protected, but what has followed has been nothing short of betrayal. Post Brexit settlements were largely negotiated by politicians who voted to remain—people whose hearts were never in the democratic mandate with which they were entrusted. The result: a border system so broken that only one asylum seeker has been returned to the Republic of Ireland since 2020—I repeat, that is only one asylum seeker over a five year period—even as illegal entrants exploit the border day after day. That is simply unacceptable.

I commend my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The party that she and I belong to has been highlighting this back door approach for a number of years, but the Government have refused to act. The people recently took to the streets in their thousands to tell their Government peacefully that action was needed. Does she agree that the Government must listen and begin to act today? We look forward to what the Minister will say to reassure us.

I will address just that as I go on with my speech. We are the only part of the UK with a soft land border with the EU. That reality has been downplayed by politicians in London and Dublin alike when it comes to illegal immigration. Northern Ireland has been left uniquely exposed—the weak link in the UK’s border security chain—and our people have been put at risk. In the case of the Sudanese attacker, they were quite literally at risk of life and limb. The attempted beheading in Belfast has served as a brutal reminder to us all. That is what happens when Northern Ireland’s security is treated as an afterthought.

The attacker came here illegally. He travelled from Sudan to Paris, flew to Dublin and took a bus to Belfast. That is all public knowledge. He was granted asylum with astonishing haste. He passed through two other safe countries first. He completed a 10-page application to gain access—really? It is simply not acceptable that our UK border with the Republic of Ireland has been left so porous.

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. Given the clear and present danger posed by terrorism across the world, organised crime, and the trafficking of drugs, people and illegal weapons across the border, does she agree that it is incumbent on both Governments to deepen real time intelligence and data sharing, and to tighten the legal and procedural frameworks to streamline extradition? I also point out that our border is totally open; thousands of people could be entering the UK through Northern Ireland. We do not have any numbers, we do not know who is coming, and we do not know how good or bad those individuals could be.

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The first duty of Government is to protect its citizens. When violent offenders can simply walk or drive across the border, that duty is not being met. The Government have taken strenuous efforts to check goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland, including plants, agricultural machinery and seeds, yet illegal migrants can simply hop on a bus from the Republic of Ireland and cross the border, no questions asked and no vetting required.

When functioning properly, the common travel area is a practical arrangement that works well for people living right across these islands. It ensures that UK and Irish citizens can travel relatively freely within the zone, at least in principle. That is a sensible system and we should keep it that way.

Is the hon. Lady surprised by the misrepresentation from the Secretary of State about what the common travel area means? It means simply that there is common travel for those who are legally in the country, not those who are illegally in the country. Is she also surprised that, for all the Government’s talk, they have taken no steps to deal with the pull factors that bring these illegal immigrants to the United Kingdom? They get free accommodation immediately when they apply for asylum, a weekly amount of money and they are registered with a GP and a dentist, and we are then surprised that they pass through many safe countries to come to the United Kingdom.

I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is reading my speech—I agree totally. For the CTA to work, it cannot be abused. It was built on trust between two sovereign nations. It is not a back door for illegal migration. In theory, the CTA is not intended for asylum seekers, but, in practice, the open land border is being shamelessly exploited by people who want to dodge UK immigration controls. The attack in Belfast is clear evidence that this loophole is wide open to abuse by dangerous individuals.

The problems do not stop there. Abuse of the CTA is happening right across the board, not only on our roads but at our airports and seaports. In the past year alone, more than 900 individuals have been detected abusing CTA routes. Northern Ireland is being used as a soft point of access into the United Kingdom. While London and Dublin trade warm words about co operation, our ports, airports and communities are carrying the burden of a system that is simply not working.

On the issue of the porous border, no one expects a hard border constituting installations and so on, but I have been trying to get the Government to release the figures about how many electronic travel authorisations there have been, and I never get an answer. We do not even know the numbers for people who are coming in legally to tour, visit or holiday.

My hon. Friend is correct. The fact that there is a lack of information that the Government are willing to provide on all manner of things regarding the border and movements back and forward is frustrating.

We need bus and rail checks like those in the Republic. The Republic of Ireland already carries out immigration checks without damaging the CTA. It has shown that it is perfectly possible to balance two things: maintaining the ease of movement while implementing targeted enforcement to protect public safety. We must remember that nothing in the Belfast agreement prevents proper immigration checks. The agreement requires the removal of military infrastructure. It did not, and never could, prevent the UK from protecting the integrity of its own borders.

When migrants began fleeing to Northern Ireland to avoid the Rwanda scheme, the Republic of Ireland responded by intensifying immigration checks on vehicles travelling south. Buses and other vehicles regularly get pulled over on roads south of the border in order to verify people’s identity documents. If the Republic can use that kind of targeted enforcement to protect its citizens, why can we not do the same in Northern Ireland?

When people see weak border controls and a Government unwilling to grip the issue, frustrations grow. Upper Bann is home to people from many different backgrounds who make an enormous contribution to our community every day. They run businesses, work in our hospitals and care homes, contribute to our economy and enrich community life. I am particularly proud of the Indian community in Upper Bann. They are a wonderful people, whose entrepreneurial spirit and strong family values have enriched our constituency. That is why I draw a clear distinction between legal and illegal immigration. My concerns today are about illegal immigration and the border that is too often exploited by those trying to bypass proper processes.

As politicians, we must stop talking around this issue and start addressing it. The public deserve honesty about long standing failures to tackle immigration and secure our borders. Tensions do not appear out of thin air, and if politicians simply offer warm words while dodging the root cause, those tensions will only deepen. Legitimate concerns must not be dismissed.

We must also be honest about another uncomfortable truth. It is not racist to be concerned about illegal immigration. It is not racist to expect secure borders. It is not racist to ask who is entering our country, how they have arrived here and whether the system is operating fairly or correctly. The overwhelming majority of people raising these concerns are decent, law abiding citizens who care deeply about their communities and their country. They have every right to express their concerns through peaceful and lawful protests.

Too often, however, those asking legitimate questions have been dismissed, smeared or ignored. Some of the language used by sections of the media and weak politicians has been disgraceful. Rather than engaging with genuine public concerns, they have chosen to caricature, lecture or label people. That approach does not solve the problem; it only deepens public frustration and further erodes trust in our institutions. As politicians, our responsibility is not to silence concerns or pretend that they do not exist. Our responsibility is to listen, speak honestly and take action when action is needed.

Let me be clear: I condemn violence. I have repeatedly called for calm, for respect for the law, and for the space to address the real issues that lie beneath the anger. There is no justification for attacking innocent people, destroying property or attacking the police. That being said, we must not be distracted from the legitimate concerns about illegal immigration. The root cause of the problem can no longer be ignored. We need people to see that the Government in Westminster are on their side. That starts with being honest about why so many people are coming to the United Kingdom and exploiting the soft border.

Britain is seen as an attractive destination. Those who arrive know they will receive taxpayer funded accommodation, weekly financial support payments, free access to NHS healthcare, school places for their children, interpretation services, legal aid and other forms of support. They also know that enforcement is weak and removals are rare, which is a powerful pull factor.

The cost for asylum hotel accommodation in 2023, at the height of the crisis, was around £9 million per day, every day. Even now, it is estimated that the cost of housing asylum seekers will rocket to £15.3 billion, as opposed to the £4.5 billion that had been forecast. That is more than three times the original estimate. These are not abstract figures; this is taxpayers’ money that could otherwise be spent on the NHS, our schools, our roads and our police.

The British people are generous and compassionate; they will always support those who are genuinely fleeing persecution. But every Government have a first duty to look after their own citizens. Let us be honest: the boats that people see coming in have single males on them, and if I or you were fleeing a war torn country, what is the first thing you would seek to protect? It would be your wife and your family. While the extra emergency funding for the PSNI is welcome, the damage has already been done. We need action that prevents the violence in the first place.

In closing, I have three requests of the Minister. First, what steps will he take to ensure that there is an operational plan that includes the rapid removal of those with no right to be here and a joint approach that stops violent offenders exploiting the differences between the two jurisdictions? Secondly, what steps will he take to review CTA safeguards and press for action regarding better checks in Northern Ireland? Lastly, how does he intend to restore public trust in the UK’s broken, exploited immigration system?

If we truly want to realise the promise of Brexit, Northern Ireland’s place in the Union must mean something. Protecting citizens is a basic duty of any sovereign state, and that includes consistent border control across all four nations of the UK. If we take the tough decisions now, we can forge a future where security is guaranteed and sovereignty is upheld, and we have a UK that stands strong, tall and united once again.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing this debate on a topic of great significance. We have had a number of contributions, and I am grateful for them all. I respect the valid concerns and absolutely agree that having those concerns is not racist.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I began my remarks by making the very simple, but important, point that the security of the UK border depends to a very large extent on co operation. The nature of the threats we face demands that we work relentlessly across services, sectors and borders to ensure that we have the clearest possible picture of what and who is coming into our country.

In that effort, Ireland is without question one of our most crucial partners. It is a deep and long standing partnership underpinned by a shared determination to uphold the first duty of any Government: ensuring the safety and security of our nations. It is also an active partnership. The CTA is at the centre of the active partnership. Having been in operation for over a century, it is an enduring arrangement between the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Crown dependencies. It is unique and invaluable, allowing British and Irish citizens to move freely, live and work across our jurisdictions and maintain the close links that underpin our shared history.

However, the success of the CTA depends above all on us preserving its security and integrity. That means working closely with our Irish counterparts to identify emerging risks and trends. Our co operation is comprehensive, spanning operational activity, intelligence sharing and joint strategic planning. When patterns of abuse are detected, we co ordinate action to disrupt them, ensuring a consistent and effective response on both sides. We are taking that co operation further. At the UK Ireland summit in March, the Prime Minister and Taoiseach agreed to expand our immigration data sharing arrangements. That work is aimed squarely at preventing those who are not entitled to CTA rights from exploiting the free movement provisions. That is an important step forward in further strengthening the security architecture that underpins the CTA.

It is also important to recognise that although the CTA enables close co operation, it does not require fully harmonised immigration systems. Each country retains control of its own borders and decision making. While there are no routine immigration controls within the CTA and no controls on the Northern Ireland Ireland land border, the UK operates intelligence led enforcement activity on CTA routes to identify those attempting to abuse the CTA arrangement. Those targeted risk based interventions also operate away from the land border in Northern Ireland. Let me be clear: everyone entering the United Kingdom must meet our immigration requirements, regardless of where they arrive from. Where individuals attempt to evade those requirements, they are liable to be detained and, if appropriate, removed and deported.

In Northern Ireland, the absence of a hard border remains fundamental, supporting peace, stability and the commitment of the Good Friday agreement. However, the openness must be matched by robust modern enforcement of our border security through our joint work with Ireland and the Crown dependencies, to further secure the external border of the CTA, and in country through our intelligence led operational activity on intra CTA routes.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing this debate. Does the Minister understand that when he speaks of co operation between the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, it rings hollow when immigration officials in Dublin airport indicate where the bus to Belfast is? They proactively indicate to individuals how they can access the United Kingdom. Does the Minister understand that I could give him a litany of cases of individuals who have been removed from the United Kingdom and returned to Dublin—the country in which they arrived—only for them to return on the Ulsterbus? One individual flouted the system in that way on three separate occasions.

Does the Minister understand that any agreement around data sharing rings hollow when the Home Office will not tell us how many people enter the UK from the Republic of Ireland, how many apply in Drumkeen House in Belfast or how many are removed not just from Northern Ireland, but the United Kingdom as a whole, and even more so when the Home Secretary says that is because of the Belfast agreement? That is not right and there needs to be some openness.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his well made points. I disagree that those important diplomatic relations and agreements are hollow, but I will take away the point about the Irish border and feed it back to officials. That is disturbing, and of course I absolutely disagree with it.

I turn briefly to our work on immigration enforcement. We have removed nearly 70,000 individuals since the end of March, which is a 41% increase on the number of returns recorded in the previous 21-month period. The Government will step up and intensify immigration enforcement to track down, detain, arrest and remove illegal migrants in Northern Ireland. The Home Secretary is investing more than £3 billion in immigration enforcement activity over the next three years, including in Northern Ireland, where we will see a 20% increase in officers compared with 2023.

I cannot ignore the extremely important points made about the incident in Belfast, which disturbed us all. I agree that action needs to be taken to ensure that those in our country do not commit offences. Foreign national offender removals have increased significantly under this Government, but we do not hide behind that. We understand that there is more to do, and we will continue to pursue, deport and remove those who should not be here. I will not go into any more detail about that specific individual than we have already given. We have confirmed that he is Sudanese, and we know how he entered the country.

An important point was made about pull factors. We inherited a situation in which illegal and legal migration was too high. Illegal migration is still too high. We see that on small boat crossings and other clandestine entry points. We have reformed and are reforming the immigration system to remove the pull factors, making it less attractive to come to the country. We are aligning our asylum system with the rest of Europe to reduce the asylum shopping that we have seen over the last four or five years. We are also making it easier to remove and deport people, which is why that number is up 41% to nearly 70,000, but we will go further, and there will be more announcements on that in due course.

Illegal migration is costly, which is another reason to bring it down. Asylum accommodation costs the taxpayer far too much, so we are moving individuals out of hotels and into larger sites. In Northern Ireland, asylum accommodation has reduced by about 10%.

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann for securing this debate. I am grateful to her and all Members who contributed. They raised important points, and I am pleased to have had this opportunity to reaffirm the UK Government’s steadfast commitment.

I thank the Minister for his response, but my constituents will be listening, and they will say that they have learned absolutely nothing and know nothing more about illegal immigration than is already in the public domain. They will have heard the word “disturbing” in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who referenced the case of an individual returning three times.

We are living with this in Northern Ireland. We are living in communities that feel unsafe because of illegal immigration, yet they see a Government who are not even willing to take the full time to debate this issue, and are unwilling to give us evidence that they are taking it seriously. The Minister talks about data sharing—really? We need action. We need buses. We need real checks. We need action, not data sharing.

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. I absolutely disagree with the framing that we are not taking this issue seriously. We are here today having a debate, and on top of that we are working day in, day out to fix the immigration system that we inherited. Deportations, removals and asylum processing are up, and hotel use is down. That is not by accident; it is through commitment and hard work from the Home Office.

I am the Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal, and I, too, am at the front of the illegal migration problem, so I understand the frustration and the passion. I agree that it is not racist to have those views against illegal migration. We are working so hard to fix it, but it does not happen overnight. Members have an absolute commitment from the Home Secretary and all Home Office Ministers that we are dealing with it, and we are looking at the CTA, too. As I have set out, a close and active partnership is already in place, and it will undoubtedly remain an integral part of our efforts to detect, disrupt and deter the threats we face to secure our border and ultimately to keep our country safe.

Question put and agreed to.

Sitting suspended.

[Sir Jeremy Wright in the Chair]

I beg to move, That this House has considered UK Indonesia collaboration on environmental sustainability.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I am also pleased to see the Minister for the Indo Pacific in her place; I did want this to be an Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office debate, even though the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was also answering questions this week, because, while my focus will be on environmental issues, this is also about our broader relationship with a country that is increasingly important to us.

Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world by population, behind India, China and the US. It is the largest south east Asian economy, and the only one in the G20. It has seen steady—rather than spectacular—economic growth in recent years. While it does not currently account for a huge part of our trade, there is much potential. The UK Indonesia economic partnership was launched earlier this year, and I gather that negotiations for a full trade deal are on the cards. So economically, it matters to us.

Indonesia is also one of the most environmentally important countries in the world. It has vast tropical rainforests, deep peatlands, iconic species such as the orangutan, the Sumatran tiger, elephants and the Komodo dragon, and amazing biodiversity in the waters and reefs around its 17,000 islands. It absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the UK and USA emit combined. Healthy peat stores huge quantities of carbon but, if drained, it will start to release carbon, making it contribute negatively. Forest loss also leads to major CO₂ output annually.

I thank the hon. Member for bringing forward this important debate. As she is setting out, peatlands store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined, whether that be on the Somerset levels in my constituency or in the rainforests of Borneo, and their destruction accelerates the climate crisis. Does she agree that, rather than cutting climate funding, the Government should be investing in bilateral peatland partnerships, sharing our British expertise to protect these irreplaceable global carbon stores?

I certainly think that peatlands are incredibly important. It has been one of my frustrations that we put so much emphasis on forests, and on the UK on planting trees—like a race to how many millions of trees each party can pledge to plant—whereas, as the hon. Member says, the carbon sequestration impact of peatlands is greater. We need to do much more to protect them, including, I would say, banning horticultural peat, which I know she has campaigned long and hard for.

I will come on to the question of climate finance later, but I will say that we are in a world in which public money is under severe constraints. The USA, for example, has pulled out of its commitments under COP. I want to see a lot more done to use public money, and philanthropic money, as a catalyst to leverage in far more private sector funding, including through things such as the voluntary carbon and nature markets, so that we can get that finance into protecting our forests, our peatlands and, indeed, our marine environment, which I will touch on a bit later as well.

My hon. Friend is talking about peatlands; she will know that Indonesia had a huge, deep burn of its peatlands in 2019, with 31,000 sq km of land burned. In the UK, when we had a terrible peatland fire on Saddleworth moor in 2018, just the year before, an estimated 4.5 million people suffered from the particulate matter—the smoke that went into their lungs—and the health conditions caused by that. Keeping those peatlands moist, damp and wetted in Indonesia is so important. My hon. Friend rightly talked about the population of Indonesia being so large; it is so concentrated that it can be desperately affected by that health risk.

I very much agree. We both spent the Easter recess wading through peatlands. I was going to say that we were wading up to our knees; I was wading up to my knees, but for everyone else there the peat came up to about mid calf on them. I had very short wellies on, too—I was given children’s ones. There was an awful lot of squelching going on. Nevertheless, it was amazing to see the richness of the peatlands. We also took boats along the river. The water there is brown—apparently it is entirely drinkable—because of the peat in the water supply. I very much agree that stopping peatland fires and underground burning are as important as stopping the wildfires that destroy our forests.

I commend the hon. Lady for rightly securing this debate. She has given us some of the problems and, in her intervention, the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) suggested some of the things that could happen to solve them.

Back home in Northern Ireland, we have a number of small and medium sized green tech businesses. They are innovative firms, who have new ideas about how to do things. Although I am not smarter than anybody else, I think that in Northern Ireland we are capable of giving some help to others.

Might there be access for companies in Strangford to bidding pipelines or other international investments, to ensure that we can help? Obviously, it would be at a price, because that is how businesses operate; they exist to make a profit. If that is possible, perhaps the hon. Lady would be kind enough to direct me on the right way to go.

I direct the hon. Gentleman to the Minister, because she is the one with the power to put him in touch with the embassy, for example.

However, I know exactly what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I was at the desertification COP in Riyadh in December 2024, which was all about land degradation and water scarcity. I went to the UK stand, which had a number of British investors. What really struck home with me there was a small company in my constituency called LettUs Grow, which grows salad vegetables through aeroponics, so no water is required and the company has a very low carbon footprint.

It was brilliant to see out in Riyadh that countries such as Jordan and Iraq, which are managing extreme water scarcity, were aware that a company in Bristol might be of use to them in future. We need to use opportunities such as those showcases at COPs to illustrate what we do, so that our companies can find buyers in the markets that need their products the most.

If Members have not had the chance to go to it already, I will just let them know that the British Red Cross is holding an event in a dining room A or B today. Earlier, I was talking to a young lady who is doing some work in Nepal on water issues, including water shortage. There is flooding in Nepal, but it is projected that in about 20 years’ time there will perhaps be a water shortage in the country. The British Red Cross might have some innovations or ideas for Nepal. The hon. Lady and I both know the British Red Cross; I know that she knows it very well. There is an organisation that perhaps could help, too.

The hon. Member makes a very important point. At Foreign Office questions last week, I had the first question on the Order Paper, which was very ably answered by my hon. Friend the Minister. My question was about the Tibetan plateau, the environmental degradation there and what China is doing to divert water sources. Obviously, Nepal is part of that situation, as it is in the Himalayas. I think that a fifth of the world’s population depends on the Tibetan plateau for water sources.

If the hon. Gentleman seeks out the answer that the Minister gave me on that occasion, he will see that we have quite a few international initiatives that try to ensure that people get access to the water that they need.

If Indonesia is under threat environmentally, that affects us all, as I think some interventions today have already illustrated. Over recent decades, Indonesia has lost hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest each year. The main drivers of that loss are unsustainable agriculture, especially palm oil production, legal and illegal logging, mining, and rapid urbanisation.

My hon. Friend will recognise that where there is such degradation, huge amounts of biodiversity are lost. Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, and I am grateful to the Indonesian Government for the work that they have been focused on in this regard.

My hon. Friend will also know that forests in Indonesia are home not only to flora and fauna, but to people as well. The Indonesian Government agreed to a visit from the UN Human Rights Commissioner six years ago—that visit has not happened yet. I hope that the UK Government can keep pushing on that. Does she agree that protection for flora and fauna, which she is talking about so eloquently, has to go alongside protection for people as well?

I absolutely agree. I have just come from an event that Fairtrade is hosting in the Inter Parliamentary Union room, at which people were talking, among other things, about the forest risk commodities legislation—I will come on to that later, because the Government have announced regulations today—and about the cost to smallholders and indigenous communities of complying with it. Of course, we want to ensure sustainability and stamp out deforestation in the supply chain, but we have to remember that there are small farmers and indigenous communities whose livelihoods depend on that.

At Easter, a number of us went to Indonesia—Borneo, in particular—and met communities doing agroforestry projects. We were looking at how we could support them. It was mostly about orangutans, which I will talk about at some length in a moment, but the people matter very much too.

This is an essential point. My hon. Friend will remember the words of Pak Ja Martin, who was in charge of the project that we went to see. He said, “You can’t talk conservation to people who are hungry.” Therefore, local indigenous people, who for centuries have protected and conserved their environment, must be involved. That was a key aspect of what we went to look at.

I could not agree more. I really appreciate all the interventions, which are a very good way of getting the debate flowing, but it is quite easy for me to lose my place. I was talking about the impact of mining, logging and urbanisation, and about the fact that forest and peatlands have been damaged by wild fires. I will come on to the marine environment later.

The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to help reverse these problems. In a joint statement in November 2024, our Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia agreed a new strategic partnership, underpinned by people, planet, prosperity and peace. It included a commitment to address illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, conservation of ocean species, sustainable supply chains and food security.

At COP29 in Baku in 2024, we pledged £239 million to halt and reverse deforestation in forest rich nations that act as critical carbon sinks, including Indonesia. The measures included £188 million for high integrity forest carbon markets, £48 million for blended finance for forest programmes to attract private investment and £3 million for the United Nations framework convention on climate change to support communities to benefit from forest restoration.

We have also funded some specific Indonesia programmes, including UK Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions, which covers low carbon transportation and energy efficiency. Phase 5 of a 20-year forestry programme looking at timber governance, legislation and regulation has had £12 million from us. The UK partnered with Jakarta and funded the Nature Transition Support programme for biodiversity protection in key national parks and pioneer carbon and biodiversity credit markets. The Climate and Ocean Adaptation and Sustainable Transition programme is funded by the UK’s Blue Planet fund. I have several more things on my list, but I am slightly worried that I will steal the Minister’s thunder. I suspect that she will tell us a bit about what the UK has done, so I will save them for her. As I say, good things have happened, but I will now focus on the challenges.

I have been fortunate enough to visit Indonesia twice in the last couple of years. In April 2025, as the then Climate Minister, I represented the UK at the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade dialogue meeting in Malaysia. Indonesia had been co chair of the dialogue with the UK, but was handing over to Malaysia, so my visit took in both countries. The discussion mostly focused on palm oil, as hon. Members would expect, and the theme of the dialogue was smallholders. I think I am right in saying that, in both countries, about 50% of palm oil production comes from smallholders. Although it is easy for the larger agricultural concerns to monitor regulations, comply with the certification and do all the bureaucracy that is involved in that, it is much more difficult for smallholders. As we have said, we need to bear their needs and livelihoods in mind.

The hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said that the first thing for people is always to feed their children and look after their families, and he is absolutely right: that is critical. If we cannot get that right, nothing can happen. Palm oil is in short supply at the moment, so how can we better ensure that those who produce it get the price they want, and the rest of the world gets the supply it needs? We need to find a balance, so perhaps we need a working partnership.

That is probably the subject for another long debate, because it gets into the inequities in global food supply chains and making sure that farmers—whether in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency or the heart of the Indonesian rainforest—get fairly rewarded for what they do. I would say that a lot of products with palm oil in them are probably not the best elements of a healthy diet, such as the ultra processed foods we should be stamping out. However, palm oil can be sustainable, and I will come on to talk about how we ensure that it is. Even if some palm oil products someone ends up consuming are not particularly great, there are others where palm oil is an important part of our food systems.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, supplying more than half of global exports. Palm oil accounts for around 4.5% of GDP and supports 16 million jobs, with many of those involved being smallholders, as I said. This is a dilemma that many emerging economies face: going for growth, exploiting abundant natural resources to the max and boosting the livelihoods of people who might otherwise be living in poverty, or protecting their environment. However, I do not think those two things need to be at odds with each other.

It is true that palm oil has historically been linked to deforestation, peatland drainage and biodiversity loss, but Indonesia has been taking steps to address that. A mandatory national certification scheme for Indonesian sustainable palm oil, known as ISPO, was introduced in 2011. A palm oil moratorium was introduced in 2018, halting new plantation permits and revoking some non compliant concessions, and many private sector companies have adopted NDPE, or “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policies.

Indonesia has also acted more widely to protect its forests and peatlands. Forest and peatland moratoriums were introduced in 2011 and made permanent in 2019. New permits to clear primary forests and peatlands were suspended, and that was complemented by peatland restoration programmes and stronger protection against wildfires. Secondary forests are still vulnerable, however, and many forests remain exposed within existing concessions.

Indonesia’s efforts are now focused on scaling up certification, strengthening enforcement and ensuring that future growth in palm oil production does not come at the expense of remaining forests, but this is a global issue, and we cannot expect Indonesia to act alone. We know that 90% of all global deforestation is driven by agricultural expansion to meet international demand for traded commodities. What we consume in this country is contributing to the destruction of forests and peatlands across the globe. The Government’s figures show that, in 2023, British consumption of everyday goods, such as palm oil, cocoa, rubber and soy, was linked to the clearing of around 29,000 hectares of forests worldwide. That is an area two and a half times the size of Manchester—we normally say the size of Wales, but perhaps Manchester is where it is at these days.

This was going to be the point at which I called out the Government for not making more progress with our legislation on forest risk commodities. I was going to say that we cannot have any credibility on the global stage in co chairing initiatives such as the FACT—forest, agriculture and commodity trade—dialogue or the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, which we co chair with Guyana, if we are not prepared to take steps to stamp out deforestation in our own supply chains.

During my time as Climate Minister, I spoke often to the Minister for Nature and the FCDO Minister responsible for international development, as well as to our two excellent envoys for climate and nature—Rachel Kyte and Ruth Davis—about this issue. I also pay tribute to the team in the international forest unit, which spans the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the FCDO, who were great to work with.

Our conversations went back and forth on the pros and cons of going down the EU route on regulation, which was focused on the concept of sustainability, or the route proposed by the previous UK Government under the Environment Act 2021, which was based on legality. There was a valid discussion to be had about which approach was best, complicated by the fact that the EU approach would apply in Northern Ireland.

What should not have been up for debate was whether we would act at all, yet some parts of Government were arguing that this represented another burden on business, which we could not impose. Businesses such as Ferrero, which I met, were calling for regulation, as were supermarkets. The opposition within Government was a straw man to argue for delay or, in fact, for dropping the proposal altogether.

As I said, I came here prepared to vent my frustration at the delay, but I was pleased to get a heads up from the Nature Minister last night that the Government are announcing today, at London Climate Action Week, that they are moving ahead with the regulations. UK businesses that trade in internationally sourced commodities such as palm oil will be legally required to check that their supply chains are free from products linked to illegal land clearances and the destruction of the world’s rainforests.

I was also delighted to see today that that announcement has been made. Is my hon. Friend aware that the five year delay in passing the regulations has meant that imports totalling 54,000 hectares of tropical forests have happened? That is an area the size of Leeds.

I was going to wind my hon. Friend up by saying that I have no idea how big Leeds is—slightly bigger than Bristol, I think—but he is right that delay has consequences. I gather that the Government have announced a consultation now, but we do not want that to drag on. We must ensure that it is a genuine consultation, but that it is time limited and that action follows as swiftly as possible.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does she agree that, as part of that consultation, many of us would like the Government to consider that this should not just be a matter of legality, but of actual deforestation? She will know of cases where other countries have passed similar legislation; in Brazil, its then President changed the law to make sure that the companies that were deforesting were able to comply with our legislation, and therefore to continue the trade. There is a loophole here. Does my hon. Friend agree that the consultation would do well to close it?

My hon. Friend is right. One of my concerns was that Bolsonaro was making legal what should clearly have been illegal. The counter argument was that there was something slightly colonialist about dictating how a country should decide on what was sustainable for its own purposes, and there were some voices on that side.

As I understand it, the UK will start on the basis of what is illegal in the country from which we are sourcing the products, but the intention will be eventually to align with the EU regulation on deforestation free products over time, and the ultimate goal is a blanket deforestation free standard that would legally require products to be produced without any forest loss or land conversion whatever. That is the end goal; the EUDR has run into some problems and its implementation was delayed—it should have been at the end of last year, and now it may be at the end of this year—so the idea is that we move ahead with what we have already drafted under the Environment Act, and then better will follow. The British Retail Consortium today welcomed the announcement, which is another indication that business does want this change.

