01/10/2026 | 18:54:26 Thank you. I thank Mr Georgios STAMATIS for his report, which I think links the private choices that each couple and family makes with the demographic change that Europe is experiencing and the collective good. I don't think that the answer to the problem is increased immigration, while I recognise the benefits that immigration brings to my country. I was recently in Nigeria where they asked us to please stop stealing their health workers. It is indeed that we need to make better family life... 01/10/2026 | 17:50:47 Thank you. Can I thank everybody who's spoken in favour of this report? I want to address one or two of the criticisms, which seem to rest on this idea that these charges are genuinely around obscenity. The problem with obscenity is it's a subjective term, but if you find it obscene that people love each other, that they have relationships, that's a problem. I've been accused of being led by ideology. That's not true. I'm led by the evidence before us. And the evidence before us is of... 01/10/2026 | 17:04:44 Thank you. This resolution describes an immediate, co-ordinated and escalating campaign of rights violations against LGBT+ persons, their defenders and civil society organisations in Türkiye. It is held under the urgent procedure of this Assembly to call for immediate actions to end repression and violence and uphold fundamental rights and human dignity of people who identify as LGBTI+ and their defenders. The danger, if we fail to act now, is that the repression of recent weeks becomes more... 30/09/2026 | 19:13:49 Thank you. And I'd like to commend my fellow United Kingdom (UK) colleague, rapporteur Mr Tony VAUGHAN, for bringing his legal experience, but also his humanity, to preparing this timely and practical report. For time I won't list all of Russia's crimes. This whole Assembly knows them. They include rape, torture, mass killing, child kidnapping. Crimes that are unprecedented in the history of this institution. We should be clear about what's at stake. Russia's repeated refusal to comply with... 25/06/2026 | 10:49:27 Thank you. I wanted to address some comments in response to what we heard from our colleague from Belgium, but I see he's no longer here. But I was shocked by the way that he demonised migrants in a way that I've not heard in this continent for 80 years. I thought we defeated that ideology. My country has a warm tradition of welcoming migrants. They serve in our armed forces, they treat us in our National Health Service, they build our buildings, they set up shops. My own wife is a migrant to... 24/06/2026 | 17:53:03 "Sorry" [spoken in French]. I'd like to commend the rapporteurs for this strong and important report. The most important conclusion, I think, is paragraph 5, that the conditions for holding genuinely democratic elections do not exist in Georgia. That is an extraordinary finding, reflecting the gravity of the situation facing opposition politicians, independent media and civil society. Earlier this month, I met with Georgian opposition leaders, as I often do, to hear again their lived... 24/04/2026 | 10:10:57 Thank you. And I wish to address the same topic. In the village of Witton Park, which is on the banks of the River Wear, where I represent, there's a statue to four brothers, George, James, Thomas and Roland Bradford, who fought in the First World War. Only one of them returned home, while two won the Victoria Cross. Just a few decades later, the Durham Light Infantry, in which the Bradfords had served, fought in almost every major campaign of the Second World War, including Dunkirk. These... 22/04/2026 | 11:40:38 Thank you. Can I also thank the Minister for Spain for an excellent speech earlier that I think really showed the progress that can be made in 50 years. I thank my friend Ms Zita GURMAI for these two excellent reports. I know that she's engaged so well in putting them together. Violence against women and girls is a stain on all of our societies. It is a legislative and a justice challenge when we see that, for example, in the UK, fewer than 2% of reported rapes ever make it to a conviction... 21/04/2026 | 17:58:45 –Thank you. I welcome this report and the recommendations it makes around education, political leadership, and combating hate speech to protect people’s freedom of religion or belief across Europe. Earlier, on the other side, Sir Christopher CHOPE argued against curbing hate speech in the name of free speech, saying "people shouldn’t be wimps." I disagree. People are free to criticise, blaspheme, and mock religious beliefs and practices. That is not hate speech. Hate speech is when language... 30/01/2026 | 10:25:52 Thank you. It's quiet here this morning, but I stayed behind to speak in this debate because I believe that this session of the Parliamentary Assembly has some unfinished business. And I hope that what I'm about to say does not come across as whataboutism. But over the last five days, this Assembly has addressed many important issues; from safeguarding the system of international justice, to ensuring accountability and humanitarian protection in Gaza and the West Bank, to peace in Ukraine