While regulation will help to prevent further destruction, we also need to mobilise finance to protect standing forests and restore what we have lost. Public funding from donor countries and philanthropy both have an important role but, as I said to the hon. Member for Strangford, we must look to the private sector if we are to close the forest finance gap. Indonesia is already benefiting from REDD+, or reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, funding, which is a mixture of public and private finance, but we could do much more to scale that up.

Indonesia has a huge amount to offer investors, and I know they are looking to the UK to help them; in fact, just after I was in the country last year, the climate envoy arrived at the embassy to run some workshops on voluntary carbon and nature markets and how Indonesia could work with the UK on those. We are rightly seen as leaders, not least because London is one of the global financial capitals of the world. At COP29, I was proud to launch our six principles for voluntary carbon and nature market integrity, and last year we used London Climate Action Week to launch the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets, which we co chair alongside Kenya and Singapore.

However, I am somewhat concerned by the lack of progress since then. There was a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero consultation that closed nearly a year ago on 10 July. I have been trying to chase that up, and I gather that around 200 responses have been published, but the recommendations have yet to come forward. Maybe that is being saved up for London Climate Action Week; I very much hope it is, because I think the eyes of the world are on us to make this blended finance happen.

There is one issue that I will touch on only briefly, as I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) will speak on it: the controversial plans for a food estate in West Papua. I have had some reassurances that that will not involve the destruction of healthy forests and that it is part of an important strategy to increase Indonesia’s food security—I can tell by the look on my hon. Friend’s face that that is not the account he has been given. However, as I said, I knew he was coming here to speak about that, and I know I can rely on him to speak about it with great expertise. The other assurance I have had recently is that Indonesia wants to move away from such a high dependence on the palm oil sector, diversify what it grows and increase its food security, but I will leave that to my hon. Friend to cover.

I want to talk instead about orangutans. My second visit to Indonesia was in April this year with the all party parliamentary group on international conservation and Borneo Orangutan Survival UK. Three Members present today were on that visit, and I think it made a lasting impression on us. We took a very long and slow boat journey into East Kalimantan in the heart of Borneo and trekked through very rich, deep and, as I said, squelchy peatlands to see the work being done to restore primary rainforests. We also met people from the indigenous communities to see sustainable agroforestry in action.

The best part was that we spent a day at a forest school for orangutans, where they teach orphaned orangutans how to survive in the wild. Indonesia is home to three species of orangutans and they are all endangered. They are the most arboreal of all apes, spending around 80% of their lives in the rainforest canopy. Normally, their mothers teach them forest skills and how to survive in that way up to about the age of eight, but when they are orphaned, they go to forest school for about the same length of time. Then they go to university, where they practise semi independent living. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent West and I each had the amazing privilege of releasing an orangutan—his was called Peanuts; mine was called Lanting—into their university island, where I hope they are thriving.

BOS is doing great work, but we need to do more to tackle the underlying reasons why so many orangutans need its help. I have already spoken at length about forest risk commodities and the destruction of habitats, but those are not the only factors. Many orangutans like Peanuts and Lanting have been displaced by development as Indonesia’s population and urbanisation grow. They are also very susceptible to human diseases such as tuberculosis, which they catch when humans start encroaching on their territory. I think all of us who went would agree that the saddest thing we saw at the forest school was the orangutans that could not be released from their cages because they carried diseases—particularly TB. They were clearly really unhappy animals and it was heartbreaking to see them. Under the law in Indonesia, they cannot be euthanised, because they are a protected species. However, there is some hope, because BOS is fundraising to create new habitats. There are going to be about 15 little islands where groups of infected orangutans—one male, a couple of females and the younger ones—will be able to experience freedom together without passing their diseases on to healthy animals. I look forward to seeing that come into play.

A sizeable number of the orangutans that BOS rescues have been trafficked—for example, stolen as babies to be pets or for private zoos. BOS has rescued around 50 from tourist attractions in Thailand. It has been three years since the UK passed the Animals (Low Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023, which will ban the promotion by UK companies of tourist attractions abroad that involve animal cruelty and exploitation—for example, those where tigers are drugged and declawed, elephants are forced to perform or, as we saw on film in Borneo, orangutans are forced to take part in boxing matches. Yet we are still waiting for the Act to come into force, because the lawyers at DEFRA need to draft regulations. I am told that they are struggling to find the right words to put in the definitions to catch that type of cruelty and exploitation. My next note just says, “Get on with it.” They need to get on with it. There is no excuse for three years’ delay. As a lawyer, I am pretty sure they can find the words to deal with these things, even if it is just where animals are forced to perform unnatural acts or where they are drugged or declawed. They do not have to catch every type of animal abuse and exploitation; it would be a start to bring in regulations that catch at least some of it.

My hon. Friend has been very generous in taking interventions. On the animals that had diseases—she is right, it was an affecting sight that depressed us all; it is great that the islands are being built—is she aware that at a recent lecture, Nadine, who we met in Oxford, confirmed that when orangutans are captured for translocation, they will now be tested for TB? That will enable scientists to study the epidemiology of the disease in the wild population. Of course, if it transpires that TB is already in the wild population, it could be safe to release them back into the wild.

It was good to talk to Nadine on the visit; she was a real source of expertise. I am glad to hear that, and if it is a possible answer to the issue, that is excellent.

I will talk a little about the marine environment. We have quite a lot of debates in this place about oceans and marine issues, so I will not say too much, but they are important to Indonesia. The country covers an area of around 8 million km², only a quarter of which is land. With around 17,000 islands, Indonesia is an ocean state, supporting coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass habitats that are vital for biodiversity and for human livelihoods such as fishing and tourism. It lies at the centre of the coral triangle, which is often called the “Amazon of the seas” because of its exceptional biodiversity, and has over 75% of the world’s coral species and more than a third of global reef fish species.

Indonesia’s marine environment is amazing—I have been diving there, so I can vouch for that—but it is also highly vulnerable. The reefs are under pressure from overfishing, destructive fishing practices such as blast fishing, pollution and overdevelopment. Rising sea temperatures cause coral bleaching, which weakens or kills reefs, while pollution and sedimentation reduce water quality. Indonesia has established hundreds of marine protected areas. Conservation zones reach tens of millions of hectares, and it has ambitious targets to expand them further to safeguard up to 30% of its marine territory by 2045, which would make it one of the largest marine conservation networks in the world.

Indonesia is also investing in marine conservation and restoration, including in coral reef rehabilitation programmes, stricter environmental regulations and innovative schemes such as the coral reef bond, which funds conservation projects based on measurable improvements in reef health. The UK has now passed the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act 2026, and although I understand that a few more steps must be taken before the global ocean treaty is finally ratified, I hope that we will be able to play a full role in January at the ocean COP in New York. The Minister is leading on that, so perhaps she can tell us a bit about it in her reply.

Indonesia is vital to us, and will become ever more so. Its economic success is important to us, as is its environment. I look forward to hearing what the Minister and other colleagues have to say.

I thank the hon. Lady for opening the debate. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called. So far, only one Member has done so, which means that he has about half an hour to speak, if he wants it. He is not obliged to take all that time, but I will call Front Benchers shortly before 3.30 pm, at the latest.

As you have made clear, Sir Jeremy, I have a little time, so I start, as chair of the all party parliamentary group on West Papua, by dedicating my speech to our former vice chair, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who passed away recently. He was a fervent supporter of West Papua and, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) will agree, of environmental issues. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, I will use this debate to highlight the world’s largest deforestation project in Merauke, West Papua, which is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, unique biodiversity and extremely rare species, and to briefly—although maybe not so briefly now, Sir Jeremy—address specific threats to the Tapanuli orangutan in Sumatra.

One of the greatest threats to Indonesia’s progress on climate and environment is a three million hectare, Government backed food and energy estate project in West Papua. The Financial Times has described it as the world’s largest deforestation project. It threatens a total area that is five times the size of London—we are getting in all the major UK cities in this debate—and the livelihood of 50,000 indigenous people who call the forest home. West Papua’s unique biodiversity and the irreplaceable habitat of endangered tree kangaroos, birds of paradise and many other species are at stake.

Deforestation on that scale would release a staggering 783 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, doubling Indonesia’s emissions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who I have met to discuss this matter multiple times, is currently investigating indigenous rights violations in West Papua. In particular, he is investigating the Merauke Food Estate to document the evidence of displacements of Indonesian groups, land tenure violations and the use of military force. The project operates on the lands of more than 250 indigenous communities in West Papua. Customary land rights of indigenous communities are being ignored in the project areas and indigenous people are resisting.

Just this month, a 64-year old woman from the community known as Mama Yasinta went missing. She features prominently in the film “Pesta Babi”, which is all about the Merauke project and the violations there. Mama Yasinta has since reappeared in Jakarta and issued a public statement distancing herself from the film. Her family believe that her travel to Jakarta and subsequent statements were done under duress. I hope the Minister can make representations that she should be returned to her family in West Papua in the immediate future.

The BBC has done an in depth investigation showing involvement of both military and intelligence forces in Merauke, so there is ample evidence. Several television and film documentaries, which we can all view, rebut the claims of the Indonesian embassy and Indonesian Government that this is not a deforestation project removing absolutely unique and vital habitats.

The UK Government need to raise serious concerns bilaterally with the Government of Indonesia and discuss sustainable and climate friendly alternatives to support the country’s food and energy security plans, which I absolutely accept given the size of the population there.

My hon. Friend is making another important speech after that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). Does he agree that it is concerning to hear from reports of eyewitnesses that around 40 indigenous people have been killed over the last couple of months, and that drones and booby traps are increasingly being used against indigenous people?

Absolutely. Unfortunately, that follows a history of 60 years of extrajudicial killings and internal displacement in what are, and have traditionally been, very thickly forested areas. The island of New Guinea, which includes Papua New Guinea, is the world’s third largest rainforest. Modern technologies, which we have seen put to very positive use in Ukraine by the Ukrainian forces and very destructive use by the Russian forces, are now being used by the Indonesian military against civilians who have no way of defending themselves. Again, that has been documented. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East has raised that.

I am asking the Minister whether the UK can assist Indonesia in meeting its commitment to climate and nature protection through Indonesia’s plan to restore 12.7 million hectares of forests, but not in Merauke and not in virgin rainforest, which has a unique ecosystem and biodiversity.

I will briefly talk about ecocide. That is a real threat to Indonesia and its international reputation and claim to be a democracy. Ecocide is where acts create a “substantial likelihood of severe and…widespread or long term”

environmental damage. Although it is not a separate crime in the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice, the 2025 advisory opinion on the climate brought by Vanuatu very much brings ecocide into scope. The last thing that we want is a major international country like Indonesia being hauled before the International Criminal Court for a project like Merauke or some of the other mining and deforestation projects that are occurring, particularly in West Papua, but in other parts of Indonesia as well.

That leads me nicely to the threats to the Tapanuli orangutan in Batang Toru, Sumatra. The Batang Toru ecosystem in north Sumatra is the only home of the Tapanuli orangutan. Identified as a separate species in 2017, at the time their estimated number was fewer than 800. More recent surveys have shown that they are the most endangered great ape in the world, so the Indonesian Government have a special responsibility for the Tapanuli orangutan. Research suggests that losing even eight adult orangutans a year could lead to the extinction of the species.

The Tapanuli orangutan faces several threats. The Batang Toru dam, owned by the PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy company, sliced through its habitat precisely at the intersection of three subpopulations. There is also PT Agincourt’s Martabe gold mine expanding north into their habitat, as well as logging concessions, community incursions of subsistence farming and small scale agriculture, and hunting and human wildlife conflict. Those five threats could mean the end of the Tapanuli orangutan.

My hon. Friend speaks knowledgeably about the threats to biodiversity in Sumatra in particular. It is not just the sixth largest island in the world; it also has 1,300 different tree species. Sumatra’s forest cover has been staggeringly depleted, with about 20% of its lowland forest remaining. My hon. Friend is right to speak of the orangutan; the delegation that went to Indonesia looked at its conservation programmes. He will know that the Sumatran tiger and the Sumatran elephant are also desperately endangered, and that 132 bird species, including helmeted hornbills and crested firebacks, are threatened there. It is a biodiversity hotspot, and the threats that he has identified are very real and must be avoided.

Absolutely. If one looks at the geography of Indonesia and its different sized islands, such as Sumatra, New Guinea or Borneo, and the evolution of species on those islands over millions of years, that is what created these unique animal and plant species, which are found nowhere else in the world. The Indonesian Government have a unique responsibility among nations to preserve those species—once they are gone from the individual islands, they cannot be brought back, because they do not exist anywhere else. I have been to see the West Papua tree kangaroos in Chester zoo, but they cannot survive in Chester zoo—they have to survive in the wild. There is the difficulty of seeing such things in the wild, but it is important that we preserve their ecosystems.

To give time for the Front Benchers, I will finish by saying that the UK also needs to think about its own role, particularly in the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has called for a moratorium on projects that impact on the habitat of Tapanuli orangutans until a conservation management plan for the species can be adopted. There are some excellent organisations based here in the UK—I will not list them, but each time colleagues and I visit the biodiversity COP, we are amazed by the great British organisations and charities that are world leading and helping to preserve animal and plant species globally. I know that they and the UK Government can help work on a conservation management plan to save the Tapanuli orangutans. We are uniquely placed to help Indonesia, but it needs to want that help. We should offer everything that we can; hopefully we can secure not just the Tapanuli orangutan but also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said, the Sumatran tiger, as well as pangolins, tapirs, sun bears and cassowaries—a whole range of species that live in the same ecosystem in Batang Toru.

We must use this opportunity to enshrine sustainable and ethical human rights practices into our working relationship with Indonesia for the sake of West Papuans and other indigenous peoples, biodiversity and nature. If we do not do it now, when will we do it? Soon, we will start to lose some of this unique biodiversity.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not least for his remarkable display of self control. We now come to the Front Bench speeches, beginning with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for her passionate opening speech, and for the many hours we spent in each other’s company on a long tail boat when we were fortunate enough to visit Indonesia earlier this year. In honour of this debate, I am wearing my Indonesian jacket that I bought in Jakarta. On a day like this, in an increasingly tropical London, it is blissfully lightweight.

The UK Indonesia relationship is at a crucial point. In January, our Government signed a strategic partnership, committing to stronger ties on climate and nature and recognising that, despite our differences, we share a particular vulnerability to climate change as island nations. The Liberal Democrats welcome that partnership warmly and would like to see it deepened. That requires the UK to show up as a serious partner, not just in words, but in the consistency of our commitments.

Indonesia’s forests are among the most biodiverse on Earth and are home to between 10% and 15% of all known plants, mammals and birds. The hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) particularly appreciated that during our visit. The forests also store billions of tonnes of carbon. As I mentioned, I was fortunate enough to go to Kalimantan on the Indonesian side of Borneo in March as part of a cross party parliamentary delegation funded by ICCF UK and the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. It is wonderful to see representatives from both those organisations in the Public Gallery.

I would like to report back on what I saw and what I believe it requires of us in this country. We visited Sabangau national park, one of the largest peatland ecosystems outside the northern hemisphere. I saw the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, where 228 orangutans that have been orphaned, many because of the palm oil trade, were being prepared for a return to the wild. The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned the forest school for young orangutans, where we saw orphaned orangutans being taught to climb by their human surrogate mothers, and that memory will stay with me for the rest of my life. We met scientists, such as Nadine, who have spent decades studying the flora and fauna of Indonesia. We met Indonesian officials and conservationists who are doing extraordinary work to protect their vital, natural heritage. They expect the UK to be a reliable partner but right now we are falling short in two concrete ways.

Today, the Government announced plans to consult on new rules requiring businesses to check that products—such as palm oil, soy, cocoa and rubber—in their supply chains have not come from illegally deforested land. Liberal Democrats have pressed for that since the Environment Act 2021 was passed, so we welcome today’s development—five years late is better than never.

The Government’s own figures show that, in 2023 alone, UK consumption was linked to roughly 29,000 hectares of deforestation worldwide. In keeping with today’s trend, I will point out that that is equivalent to 15 Cirencesters. The rules will be aligned with the EU’s equivalent regulation, which has been weakened and delayed multiple times under industry pressure. They will cover only illegal deforestation in the host country, not all deforestation, meaning that products from forests legally cleared could still reach British supermarket shelves.

The Government say that a fully deforestation free standard is their ambition for the future. Liberal Democrats believe it should be made the standard now. When these regulations arrive, they must be robust and not leave the door open to destruction that happens technically to be lawful. They must also cover indigenous people’s land rights alongside deforestation, which are frequently the first casualty when forests fall.

On aid, the Liberal Democrats believe that the UK’s commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas development is both a moral obligation and a matter of national interest. We have set out concrete, alternative ways to meet our defence commitments without cutting international aid, including defence bonds and an increase to the digital services tax. The false choice between security and aid is one we reject.

That matters, because UK funded conservation in Indonesia is working. Indonesia has reduced its primary forest loss more than any other country in recent years, and British investment has contributed to that, yet the Darwin grants, which have supported vital terrestrial conservation work, including in rainforests, have been cut. Projects and marine environments retain some funding, but projects in terrestrial spaces, including the rainforest, have been left without support. The ringfenced nature funding in the international climate fund renewal is also at risk. We are heading in the wrong direction. Institutions like Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum have deep, productive partnerships with their Indonesian counterparts—the kind of long term scientific relationships that take decades to build but moments to break. We should be strengthening them, not withdrawing.

That brings me to the Government’s national security assessment, which concludes that global biodiversity loss poses a direct threat to UK national security. I sit on the Environmental Audit Committee, which scrutinises exactly these questions. We know that a fuller version of the national security assessment exists, and we have asked to see it repeatedly, even under confidentiality arrangements, and that has been refused. Although elements have apparently been shared informally outside Government with the media, the EAC should not be the last to know about a document that the Government say concerns national security. The Minister must release it.

I will close with a story told to me by a young friend that really brought home to me what is at stake here. Bella is a passionate young conservationist. A few years ago, she visited Malaysian Borneo and went to see an animal called Iman. Iman was the last Malaysian Sumatran rhino on Earth—a species more than 20 million years old, reduced to one animal. Her keeper, Dr Zainal, had spent almost his entire career protecting Sumatran rhinos in Borneo. He had watched them go one by one. He was there in 2017 when Puntung was euthanised and there in May 2019 when Tam, the last male, died.

When Bella met Iman, the rhino was calling out—a distinctive kind of call, a searching call looking for others of her kind, but there were none. Bella described how she stood there, looking into the rhino’s eyes—this ancient creature with leather thick skin and a face that seems to have come straight out of prehistory—and understood viscerally in a way that no statistic can quite convey what extinction actually means. The name Iman means faith. She died in November 2019. The Malaysian Sumatran rhino is gone forever, but the Bornean orangutan is not yet gone. The peatlands of Sabangau are not yet destroyed; there is still time.

I ask the Minister to honour the commitment in schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021 with robust, enforceable regulations; restore the overseas aid budget; protect the Darwin grants and the nature earmark; and release the national security assessment. The time to act is now.

It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing this important debate and talking with what is clearly lifelong passion and lifelong experience. I thank her for the campaigning and work that she has done over a number of years. I also thank the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for his knowledge and passion around the largest deforestation project that is under way.

I have listened to everyone talk about the visit to the orangutan school. I am beginning to feel like the only kid in school who was not on the trip, but it sounds like it touched a lot of people. I noted the description of the forest school teaching young orangutans how to behave in the wild, and the skills that they need—it feels a bit like what CCHQ does to Conservative candidates before we are released into the wild at a later date.

If the hon. Member wants to know the specifics of how to do that, they get a jar of liquid honey and squeeze it up the tree. You then have to follow it up with your tongue. I do not recommend that for anywhere near the Whips Office.

As a member of the Whips Office, I can assure the hon. Member that that is not something we will take up, although my team, if they are watching this debate, will probably now be panicking that I may be coming up with a YouTube video idea to try to go viral.

Anyway, as Conservatives we recognise the need to protect the natural world. To that end, we welcome this debate on UK Indonesia collaboration on environmental sustainability. We see the profound importance of the bilateral relationship between our countries in both our mutual economic growth and our shared commitment to protecting the natural world.

The Opposition support robust engagement with Indonesia. We want the partnerships that our Government have announced to deliver real, measurable outcomes. Indonesia is the biggest economy in south east Asia and is rich in biodiversity and natural beauty. However, it is precisely because the stakes are so high and the scale of investment is so considerable that this House is entitled to ask searching questions about whether the Government’s approach is truly adequate to the challenge. It is in that constructive spirit that I wish to raise a number of points with the Minister.

Indonesia is home to the world’s third largest tropical forest and holds 36% of the world’s tropical peatland. As we heard from other Members, both have globally significant importance as carbon stores. Indonesia also hosts 3.5 million hectares of mangroves—about 23% of the world’s total—storing approximately 3.1 gigatonnes of carbon. These are not abstract statistics; they represent irreplaceable natural systems on which the global climate depends. Despite significant progress having been made in recent years, deforestation in Indonesia surged by 66% during 2025, with 1.1 million acres of forest removed. What is our Government’s position on that? Have they discussed it with their counterparts in Indonesia, and if so, what were the outcomes of those discussions?

Indonesia has the world’s largest nickel reserves—estimated at 55 million tonnes—and accounted for 54% of global nickel production in 2023. The country’s critical mineral wealth makes it central to the global energy transition, but the risks associated with nickel extraction are well documented. In November 2024, the UK and Indonesia agreed a strategic partnership on critical minerals. That was with the aim of sharing technical knowledge and mitigating risks linked to this kind of mining. Can the Minister tell us what mechanisms are in place to encourage those standards, and what assessment has she made of the application of the standards?

In January 2025, the two Governments agreed a new sustainable infrastructure partnership, which our Government say will open up new opportunities for British companies to design and construct projects in Indonesia. We support British commercial engagement; British companies obtaining projects abroad is something we should support, but what safeguards have the Government put in place to support commercial projects pursued under that partnership?

On the UK Indonesia carbon market partnership to support Indonesia in implementing a carbon pricing framework and developing a voluntary carbon market, the Minister will be aware that voluntary carbon markets have attracted significant criticism internationally for the quality and permanence of the carbon credits they generate. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that any carbon market developed under that partnership meets rigorous standards and will not simply allow carbon offsetting that fails to deliver genuine emissions reductions?

Although Indonesia has the largest economy in south east Asia, it ranks only 17th in the world by GDP according to the International Monetary Fund. Despite that, Indonesia is consistently among the top 10 carbon dioxide emitting nations; indeed, the FCDO has estimated that it is the fifth highest carbon emitting country. The Indonesian Government aspire to reach net zero by 2060. By 2030, they aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31.89% through national efforts and by 43.2% with international support. Those are significant ambitions, but the gap between aspiration and delivery is wide. Can the Minister set out what independent assessment the Government have made of whether Indonesia is currently on track to meet its 2030 targets, and what conditionality—if any—is attached to UK commitments?

Finally, the scale of the investment being discussed today is substantial. British International Investment has committed £308 million in climate finance across south east Asia until 2031, including a rooftop solar programme that aims to produce 600 MW of energy by 2028. The World Bank, which the UK contributes to, is providing $500 million to Indonesia’s electricity network transformation programme. What assessment have the UK Government made of value for money across the totality of UK investments in this relationship, and how are outcomes being measured and reported back to Parliament?

We all share the objectives of supporting Indonesia’s journey towards greater environmental sustainability while protecting its extraordinary natural heritage, and of building a partnership that delivers for our country and for the planet. The foundations that have been laid, including by the previous Government, are real, but good intentions and headline announcements are not enough. The House deserves clarity on conditionality, environmental standards and genuine value for money. Can the Minister please provide us with that assurance by answering the questions that have been asked today?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing this debate. I pay tribute to her long standing work on climate and environmental issues, and to her generosity in sharing with us her experience of “squelching” in the Indonesian peatlands. Her account, alongside the contributions of other hon. Members who have also recently visited Indonesia, brought to life the richness of the environment in the country, and therefore the importance of our work together on climate and nature.

I am also grateful for the thoughtful contributions of hon. Members from across the House in speeches and interventions today, including by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden); the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage); my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds); my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel); the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner).

I recognise that this is a very timely and important debate. It comes just a few months after my first visit to Indonesia. I am very grateful to our climate and nature special envoys who were referred to in this debate, Rachel Kyte and Ruth Davis, for their extremely important work and their contributions to many discussions with Ministers across different Departments.

There is a very strong interest in this House in how we tackle climate change and protect nature, and in how we work with partners around the world to do so. With Indonesia, the core of our partnership is focused on climate, nature and energy co operation. It is also important to say up front that Indonesia is pivotal to global outcomes on climate and nature for the reasons that we have heard today, including the scale of its rainforests and biodiversity. Indeed, its actions on energy, forests and oceans will help to tackle similar challenges across the world.

I also pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East as the UK’s Climate Minister last year, during which time she visited Indonesia. I know that she saw at first hand how our partnership with Indonesia works in practice. In Jakarta, she met Energy Minister Bahlil. She worked to deepen our co operation on the energy transition—from renewables to carbon capture, carbon markets and critical minerals, all of which were referred to in today’s informed debate—recognising the real economic and political challenges that Indonesia faces as it moves away from coal. I am proud that she launched a UK supported micro hydro project in Lombok, demonstrating how we are working alongside Indonesia to support clean, reliable energy at a community level.

That combination of high level policy engagement and practical delivery is central to our approach across climate, energy and nature, and we continue to build on that through our ongoing dialogue with Indonesian partners. Indonesia stands out as one of the most important countries in the world for climate and nature. It is home to the world’s third largest tropical rainforest basin and has rich marine ecosystems that store carbon and support extraordinary biodiversity. It is a major emitter and a major part of the solution.

As a G20 economy and a leading voice in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Indonesia has influence well beyond its region. Its economy has long depended on sectors such as coal and palm oil, and like many countries it faces difficult choices as it seeks to balance growth with environmental protection. At the same time, Indonesia has committed to reducing emissions and is taking steps on forest protection, clean energy and climate finance. This Government are clear that global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss can be tackled only through partnership, because no country can do this alone.

I will endeavour to respond to a number of comments raised today. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley will be aware of concerns about Mama Yasinta. We take seriously all reports of human rights violations across Papua. We are concerned about the recent increase in violence in Papua, including fatalities. I visited Indonesia in February and underlined the importance that the UK attaches to human rights. I raised the issue of Papua directly with the vice Foreign Minister.

I also want to refer to the UK’s approach to supporting orangutans, which is twofold: to decrease the drivers of orangutan habitat loss and to support the mobilisation of finance for habitat conservation. An important example of sustainable commodity production is the multi stakeholder forestry partnership phase 5, referred to earlier. That programme is helping Indonesia to strengthen the sustainability and legality of its timber production, ensuring that pressure from the forestry industry is managed sustainably. That is relevant for habitats across Indonesia, including the ecosystems of Kalimantan and Sumatra that are home to Indonesia’s orangutans.

Threats to Indonesia’s maritime environments include pollution; illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices; and warming waters linked to climate change. The UK and Indonesia continue to work closely with each other through the Blue Planet fund country plan. We are proud to partner with Indonesia through that fund and the maritime partnership programme. A number of hon. Members referred to the maritime challenges, and it is important to keep that focus in our debate.

In relation to the UK’s action, we have worked closely with Indonesia for more than 20 years, combining diplomacy, technical support and targeted finance to tackle environmental and nature issues. Indeed, what started as co operation on sustainable timber has grown into a wider partnership. Hon. Members also referred to the important engagement earlier this year when the Prime Minister and President Prabowo Subianto agreed a new strategic partnership. The ambition for climate, energy and nature was clear at the Lancaster House breakfast, which I attended, where President Prabowo and His Majesty the King came together with a vision for Indonesia as a global leader in sustainable nature finance.

We are now taking that important ambition forward in practical ways. For example, we are supporting efforts to protect forests and tackle deforestation, including in supply chains such as palm oil. We are backing Indonesia’s energy transition, including through a just energy transition partnership. We are committed to providing a guarantee to unlock $1 billion of additional climate finance from the World Bank to support the energy transition. That is important because we know that Indonesia has to fill a significant climate finance gap to meet its mitigations and adaptation goals.

The Minister is clearly setting out how the Indonesian rainforests and peatlands deliver irreplaceable global climate benefits. We know that conservation efforts have been severely undermined because of the funding issue and she is setting out that new funding will be available. Will she also set out a clear timeframe for that funding?

I am happy for the hon. Lady to write to me to ask about the specifics because there are different funds, some of which are already deployed and some of which will continue in the future. If she would like to know more about specific funds, we can probably answer that.

It is also important to recognise that we are supporting efforts to strengthen governance and ensure that communities, including indigenous peoples, are part of that transition. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East for referencing the engagement and the rights of indigenous peoples.

On that specific point, Fairtrade was holding an event in the IPU room earlier and I was concerned to hear about the cost of complying with forest risk commodities regulation for indigenous farmers. They were citing figures in the tens—I think the low tens—for both African and Latin American smallholders. Can the Minister speak to her colleagues in DEFRA about how we can ensure that the burden of these regulations does not fall on people in indigenous communities? I think the answer is having co operatives or regional government led initiatives to make sure that they can comply with the certification, but can she make sure that that point is taken up?

My hon. Friend raises an important point and I am happy to pick that up with colleagues. When we look at sustainability, we should also recognise the role that indigenous peoples play in supporting the environment and climate.

As I have referenced, it is important that we raise concerns about deforestation, supply chains and the pace of change. These are complex issues, particularly in countries like Indonesia, where commodities such as palm oil and timber are central to growth and livelihoods.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East referred to, the Government announced today that the UK is introducing a new approach to deforestation regulations to help to ensure that our consumption does not drive global forest loss. That will require businesses to strengthen due diligence and improve traceability in their supply chains. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East outlined, we are clear on that goal, but we also recognise that it must be done in a way that supports rather than undermines our partners. The UK has worked closely with Indonesia on sustainable forestry and supply chains for many years, and we will continue to engage and work in partnership with Indonesia and other partners as the policy develops to ensure that our approach reflects local contexts, is proportionate and supports sustainable growth, alongside forest protection.

Representatives from the Indonesian Government are in the UK this week for London Climate Action Week, to meet representatives from across the UK’s Government, private sector and civil society. This is an important and landmark week, during which we can share the full extent of the UK’s ambitions on climate and energy with partners across the world. I am pleased that on Thursday morning, the Indonesian Minister of Forestry, Raja Juli Antoni, and I will co host a roundtable at the FCDO to showcase the Peusangan elephant conservation initiative: a flagship model under Indonesia’s new presidential taskforce to develop innovative financing for national parks. That is another initiative that demonstrates how conservation, livelihoods and finance can be brought together in incredible, investable opportunities.

To conclude, the UK Indonesia partnership on environmental sustainability is wide, ambitious and rooted in practical co operation. It spans forests, wildlife, cleaner energy, ocean protection and support for communities whose lives depend on the natural world. The partnership is backed by strong political commitment on both sides, and is supported by growing engagement between Governments, businesses and civil society.

We know that the scale of the challenge is significant, and that progress will take time. Like all countries, Indonesia will need international support to meet its commitments, and the strength of our partnership gives real grounds for confidence. Under Labour’s leadership, the United Kingdom will continue to share investment and practical support with Indonesia, because the choices that we make together will help to shape a safer, more secure and more prosperous future for both of our countries.

I thank everyone who came along to support the debate, and I thank the Front Benchers for their replies. I was particularly glad to hear the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), show such enthusiasm for the global energy transition and for countries meeting their climate ambitions, accelerating climate action and recognising the importance of carbon sequestration. I did not think those were Conservative party policies any more, but perhaps it is a different matter when it is about Indonesia rather than the UK. I resisted the urge to intervene on him on that point, as we will be having that debate in this place tomorrow morning.

I am not sure whether I should have referred hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests at the start of my speech, in relation to our trip to Borneo; I was just asking my colleague, and we are not quite sure whether all Members who went on the trip should have done so, but that is now on the record.

As hon. Members will have appreciated, that trip was absolutely wonderful. It brought home to us not only the potential of the rainforest, the peatlands and Indonesia’s natural environment, but the threats that they face. I thank ICCF and Borneo Orangutan Survival, representatives of which are here to watch the debate. I hope that I have done justice to their efforts, and long may our relationship continue.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered UK Indonesia collaboration on environmental sustainability.

Sitting suspended.

I will call Michelle Welsh to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind all other Members present that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister, although they can of course intervene without prior permission. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

It is highly likely that we will be interrupted during this debate for votes on the Floor of the House. I anticipate two votes, which means that I must suspend the sitting for up to 25 minutes. If the hon. Lady, the Minister and I are all back before 25 minutes, we can proceed more quickly, if that is any incentive.

I beg to move, That this House has considered safety in prisons.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. Since I was elected nearly two years ago, my office and I have been inundated with letters and calls from staff, prisoners and members of the public about the conditions at HMP Lowdham Grange in my constituency. I have heard repeated reports from prisoners of self harm, deaths in the prison and instances of discrimination. I have also been contacted by staff sharing the impact of these incidents and the pressures on them, such as staffing and violence. These unsafe conditions are deeply concerning not only in their own right, but as a reflection of the wider challenges facing our justice system.

To truly improve safety in our justice system, we must tackle the drivers of this violence. I thank the Minister for visiting HMP Lowdham Grange recently after I raised concerns with him. As he will be aware, the inspectorate released its report just yesterday, following the most recent inspection. It is reassuring to see some progress in areas such as visible leadership, improving health services and security relating to drugs. However, I remain deeply concerned about ongoing problems relating to self harm and suicide.

Does my hon. Friend agree that prison safety cannot be separated from mental health? When inmates are in crisis, they can self harm and there is a potential risk of dying through suicide. It can affect the safety of staff and other prisoners, too. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to tackle physical safety and mental health?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As Members will hear in my speech, mental health and safety need to go hand in hand.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I agree with her analysis so far. The key point is that we must take some steps and have some initiatives to reduce prison violence. I am sure the Minister is aware that in the last Session I introduced a private Member’s Bill, the Prisons (Violence) Bill, to place a duty on all prison management to minimise violence against prisoners and staff. One way we could do that is with key performance indicators, with specific targets for reducing assaults. Prison governors would then have an incentive to take action, to reduce the number of assaults and to halt the loss of experienced prison staff. It is worthy of further consideration. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a potential solution?

I absolutely agree. In fact, some of the accounts that I have been given by prison staff, particularly women prison officers, are deplorable.

The inspectorate notes: “There had been two self inflicted deaths in the previous two years and support for those at risk of self harm was weak.”

The rate of self harm had increased by 50%, and the number of serious incidents requiring hospital had doubled. The risks cannot be allowed to continue. More must be done to support prisoners and to support staff in addressing these issues.

I am also concerned that the processes for notifying the prison of a risk to life are wholly inadequate. The information that is publicly available directs individuals to the Safer Custody line, yet there appears to be insufficient training for operators handling potentially life threatening situations. My team and I have frequently found ourselves guiding operators through the appropriate steps or being placed on hold while advice is sought from a supervisor. In some cases, we have been asked to leave a voicemail, with a response promised within 24 hours. That is for somebody who is threatening to take their life, I hasten to add.

If a prisoner is actively attempting to take their own life, I think we can all agree that 24 hours is far too long. When we are put through to the orderly officer’s line, there have been numerous occasions on which no one answers and we are forced to leave a voicemail on a separate line. On the occasions when we do speak to the officer, we are reassured that a welfare check will take place, but we have found that those checks often do not take place or that, when they do, an officer simply looks through the door before moving on.

These concerns are reflected in the inspectorate’s findings. Care plans under assessment, care in custody and team procedures were judged to be poor, with most prisoners not engaged in education, training or work, and with few meaningful activities identified to support them.

On Friday, I visited HMP Wandsworth with the Chess in Schools and Communities scheme. I saw its work to teach chess in prisons, which is also great for teaching resilience, patience and team working. May I send the hon. Member some information about what Chess in Schools and Communities does? It may be useful in the institution that she is talking about.

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Member for his intervention.

Access to appropriate healthcare is another shortcoming. Prisoners often do not have access to their prescription medication or mental health services, and their medical or religious dietary needs are not met. The inspectorate also raised concerns about “prisoners with disabilities living in neglectful conditions”.

Discrimination has no place in our society, and no place in prisons either. I urge the Minister to treat this as a matter of urgency. I fear that if action is not taken quickly, an incident of self harm will lead to another preventable death.

Let me move on to the subject of staff. I very much welcome the fact that the Government have taken steps to reduce the threat posed to our prison officers. Although numbers remain unacceptably high, the rate of assault and serious assault on staff has reduced. I also welcome the fact that the Government have now increased the number of staff stab proof vests from 750 to 10,000, and that 500 officers will be trained on the use of tasers for the most serious incidents of violence. However, I support the Prison Officers Association in calling for protective equipment to be available to all officers, not only to those in high security settings. Prison officers put their safety on the line every day to protect the public. The least we can do is ensure they have the protection they need. Can the Minister tell me whether there are any plans to make protective equipment available to all officers?

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On the protection of prison officers, is it not correct that the last coalition Government got rid of almost 25% of prison officers? Every year I ask a question about how many prison officers have left the service, and each year the number increases. We have collectively lost 100,000 years of jailcraft through experienced prison officers leaving the service. This is a key issue that needs to be addressed if we are to tackle violence against prisoners and staff.

One would think my hon. Friend could read my speech over my shoulder, because that is the next thing I will talk about. There remains a staffing crisis across our prisons, with officer numbers falling and many leaving the profession after only one or two years. I therefore ask the Minister, as my hon. Friend has done, what steps the Government are taking to improve staff retention, given its direct impact on prison safety. Our prisons are losing out on experienced members of staff, meaning that officers who often do not have the necessary experience or training have to handle situations for which they are dangerously unprepared.

Finally, I would like to raise the impact of the safety of prisons on the wider public. Time and again, when I speak to residents and the local police force, I am told about the endless cycle of incarceration and offending that is plaguing our streets. The local police and shop owners in Hucknall in my constituency know exactly who the offenders are who steal from businesses. The police do all they can—they collect evidence, they make arrests and they bring offenders to trial—but they know that in a year’s time those individuals will be back on the street committing the very same offences in the very same community. This is not a sustainable system. Discussions about rehabilitation and treatment of prisoners are often overlooked or trivialised, but access to addiction support, healthcare and education is essential if offenders are to break the cycle of crime. As long as our prisons do not provide adequate rehabilitation, our streets will never be safe.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I, too, went to HMP Wandsworth not very long ago. There was an incident on the wing: something happened and the prison officers had to shut all the doors and run. That was a horrible example of what they deal with every day. The violence is there: it is real, and I have seen it.

The prison had just set up a neurodivergent wing. I spoke to some of the prisoners, and the wing seemed to have made a real difference to them. We have been talking about rehabilitation; they had access to therapists and they were out of their cells doing things. That model seemed to work well. Does my hon. Friend agree that that could be looked at and rolled out on a wider scale, given how many prisoners—particularly male prisoners—have autistic traits?

I absolutely agree. If the Minister has not been to Wandsworth, I ask him to go and see that model, which perhaps is something he can do going forward.

Offenders cannot focus on rebuilding their life if they are struggling simply to survive or are experiencing thoughts of ending their own life. I hope that the Minister shares my concerns about the safety and wellbeing of prisoners and staff at HMP Lowdham Grange and that he will take immediate steps to support the prison, the prisoners and the safety of prison officers.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for securing this debate and for bringing attention to this very important subject, which she has raised on numerous occasions in the Chamber and elsewhere. She has spoken to Lord Timpson, the Minister for Prisons, and to me about the issue and has been a champion for inmates and staff at HMP Lowdham Grange, as well as for families.

I also want to thank my hon. Friend’s staff, on the record, because it is not just Members of Parliament who deal with these very difficult, complex and draining issues. I know that staff in her constituency and parliamentary office have very difficult conversations and that they go above and beyond to help her constituents, and sometimes people who are not her constituents. It is right that I place on the record my thanks, not just for bringing the matter to my attention and that of the Government, but—[Interruption.]

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

On resuming—

The debate may now continue until 4.50 pm if necessary.

As I was saying before we were interrupted by votes, I want to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest, her team, and her neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne), who has raised this issue with me. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest intimated in her opening speech, on the back of her representations I visited HMP Lowdham Grange in April. I had an important meeting with the governor and her leadership team where I raised many of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and was reassured to a large degree. I felt that the leadership team there understood the issues and were working at pace to attempt to address them.

However, I also want to place on record that I challenged the team about the work that needs to be done. We have seen in the report published yesterday that although there have been improvements, there is absolutely no doubt that there is a long way to go. I hope that the governor and the leadership team at HMP Lowdham Grange would agree with that.

There is more work to do there and elsewhere. Poor safety in our prisons fundamentally reflects a system under strain. In the summer of 2024, this Government inherited a prison system that was in crisis—in utter collapse—and very soon to run out of places completely. Too many prisons are still struggling at or near capacity, with an increased risk of violence hampering their efforts to turn offenders’ lives around, as we have heard.

I will go on to address some of the particular issues, but we have taken fundamental action to reduce the risk linked to capacity challenges. Ultimately, we can only do all the good work on reoffending, education and rehabilitation if we have a functioning prison system. That is why we are delivering 14,000 new prison places—the biggest expansion of the estate since the Victorian era. We are investing £4.7 billion in that prison building programme over the next four years, and we introduced landmark sentencing reforms in the Sentencing Act 2026, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, to finally put the prison system on a sustainable footing for the future. That Act was not easy. Difficult decisions have been made, but that legislation means that we can reassure the British public, for the first time in essentially a generation, that there will always be prison spaces for offenders when we need them.

However, there is much more to be done on rehabilitation, education and mental health support. I accept that absolutely.

I know that the Minister is a huge champion of mental health, and of men’s and boys’ mental health in particular. In my constituency, I have the Moorland, Lindholme and Hatfield prisons. Will he join me in celebrating the amazing work being done by the Samaritans in those prisons to support people, and Andy’s Man Club as well?

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am a massive champion of Andy’s Man Club up and down the country, but especially in south Yorkshire. It does really important work with ex offenders and indeed more generally. We have continued as a Government to fund the Samaritans’ Listener scheme, which trains prisoners to support other prisoners who are in crisis. It is a brilliant initiative and I urge any parliamentarian to engage with it in their area.

I want to touch on what we are doing to try to protect our prison staff, because numerous Members raised that issue. We have invested £15 million in protective equipment, including up to 10,000 units of protective body armour. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest set out in her opening speech, that is a transformative approach to protecting our prison officers compared with what the previous Government were able to do. Half those units are allocated to the long term high security estate, including at HMP Lowdham Grange. So, as we roll out body armour across the LTHSE, HMP Lowdham Grange will benefit.

That is why all staff in the adult male estate now have access to body worn video cameras, batons, rigid bar handcuffs and synthetic pepper spray as part of their standard equipment. It is why we have introduced PAVA spray in the Youth Custody Service. Very difficult decisions and considerations about the use of such equipment have to be made, but they are the right decisions to ensure that we protect prison officers, both in the youth estate and in the adult estate.

That is why we have trained and equipped up to 500 additional officers in the use of Tasers and why we are already installing up to 50 ligature resistant cells, in order to prevent self harm, and have confirmed funding for the installation of more. Because safety and security are innately intertwined, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced an extra £35 million this year to improve security at 17 of our most at risk prisons, on top of the £40 million that we have already invested in this area. In addition, up to 13,000 new heavy duty steel window grilles will be in place by next spring. The picture is getting better—we have stabilised the prison system and we are investing in security measures—but there is a lot more work to be done.

The rate of assaults on staff has decreased under this Government by 4.5%. I accept that that is a modest figure, but it is moving in the right direction. The rate of self harm among prisoners has also decreased, by 8%, but I absolutely accept that it is far too high. As the Minister who shares responsibility for this area with my noble Friend in the other place, I get regular updates about serious incidents in prisons. They are far too frequent and far too serious, and much more has to be done.

I thank the Minister for outlining the issues. One of the critical problems in prisons is the mental health crisis. People are coming in with complex needs, including complex emotional needs; sometimes they have addiction issues; and they may have experienced abuse in the past as well. Those things need to be addressed. We can provide all the body armour and other equipment that needs to be provided, as we should, but he and the Government need to address the mental health crisis as well.

Absolutely. The NHS works in our prisons up and down the country every day, and it does incredible work. We have bolstered the approach to people identified as being at risk of suicide and self harm. There is a comprehensive package of support for what is called “individualised case management process”. It sounds technical, but it is very important, because it means that for the first time we are treating prisoners, and looking at their needs and their history, in a much more tailored and individualised way. As I mentioned earlier in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), we continue to fund the Samaritans’ Listener scheme, which is really important, but much more needs to be done, so I accept the hon. Member’s point.

I want to touch on security and drugs. Hon. Members will be aware that one of the biggest drivers of serious violence and instability in prisons is the influx of contraband, particularly drugs. In prisons up and down the country, essentially of all categories, the No. 1 issue keeping the governor up at night is security and drugs.

We inherited a prison system that was awash with a shocking amount of drugs. They compromise not only the safety of hard working staff and the prisoners themselves, but make it far harder for staff to do the important work that turns prisoners’ lives around. That is why we are tackling drugs on every front. We have invested in drug detecting dogs; we have machines to detect drugs impregnated into paper and fabric; and we now have X ray body scanners across the whole adult male estate.

Certainly, drones continue to be a significant challenge. We are investing in state of the art technology; indeed, my colleague Lord Timpson was in Ukraine recently to look at the technology that it is using as part of the war effort, and what we can learn in terms of investing to secure our high security estate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest raised valid specific concerns about safety at HMP Lowdham Grange. She will know that the prison was brought under public management following serious issues with safety and security under the previous private provider. During my visit in April, I was encouraged by the progress being made. I have seen a much stronger approach to managing individuals at risk of self harm or suicide, and we have supported HMP Lowdham Grange with additional investment in safety resources, better staff training and closer working with healthcare partners.

Through the long term high security estate taskforce, further action is being taken to tackle weapons and drugs in our prisons, and those measures are beginning to have an impact. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons conducted an independent review of progress in May and published its findings yesterday, as I said. It confirmed that the prison has made progress and has a clear path to improve safety and security.

I reassure my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood Forest and for Gedling, and others, that I remain fully committed, together with my colleague Lord Timpson, to improving safety at HMP Lowdham Grange and making sure that it receives sustained attention and action from the Government. The governor has also assured me personally that she and her team will continue to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest and other local MPs, and that my hon. Friend will shortly be invited back into the prison to see the progress and ask any questions that she has.

I again place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, for her continued advocacy on behalf of her constituents, and for the opportunity to respond. The challenges facing our prison system are significant and we do not underestimate or shy away from them. The Government are investing, modernising and taking action to make our prisons safer for staff and prisoners alike and, above all, better able to deliver rehabilitation, which cuts crime, reduces reoffending and protects the British public. That is the progress we are making, and the work we will continue to drive forward.

Question put and agreed to.

I beg to move, That this House has considered the role of Big Tech in society.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. It is good to see the Minister in his place, and indeed the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune). I am grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting the debate.

Today, I want to look at the relationship between Government and big tech, and its impact on wider society and the communities we all represent, as well as the national and even global consequences of this expanding, what I term “unreliable relationship of reliance”. Let me be clear: the Government do not have the resources necessary for research and development of new technologies compared with the wealthy and global tech companies’ resourcing—I get that. Private sector collaboration makes sense and is of benefit to our country. Improving the efficiency of Government, public sector productivity, and the outcomes and effects of Governments—whatever their political complexion—is something that I support.

However, I think the Government need to establish—this is something for the Minister; perhaps a legacy for him —their very own centre for tech research: a Porton Down for tech innovation and development, or an expansion of the R&D work of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Not everything can or should be outsourced to the private sector—this is a Conservative MP saying that.

Today, I want to highlight some of the potential, if not inherent, democratic dangers for the UK Government —both today’s Government and future Governments—as the relationship with big tech becomes more embedded, we become more reliant, and by osmosis, we cede ever more power and influence to tech companies over all the people we represent in this Parliament, and the Governments they elect.

Perhaps UK Government data could be seen as the crown jewels of data—the ultimate state capture: data capture. Data is increasingly entrusted to companies with no democratic oversight or accountability. Some big tech companies regard democracy, governance and oversight, for all their faults, with distain and even contempt—an irritant to their commercial progress, rather than as a challenging and helpful partner.

I believe that any Government being beholden to big tech—I do not mean collaboration, which is positive—is a strategic risk to our country, full of moral hazard. I submit that it is a potential and emerging medium term strategic risk, where conflict between democracy and big tech will come into stark contrast. Today, we feel only the tremors of such a conflict, but it is for the future and for all Governments to address it before that tremor becomes an earthquake for our democracy and for politics more generally.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. He is making an interesting speech. When we talk about big tech, we are primarily talking about companies based outside the UK—particularly in the United States. Does he agree that this argument is really about sovereignty and about how more of this technology can be developed and owned in the UK or across Europe?

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and will touch on sovereignty later. The European Union—it is a positive in many ways—is looking at that. That is partly why I am making this speech today; it is about sovereignty too.

Who knows the most—who owns or hosts the most data—and how that data is used determines who has the hierarchical advantage. I would argue that that gives the democratic or control advantage, not just the commercial advantage. The people, through democratically elected government, should always have ultimate control.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. Many big tech companies are a cause of concern, but a particular one is Palantir, which holds Government contracts worth more than £900 million, spanning 10 Departments. Does he agree that more concerning than its dominance is the fact that we do not know what data it holds and has access to? Numerous groups warn that patient data in the NHS federated data platform could be accessible by US authorities under the American CLOUD—Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data—Act, so does he agree that the Government must exercise the February 2027 break clause until those questions are property and publicly answered?

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I will not name individual companies today—she has clearly put her views on the record—but no monopoly, be it a public or private sector monopoly, is good for our constituents, consumers and small and medium sized businesses. She makes her case well.

Will this universal knowledge that tech companies have—this data capture—always be used for good? Will it always be benign? Will it seek the common good or the corporate good?

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Let me make a bit of progress, and then I will try to come back to the hon. Lady. I have applied for this debate a few times—I have been lucky today, but we have only an hour, rather than 90 minutes.

Is big tech politically neutral? Sometimes it does not seem like that. Is that of concern to the Government? Does the Minister agree that some Government data can never be white labelled? Are some big tech companies agnostic when it comes to the UK’s democratic values? Are they more interested in value than values? This is not speculation. Some—not all—of the most powerful figures in tech have openly questioned democracy and its relevance, authority and survivability. Some of those observers are not fringe voices shouting from the margins, but tech owners with capital, platforms and influence and with the ear of many of our constituents and, indeed, our Government.

Again, big tech is a force for good in the world. I believe that. It provides huge benefits with regard to human geography, economic empowerment and borderless prosperity. But in so many ways, tech’s story has only just begun. That is one of the reasons why we need to have discussions like the one that we are having today. It is why Governments, wherever they might be, need to strike the right balance on how much power—how much of the people’s power—they cede to big tech and its shareholders. Many of its shareholders are known, but some are a bit more mysterious and, to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee), do not necessarily always share our values, or are certainly not in the UK.

Ten years ago today, the Brexit campaign became one of the first very successful disinformation campaigns. Ranging from Turkish immigrants to Spanish bullfighting, the targeted Facebook ads played on people’s fears and deceived millions. But today, disinformation is more pervasive, insidious and vindictive than ever before, so does the right hon. Member agree that we must learn the lessons of 10 years ago and introduce stricter regulations for social media companies to ensure that they challenge harmful disinformation and reduce its spread across their platforms?

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. As I said, I am not going to reference particular tech companies or particular information or misinformation campaigns. I am trying to get Members across the House to raise their eyes a little and look at the big picture of the conflict, coming down the road, between big tech and sovereignty, democracy and all the people we represent. But the hon. Lady’s point is also on the record.

Again, the close relationship between big tech and Governments is necessary, but is none the less becoming increasingly problematic and conflicted. Tech needs smarter regulation, certainly more competition, and a recalibration and rebalancing of its relationship with Government. The collaboration between the two should not mean Governments turning a blind eye to the breaking of laws, or big tech enjoying public policy vetoes. With big tech come big responsibilities. Governments should not rush to absolve big tech of the wrongs of tech in return for future technology transfer and unfettered access, and better terms for collaborations with Government.

These questions arise, perhaps. If the relationship between Government and big tech is conflicted, is it also compromised? If so, does that compromise equate to a type of corporate kompromat? Who wins? Who loses? Who is in control? Has big tech gone beyond even the power of the global banking system in 2008? Has it become too big to fail, too big to challenge even if the challenge is by Ministers of the Crown, too big to be sufficiently stood up to and too big to be fairly taxed?

If the Government’s mantra is “In tech we trust”, I hope this debate will challenge Whitehall and the Government on the fact that that laudable aim does not come without significant, inherent and strategic risks for the whole of our country, our institutions and democracy itself—the people we represent. Therefore the challenge for Government is how they preserve the benefits of private sector collaboration while ensuring that no single point of failure or future political, trade union or operational dispute can jeopardise or threaten the UK’s national security, sovereign capabilities or strategic interests. Who is ultimately in control? Is it the client—in this case, the Government—or is it big tech, or individual tech companies? Is there a master switch, and if so, whose hand is on it? If we are talking about a particular tech company, who within the tech company has the final say on disputed deployment of that tech, or on philosophical or political disagreements?

Does the right hon. Member share my concern that because of the speed at which big tech moves, we in this House as legislators always seem to be five steps behind where the technology is? How are we going to be able to regulate for a world that is faster paced than we are in this building?

The hon. Lady raises a very interesting point. That is a challenge for all Governments and all Ministers, however able they are. We have a very good tech Minister here today, but it is a real challenge. The starting point is better co operation, transparency and openness from big tech itself, as I set out in my introductory remarks.

It is the owner or owners—as in shareholders, the board, the advisory board or even other clients and customers—who may object to collaboration between a particular Government and a tech company. That is problematic. Or could tech companies themselves find a moral or political argument to turn off a particular Government service at a particular moment in time? That has been seen in recent months in the conflict in the middle east. We have seen it in China where certain tech companies have switched off their moral compass to placate the Chinese regime in exchange for commercial advantage. Meanwhile, freedom and democracy in China is set back. What can the Government do? There need to be more robust legislative safeguards. The Government need to collaborate with tech companies, of course, but not to capitulate.

In conclusion, tech companies should act as responsible corporate citizens, but they so often do not unless they are made to, and they are not made to enough for the reasons I have set out today. When Parliaments do regulate, tech companies fight it all the way. They weaponise the courts and demonise parents and legislators around the world who dare to even raise legitimate questions and scrutinise these companies. Big tech should not be asking what the minimum is it should do to keep Governments off its back, as it sees it, or to avoid negative publicity and public opinion. Big tech firms should be corporate leaders leading by example and setting high standards without Parliament or Ministers having to tell them what they should do. Big tech should do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do.

Order. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for introducing the debate. I remind other Back Bench Members who want to contribute that they should continue to bob to show that they still want to be called. I am loath to impose a time limit if I can avoid it, but, given the level of interest, if everyone can stick to about four minutes each we will get everyone in.

Thank you, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. Given the number of people present, it will be a successful debate, and it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy.

Technology plays a huge role in all our lives. I think all of us in this room carry a smartphone or some sort of tablet device that we use to check emails, do social media or read the news and all sorts of things, so the debate is timely and important. I do not want to repeat the points that the right hon. Gentleman made, but I think big tech has a lot to answer for in harvesting individuals’ personal data, carrying out surveillance in marketing promotions and tracking us through various map applications. There is a lot to be said about big tech and about companies’ market concentration and algorithmic control in social media.

I did a school visit recently and was told about pupils missing school because they are hooked on social media overnight. They barely get any sleep and cannot come to school or perform well at school. The right hon. Gentleman made a point about political neutrality. Without naming names, a prominent social media platform comes to mind in terms of a lack of political neutrality. As we use big tech in our day to day lives for work, leisure and for personal reasons, there is a lot to be said about data sovereignty for individuals and also for Governments, businesses and cyber security.

I want to make a point about France and Germany, whose Governments have been moving a lot of their software systems to open source software, which is not part of big tech. I would like to see the British Government seriously analyse open source options.

On cyber security, in recent weeks the US Government have decided to block Claude’s new AI software, Fable 5. What are my hon. Friend’s thoughts on new AI software and cyber security?

I have a lot to say about the Trump Administration, but I will not bore the House with those remarks. The threats we are seeing to modern society from artificial intelligence are quite serious and there is an unpredictable Government in Washington DC.

The Government should do a big piece of work, similar to that being done in France and Germany, on open source software. I read an excellent book recently by American author Ben Tarnoff, called “Internet for the People”, and I would highly recommend it to the Minister and all Members of the House. It is about how we are where we are in terms of big tech.

The point made by the right hon. Member for The Wrekin about better and stronger regulation is important. I also want to touch on the digital services tax introduced in 2020. The rate of digital services tax in the UK is fairly low. In Austria, it is 5%; in France, it is 3%; and in Germany, it is 10%. We need to revisit that as a society, and make sure that big tech companies pay their fair share of tax.

I have tabled two written questions, UIN477 and UIN57573, asking whether the Government have a strategy for using open source software; I would like to see them do a lot more on that. In Europe, our friends can see where the big tech platforms most of us use every day are leading us, and they are looking more and more at open source software. Cyber security and data sovereignty are really important issues.

I could go on and on, Sir Jeremy, but you are looking at me, so I will finish my remarks. I would love to hear the Minister address the points about open source software and a digital services tax that could yield a lot more revenue for taxpayers.

I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing the debate. It goes without saying that big tech companies, like everyone else, should pay their fair share. They should not be allowed to harvest a child’s data or feature harmful content on their platforms. That is why the Government’s ban on harmful social media could be an important step towards better protection for young people online.

However, I worry that enforcing a blanket ban will just see young people turn to virtual private networks and access totally unmodified content. VPN use went up more than 100% as soon as the ban in Australia was implemented. I also worry that taking away all social media platforms could be really damaging to some young people in Yeovil and beyond, who use social media to find their people, battle loneliness and express themselves. When done right, social media can be a space where young people can be so creative. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on how we balance those concerns with the vital need to protect young people. We Liberal Democrats have suggested a film style age rating system for these platforms to keep children safe online.

One area where we really do need to crack down is protecting the creative industries. Artists should not be finding their art being used by generative AI without their permission. We need the Government to clarify how they will go further on regulating the small print that big tech uses when it comes to what is used to teach AI models.

Beyond social media, the change and innovation coming out of big tech could be a real focus for good. For example, assistive technology for people with special educational needs and disabilities can be life changing, whether that is AI note takers like Plaud or more specific tech for things like speech and language disorders. I know that the Department for Education is working away at this, but we need a cross Government approach to fund and suggest the best assistive tech for schools and the workplace.

Related to that point, I ask the Minister to set out what discussions he has had with big tech companies about making their platforms—from social media to chatbots—more accessible for neurodiverse people, as there are lots of simple steps we can take. I would welcome a meeting with the Minister to set those out.

Finally, I want to talk about an issue where I am seeing impact: fraud and scams. One constituent with learning difficulties lost £70,000 to a romance fraud. There were no guardrails on social media, and nor were the protections on online banking apps good enough. Although we got Lloyds to refund my constituent, it was an uphill struggle. But it is not just that scam; scammers are everywhere and targeting everyone and anyone in our community. Fraudsters are even using sponsored slots on Google to act as fake clean air zone charging websites.

Veterans are being targeted by scam wealth creation and property investment influencers, who use their background as veterans to sell worthless courses that trap those targeted in a spiral of spending more and more on such courses. A veteran from my constituency was worried at first, but after being reassured by a veteran recruiting for the course and the slick social media presence of the influencers, he invested. Ultimately, he faced bankruptcy and nearly took his own life. Regulation is not keeping up, and the Government and big tech need to be doing more to crack down on fraud.

In my constituency, scammers have managed to impersonate the council to demand bogus penalty charges from vulnerable residents. Meanwhile, the world’s leading deepfake expert, Hany Farid, says in The New York Times that he can no longer trust his own eyes. If he cannot, what chance do the rest of us have? Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to compel tech companies to crack down on deepfakes and establish an AI regulator to enforce a statutory code of ethics?

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Will the Minister set out the steps that the Government are taking with big tech and the Financial Conduct Authority to crack down on fraudsters? It is important that the Minister clearly sets out what new protections and awareness campaigns the Government are putting together, because the approach so far has not been enough. We need action.

I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for bringing forward this important debate. It comes at a pertinent time, as we discuss the impact of social media on our children, the way we use AI, and the influence of big tech companies, including on our lives.

As I pointed out earlier, a growing number of voices—doctors, nurses, civil society organisations and Members across this House—are sounding the alarm about the unchecked expansion of one company: Palantir Technologies. The concern seems to centre around two issues. The first is the sheer scale of Palantir’s involvement in our public infrastructure. It holds at least 34 current and past Government contracts across at least 10 Departments, totalling a minimum of £900 million. The true figure is likely higher, since several contracts remain unacknowledged or heavily redacted. Palantir’s largest single contract is the NHS federated data platform, which is worth £330 million over seven years. My inbox has been rammed with constituents calling for the Government to trigger Palantir’s February 2027 break clause. I support that call, and I hope the Minister will say whether the Government do, too.

It is unusual for me to intervene, but I am glad the hon. Lady mentioned that number. I had no idea it was that many contracts for that particular company, and that underscores some of the points I was making. I can think of certain service companies, which I will not mention today, that have multiple contracts, some of which they deliver well, and some of which have been a complete disaster under successive Governments. I can think of some global IT companies—not big tech, but the old, traditional hardware companies—where some of those programmes are delivered well, and some have been a complete disaster. To have so many contracts in the hands of so few is concerning.

That is why I was so pleased the right hon. Member called the debate. I hope he agrees that once a contractor has failed for one Department, it should not be given a contract for another Department. I hope the Minister will speak to that.

I hugely support my constituents’ call for the Government to use that February 2027 break clause with Palantir. I hope the Minister will tell us more about whether they intend to act on that. Some will say that Palantir’s expanding portfolio simply proves that it is the best company for the job. That may be true for some places—I doubt it—but it is not a reason to dismiss concerns. We should be worried about one company having this much dominance across so many pillars of our society, and particularly a foreign corporation that may not have the UK’s best interests at heart. I say that with confidence, because Palantir’s founder, Peter Thiel, has accused us of having Stockholm syndrome over our affection for the NHS and said that we need to “rip the whole thing from the ground and start over”.

His broader political views are just as concerning, and I encourage Members to look into them.

The current CEO of Palantir UK is Oswald Mosley’s grandson. I do not wish to judge a man solely by his grandfather’s sins, but that gets harder when the views on display are not entirely dissimilar. Nor can we ignore Peter Mandelson’s role in arranging the Prime Minister’s undeclared 2025 visit to Palantir’s headquarters—a meeting where no minutes were taken and that raised transparency questions that are still unanswered.

The second concern is data. Palantir built its reputation as a surveillance and intelligence tool for the US military; it is not a healthcare company, but a data aggregation company with software designed to link datasets across systems. This is no longer a hypothetical risk: NHS England has confirmed that Palantir staff can access identifiable patient data on the federated data platform through a new admin role on the national data integration tenant. The British Medical Association, Medacs, the Good Law Project, Privacy International and Amnesty International have all warned that that data could become accessible to other departments, or to US authorities under the American Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018, regardless of what any contract says.

Some 50,000 patients have written to their NHS trust boards to urge them not to adopt the platform. I am not suggesting that every Palantir contract should be cancelled tomorrow, but we are sleepwalking into a dependency on this company that we will come to deeply regret.

We have not been universally successful at keeping to four minutes. I ask everyone to now get closer to three minutes, because I need to begin Front Bench contributions at 5.28 pm.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. In my lifetime, technology has found its way into every corner of society. It has changed our workplaces, our classrooms and my farm, to be honest. It has brought real benefits, but also huge harms.

One positive, of course, is that we can stay connected to everybody in the world, but we are also always reachable, and with that comes the downside of being exposed to the online world. Our children can stumble across content so harmful that it alters how they see themselves and the world. I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement on banning children from social media and blocking nude images on children’s phones. But let us be honest: that should have happened years ago; the Government have dilly dallied while we, and particularly our younger generation, have been left to pay the price. That is because they are scared of upsetting billionaire tech bosses, and that shows the real role that big tech plays: an undemocratic hand on the shoulder of our politics.

Big tech is pursuing AI superintelligence with almost no democratic oversight, and even world class engineers admit they cannot fully control today’s models. People never voted for AI systems that can generate abuse or distort elections, yet those are being rolled out anyway. Children and women have already been violated by explicit images created without their consent, and misinformation is now so widespread that it threatens the foundations of our democracy. Still, the Government tiptoe around tech billionaires, acting only when the damage is already done.

We have to be honest about the power that these companies hold. We were not elected to represent tech bosses; we were elected to represent our constituents. This Government have allowed themselves to be sucked in by the interests of the very richest people on the planet—individuals whose wealth exceeds the GDP of entire nations. I therefore want to ask the Minister three things. First, what will the actual consequences be if companies do not meet the deadline for blocking nude images? Will the Secretary of State report to Parliament at the end of that period with a clear timeline for legislation if progress falls short? Secondly, what proactive plans do the Government have to address the national security risk expected to be posed by superintelligent AI? Finally, when will this Government stop governing in fear of big tech and start governing in the interest of the people who sent us here?

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall.

Apatura has submitted a planning application to Falkirk council for a 300-MW AI data centre just 500 metres from Forth Valley Royal hospital, 20 metres from a care home and next to a densely populated residential area. From the outset, it is worth noting that the council has received nearly 1,800 objections from local people. It is no wonder that the strength of feeling against this big tech project is so strong: the proposed site, which covers about 55 acres of land, is being labelled as “sustainable”, which is frankly insulting to my constituents. An environmental impact assessment shows that the proposed data centre would emit pollution that would rank it among the worst 10 polluters in Scotland. The data centre requires its own electricity substation and 200 diesel generators as back up. Even if they are never run for operational purposes, the generators will have to come online as part of a regular maintenance programme.

As we are here in Westminster Hall today in sweltering temperatures in the middle of a heatwave, let us also ponder the scale of the low grade waste heat that the AI data centre would produce. The direct thermal exhaust creates hot air, which needs to be dispersed into the atmosphere. AI chips created by the big tech company Nvidia get so hot that they need liquid cooling, creating a warm liquid that must then be piped out. That intense thermal exhaust can raise temperatures by up to 9°. Surface warming can impact areas up to six miles away. As I said, the proposed site is just 20 metres from a care home, 500 metres from a hospital that serves approximately 300,000 people and is in a residential area full of families with children. The proposal is outrageous.

The noise being produced by the data centre will be constant. It will include infrasonic noise, the long wavelengths of which travel vast distances and can penetrate walls and glass, even defeating ear protectors. That pollution can cause serious physical and psychological harm and distress. Surely there will be consensus in this Chamber when I say that technology should not come with a health warning to people, families and communities. I would like to think that legislators at every level of government consider that to be the baseline for any of their decisions.

Of course, technology will play an increasing role in our society, but proposed developments like the one in Larbert rightly have people worried. Its proximity to the hospital, care home and many houses shows that people are right to be concerned. It is shameful that tech companies do not seem to be bothered about that. Technology cannot and must not be an industry that exploits people, communities and our environment for profit.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing the debate and for his thoughtful contribution. He not only highlighted the dangers of content and addiction but made a power analysis when he talked about the threat to democracy of big tech companies. They have a supranational status now, and states are struggling to tax or regulate them—or to enforce the regulations that they have against them. That is a real challenge to democracy that we need to face up to across the House.

At the heart of this is the fact that tech companies have simply been allowed to get too big. We have had a laissez faire attitude towards their growth over the years, which is based on confused economic principles. Yes, we want frictionless free trade, but is a market really free if it has been captured by a handful of firms? I thought that traditional economic theory already warned us about that, but we seem to have become more naive about it in the last decade or so. Looking at the power analysis in the global market, this is really about the hegemonic role of the US. If we look at pension funds, for example, more of UK pension savings now go into Apple than into all UK firms combined. We can see how the problem accelerates over time. We wonder why our brilliant tech start ups are not able to grow; it is because when they reach the point when they need more capital, all the capital is in the US. We get Google buying out DeepMind and the cycle continues. They get bigger and bigger, and we get weaker and weaker. For far too long, we have had an economic strategy that is naive about what happens in a free market if there is a hegemonic power in it. That power has to be challenged.

Members have touched on this today, but the answer lies in a greater focus on tech sovereignty. It is not about gaining tech independence; we are not suddenly going to invent our own Facebook, ChatGPT or Amazon tomorrow—it would be naive of us to try—but about establishing our own niches within the global markets so that we claw some of that power back. It is about pooling our sovereignty and working with like minded states, perhaps those in the EU, and collectively using our power to enforce tax, regulations and other legal limits on the activities of tech companies.

I did not have time to raise this issue in my speech. The National Security and Investment Act 2021 established the National Security Investment Unit, which was the right move. If a particularly sensitive company with strategic assets or a technology that affects UK interests is to be sold or receive outward investment, it has to be cleared by the Government. That is a welcome change, but it is rather perverse or even ironic that, when the situation is reversed, there is very little scrutiny.

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. That is another item on the list of things that we have ignored for far too long. Ultimately, we need to shift the balance of power. As he said in his speech, the power has been shifted too far in favour of a handful of tech giants. This is not just about economic power; it is about our national security, the delivery of public services and, ultimately, our independence in the world and our ability to shape our destiny. I thank him for raising this important issue, and I hope we can have more discussions about power, as well as the impact of that power.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy.

We live in an age in which a handful of technology companies shape how we communicate, shop, work and receive news, and increasingly how the Government deliver public services. There is no question but that technology has brought enormous benefits to us. It has enabled new businesses, accelerated scientific discovery and created opportunities that previous generations could not imagine, but Parliament has a responsibility to ask a fundamental question: who is shaping whom? Is technology serving society or is society being reshaped to serve the interests of technology companies?

Today, a small number of global technology corporations possess unprecedented economic power to influence markets. Their algorithms shape public debate and their infrastructure underpins our essential services. That concentration of power raises important questions about sovereignty. The Government are elected by the British people and this Parliament makes laws, yet too often we find ourselves adapting public policy to the priorities of global firms, rather than expecting those firms to adapt to the rules of our society.

The rise of artificial intelligence makes those questions even more urgent. AI has extraordinary potential in healthcare, education, public administration and so forth, but it should raise concerns about issues such as transparency and accountability, which affect employment and the concentration of power. That means that there is a need for stronger competition policy when markets become overly concentrated. It means that public data is used in the public interest. It means protecting our citizens from harmful online environments. It also means supporting British innovation so that the next generation of technological advance creates prosperity across our country, rather than a dependence on overseas monopolies.

Britain should choose democracy, accountability and innovation in the service of society. That is the task before us. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing this debate. It is a debate that this House must not shirk.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this timely debate and on his interesting and balanced speech.

In today’s digital age, a small group of technology giants wield extraordinary influence over the infrastructure, services and processes that shape our online lives. Although not all their market positions constitute illegal monopolies, their collective market power enables them to set the terms of digital engagement for billions of people worldwide. That concentration of power has profound implications for the rights to privacy, non discrimination and access to information. It also has the power to undermine our democratic processes fundamentally, which is one of the points that the right hon. Member made in his opening remarks.

The platforms have become so embedded in daily life that meaningful participation in society often depends on using their services. That gives them enormous power to influence public discourse and to curate the information that we receive. We have in effect subcontracted our right to information to a handful of big tech gatekeepers. Nowhere is the danger posed to society greater than on the issue of AI.

Without doubt, AI is a transformational technology that will bring many benefits to our society, but in order to realise those benefits fully, it is important to put up safeguards to ensure that those technologies are developed and deployed appropriately and in the interests of society as a whole, rather than simply as a vehicle by which large tech companies can make even greater profits. Without robust regulation, we risk steering society towards an unpredictable and turbulent future that does not work for the public.

I have already raised with the Government the prospect of considering some form of employment levy, for example, on companies that replace large scale workforces with AI. Tax is crucial to this debate, and I want to finish on it. Complicated corporate structures, offshore schemes and favourable tax systems allow companies such as Amazon and Apple to boost their bottom line. Given the lack of transparency about where companies make their money and pay their taxes, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is going on. Big tech is here to stay, but how we regulate it, tax it and control it are the big questions that our Government and society as a whole need to face.

I thank all Members who have spoken so far for their co operation. We now move on to the Front Bencher contributions, beginning with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing this important debate and for raising the very real issues of the impact of big tech on democracy.

Big tech has in many cases become synonymous with US tech, but that is not something that we should accept. The UK’s technology ecosystem is worth nearly £1 trillion. It is the third most valuable tech ecosystem in the world and the most valuable in Europe. The UK has a long history of technological innovation, from the industrial revolution to the creation of the world wide web. That legacy is still very much alive today, but we must continue to foster it.

The shortage of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—skills in the UK has been a concern for the past two decades, along with scale up funding. Start ups in the UK repeatedly say that their main challenge is finding funding to scale up, and that that is hindering the UK’s chance of having a thriving technological ecosystem with as large an impact as that of America. If we look at our pensions, for example, foreign pension funds invest 16 times more into UK start ups than our own pension funds do. Overseas funds recognise the talent that we create, so why don’t we? Why are we allowing our brilliant British start ups to be sold abroad?

Backing British technology has never been so important, as we have heard in the debate, because big technology exists in every corner of our society. Even the Government run their computer systems on overseas cloud providers. As alluded to, the NHS data system is run by Palantir. The online systems used every day by workers across the UK’s economy are run by big tech companies, neither owned nor run from the UK. That is a question of not only economic security but, increasingly, national security.

We cannot ignore the risks posed by overreliance on foreign technologies. That became apparent when the US Government switched off, across the globe, access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5. While Fable 5 may only have been a feature for a day, a worrying precedent has been set for the US’s role in turning off international access to its big tech. What if that tech had been powering public services, such as our NHS records, when it was suddenly cut off? This must be a wake up call.

Our reliance on the technology that fuels our economy and underpins our services shows how desperately we need a digital sovereignty strategy to support British tech. The Liberal Democrats are not willing to take the risk, which is why we tabled and voted in favour of a digital sovereignty strategy during proceedings on the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill. We would have required the Government to establish a digital sovereignty strategy that placed British tech procurement at its centre. In an increasingly unstable world, the case for British digital resilience, technology and sovereign capability has never been stronger, but the Labour Government voted the proposed strategy down. I ask the Minister to explain what his alternative strategy is.

Unfortunately, we cannot talk about big tech’s role in society without also thinking about the online harms. The world is increasingly moving towards the regulation of social media, and the Liberal Democrats welcome the action that the Government finally took on that issue, but the fine print really matters. The burden of safety must be on big tech, not on parents. The Liberal Democrats are clear that we must implement film style age ratings based on harm, addictiveness and mental health impact. That is supported by the NSPCC, the Molly Rose Foundation and over 40 charities.

Social media companies must also play a stronger role in tackling misinformation. The UK Government must introduce stricter regulations for social media companies to ensure that they challenge harmful misinformation and reduce its spread across their platforms. Social media companies must issue fact checked corrections to scientifically inaccurate posts and ensure that those are seen by everyone who shared or saw the original inaccurate posts. They must also change their algorithms to de promote misinformation and fake news.

I recently witnessed the devastating and real life impact of unregulated dis and misinformation in Epsom and Ewell when riots took place there in April. In analysing the social media around those riots, the Council for Countering Online Disinformation found that 62 right wing UK accounts produced 70% of the misinformation. It also found that 42 video posts containing misinformation reached 4.2 million views, accounting for nearly 25% of misinformation views, despite accounting for less than 1% of all Epsom misinformation posts. That false information reached at least 21.8 million views between 11 April and 23 April. It was also promoted by X’s algorithm and, alarmingly, it continued to sit in X’s trending tab for at least two consecutive days after it had been clarified by the police that the events in question never took place.

Social media is not the only cause of online harms. Despite their transformative potential, evidence shows that AI and bots are also a cause of harm online. NBC News reported that 57.4% of search requests online are now initiated by bots, compared with 42.6% coming from humans—a terrifying reality where bots are outpacing and outnumbering humans online. At the same time, 70% of people are unable to correctly identify real and fake AI generated content online. Those online harms have been driven by big tech, and current legislation does not actively prevent them.

That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for the Government to create a new online crime agency to effectively tackle illegal content online. We would also introduce a digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the right to privacy, free expression and participation. The Liberal Democrats believe that the UK must lead the world in building a future where AI is developed and deployed ethically. That is why we would establish a cross sector AI regulator that combines flexible, ethical oversight and technical expertise to ensure that the UK keeps pace with the rapid advances in technology.

The AI legislation promised in Labour’s manifesto and the 2024 King’s Speech has not yet materialised. Internal conflicts and leadership challenges cannot be allowed—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she has five minutes to sum up the debate, and she is on six and a bit. Can she swiftly get to her last sentence?

Absolutely. Internal conflicts and leadership challenges cannot be allowed to cost Britain its technological future or the safety of our children. The Liberal Democrats will continue to push the Government on the positive role that British big tech can have, while holding the Government to account. Getting that right is not politics; it is essential for Britain’s future.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, and a privilege to respond to this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this important debate. I know that we share a common interest in this area. I also congratulate him on bringing a debate about the big picture stuff. It is important that we get there, and I compliment hon. Members for rising to meet that challenge.

The United Kingdom is home to Europe’s largest, and one of the world’s most dynamic, technology ecosystems. The digital and technology sector contributes an estimated £207 billion in gross value added to the UK economy and supports around 2.6 million jobs. It represents a vital pillar in our national prosperity that drives productivity, fosters high skilled employment and enhances our global competitiveness. From artificial intelligence and cyber security to fintech and advanced manufacturing, British innovation in technology continues to shape industries both at home and abroad.

We fully recognise the substantial benefits that large technology companies bring. These firms deliver cutting edge innovation, significant investment, world class infrastructure and services that millions of people and businesses rely on every day. Their scale enables rapid advancement in areas such as cloud computing, mobile technologies and data analytics, which in turn support broader economic growth across sectors.

At the same time, we must remain vigilant and ensure that market concentration does not inadvertently stifle competition or limit opportunities for emerging British firms. In key areas, a small number of global players hold dominant positions. Together, Apple and Google account for virtually the entire mobile operating system market in the UK, with iOS and Android combined making up nearly 100% of the share. Similarly, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft together command a very significant portion—often estimated at between 60% and 80%—of the UK’s cloud computing infrastructure market.

That concentration brings clear efficiencies and capabilities, but it also highlights the need for effective oversight. We support a proportionate competition policy that promotes fairness, encourages new entrants and prevents any single player from abusing market power. Open and competitive digital markets are essential if we are to retain more economic value within the UK, nurture home grown talent, and build a resilient and diversified digital economy.

As Conservatives, we have long championed the importance of robust yet balanced digital competition enforcement. Regulation should protect consumers and smaller innovators without creating unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that slow growth. The Competition and Markets Authority has an important role to play in this regard, alongside evolving frameworks such as the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Our approach prioritises evidence based intervention that fosters innovation while maintaining the attractiveness of the UK as a place to invest and scale business.

This principle extends to other critical areas, including online safety. Timely and decisive action to protect children and other vulnerable users online is essential, and we have constantly advocated for stronger practical safeguards, working alongside parents, campaigners, experts and the industry, because protecting the most vulnerable must remain a priority. The Leader of the Opposition did not flinch from standing with parents and carers when the time came to be robust. Constructive collaboration between Government, technology companies and civil society will achieve better long term outcomes than purely reactive measures.

More broadly, the influence of technology touches every aspect of modern life. From boosting productivity in traditional industries to enabling breakthroughs in healthcare and climate solutions, the sector’s potential is immense. However, realising that potential requires the right conditions: access to talent, supportive infrastructure, access to finance for scale ups, and a regulatory environment that rewards innovation rather than entrenching incumbents.

At its core, this debate asks us to consider what kind of digital economy we wish to build for the future. We believe that Britain should aim for an economy in which a diverse range of innovative companies—from start ups in our world class universities and tech clusters to established firms—can compete, grow and deliver benefits to consumers and society on merit. This vision rests on a strong competition policy that prevents the abuse of market power while actively encouraging the investment, dynamism and entrepreneurship that drive long term growth.

We also recognise the global nature of technology. International co operation on standards, data flows and emerging issues such as artificial intelligence will be increasingly important. The UK’s position as a leading tech nation gives us influence on the world stage, and we should use that influence to promote open markets, ethical innovation and high standards.

The success of our technology sector is central to delivering the economic growth and opportunity that our country needs. By championing competition, supporting innovation and maintaining a balanced approach to regulation, we can ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of the global digital economy, creating jobs, driving prosperity and harnessing technology for the benefit of all. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks on the Government’s current thinking regarding the role of large technology companies, and on how together we can best support a thriving, competitive and innovative UK tech sector.

It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy, but it is a particular pleasure when we are discussing questions of digital markets and regulation, because I know that you bring expertise in and experience of these issues.

I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing this debate. He has held me to account in the main Chamber, we have spoken in the corridors of Parliament, and I am delighted that he has now convened a much broader debate on the role of big tech in society. I am grateful to him and to all other hon. Members for their contributions to this important discussion.

This debate gets to the heart of what I consider the central question in our politics, our economy and our national security: how we ensure that the extraordinary power of modern technology serves our society, strengthens our economy, protects our citizens, and is grounded in British values.

Given the time we have, I will do the courtesy of responding to individual Members first before talking more substantively on the common issues. The right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) raised the central question: are we on the side of British values or shareholder values for firms located abroad? It is pretty clear, whether on questions of online safety legislation, where we have the most robust regime anywhere in the world, or on questions of the most innovative set of sovereignty interventions anywhere in the world, that every single decision that this Government have made on technology has been on the side of British values, in the spirit of collaborating and never capitulating.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) raised the two magic words: open source. I made a speech a few months ago talking about my passion for open source, not least because aspects of its Welsh grounding—Raspberry Pi, developed by a Welsh founder, is now opening up opportunities for kids in living rooms across the world to develop bits of software.

There are three things we have therefore done on open source that make Britain the best place in the world for open source talent: first, a particular focus on talent, not least a major hackathon we have partnered on to invite the world’s best talent to come and build open source here; secondly, a series of offers of compute, direct involvement in Government strategy on open source and, to the extent it is helpful, personal mentoring from me for winners of public service development on open source; and thirdly, just this morning, significant funding of £30 million for a serious national lab, led by University College London, focused in particular on open source models. Britain is at the frontier of open source AI, and this is the right thing to have done for our sovereignty aspirations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport raised an important point about kids’ experiences on social media and the impact on educational attainment. That is exactly my personal motivation behind the significant action we are taking to ban social media for under-16s as well.

The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) raised a series of questions, and I will address two of them in particular. He asked about compliance with social media bans. There are three things we have done to ensure we learn the lessons from elsewhere: more robust age checks; ensuring that enforcement is out of the gate on day one rather than delayed, so that companies feel the heat of enforcement early on; and to acknowledge that this will not be a 100% overnight compliance issue, but a long term societal shift in culture, as previous regulations have created. That is the right thing to do.

The hon. Member for Yeovil asked about wider opportunities that the Government will support to offset some opportunities that young people might lose as a result of the ban. There are exemptions for both education services and music streaming. Really importantly, on the day that we announced the social media ban for under-16s, we announced 180 youth hubs across the country. That means more than £500 million spent on arts, music and culture opportunities for young people, right across England. There was a series of contributions from Members with that point in mind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro Addy) raised very important points about concentration. I will not speak overtly about an individual company, but I will flag that I understand from the relevant Department that a supplier contract for the NHS federated data platform will be reviewed in line with standard contract management processes this year, on the question of its extension. I am sure that her contributions will be regarded in that context.

I normally hold the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) fondly in my mind in our parliamentary debates, so I was sorry to hear her take a more political, point scoring approach to questions of online safety. I was sad that she called putting the voices of Welsh kids and families at the heart our decisions “dilly dallying”. Thousands of young people and families in Wales contributed to the decision on a social media ban. This is a historic decision for the people of Wales, whose voices fundamentally shaped it. That is not tiptoeing; it is running fast but together towards the solutions that matter.

On the hon. Lady’s particular questions, we are preparing legislative options alongside securing significant progress on blocking children from taking, receiving and sharing nude images. We have already secured more progress than any other country on this question. On her point on proactively dealing with national security concerns, the British Government are building capabilities, not least through the Security Institute and across our intelligence agencies, that are unparalleled in terms of ensuring that our national security is a priority on questions of technology.

On when this Government will face up to tech platforms, I gently suggest to the hon. Lady that again and again this Government have taken the side of people, not platforms—of British families, including Welsh families, not foreign tech billionaires. I would encourage her to join us in that mission.

My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) raised concerns about a particular data centre. I am not fully abreast of the plans on that particular site, but I am very conscious of the concerns he raised. I simply point out that, in theory, there are ways in which data centre investors ought to make sure that what they are doing supports our important clean energy and power goals. In particular, I reflect on the fact that in Lanarkshire there are significant sites that have pulled forward clean energy generation in solar and battery as a result of data centre investment, rather than instead of or in trade off with it. Again, we are focused on ensuring that both those aspirations are met, as they are in north Wales where our data centre investments are pulling forward the future of small modular reactor nuclear in this country.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), raised an important point about pension funds under allocation to British equities, in particular to British technology and AI equities. That has been a huge focus for the Government, not least through the Mansion House reforms and the increased deployment pace at the British Business Bank, which is now deploying more than £2 billion a year in this area, but also through the half a-billion sovereign AI fund, which is focused on building deep British capability.

The point the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington raised about the balance of power is central. In response to the ask for a sovereignty strategy, we are not only talking about it—we are delivering it. We have defined the single most important question: where does Britain stand on the balance of power? Do we have strategic leverage to secure ongoing access to critical inputs? There are three tests we are focused on. The first is having enough critical inputs—NVIDIA graphic processing units, for example—to be able to play our way in the world. The second is having a diverse set of sources so that we have bargaining leverage in that context; one of the first things I did was meet SambaNova, Cerebras and Groq to diversify our engagement with chip companies. The third really important test is, where British strengths and economics allow, to build full fat British capability. We have done that with our hardware plan—more than £1 billion supporting companies such as Fractile, OLIX, Salience Labs and others. That is the crux of our sovereignty strategy: a clear definition, a clear plan across every part of the stack on AI, and delivery alongside that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) brought a deep degree of expertise on technology to this debate and asked the central question: do we shape technology in the artificial intelligence revolution, or is it the other way around? His point about stronger competition, which was also raised by the shadow Minister, is important. The CMA has been acting in an area of collaboration between the previous Government’s aspirations on digital competition and this Government’s. I look forward to the enforcement of remedies across both mobile and business software when it comes to AI.

My hon. Friend also raised questions about online safety. I hope he feels that the significant actions that the Government have taken—banning social media for under 16s, being one of the first countries to bring AI chatbots into regulatory scope to make sure that they are not producing illegal content, and banning romantic chatbots—have been pioneering and show that we are always on the side of the British public.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan Jordan) raised incredibly important points about how we ensure that the security of AI is central to the questions we ask in public policy. Across every aspect of Government, we are building a Labour vision for that. We are building state institutions that will last the test of time and ensure that we are kept safe from some of the risks of AI.

I am conscious of time, so I want to give the Minister the opportunity to answer the questions I asked: who owns the data, who controls the data, and what does that mean for democracy and the balance of power?

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I am personally interested in how we rest more agency and control in the hands of the British public and the British state when it comes to data. There are clear rules and regulations about both privacy and individual data consents that apply, but I want to go further still by building infrastructure that equips individuals to have greater control over their data.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Poole’s points, through the AI Security Institute we have the best capability in the state to keep evaluating, understanding and mitigating risks. Through the AI Economics Institute, we have a deeper understanding of the impact of AI on jobs than pretty much any other country. We want to go further on that, including looking at a range of economic levers to mitigate some of the risks. Through sovereign AI we are investing in British capabilities, through the Alan Turing Institute we are investing in national security relevant AI, and through labs that were funded just this morning we are making sure that British capability, rather than foreign capability alone, determines the future of AI.

The debate must finish at 5.50 pm, so the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has a minute to wind up his debate.

Just a minute: no deviation, repetition or hesitation—never from the Minister, who was completely direct, cogent and excellent as ever. But the question remains for all of us: who owns and controls the data and what does that mean for democracy? That is not a party political point. Is that control and oversight of the governance sat in an office in San Francisco or elsewhere, or is it in a Minister of the Crown’s office here in Whitehall? That will be an ongoing debate that goes to the fundamentals of why we are all here. The people must have the power, not large corporate entities. I think we all agree that we need to see more competition. Tech is a force for good, but we need to ensure that it has oversight.

Motion lapsed, and sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(14)).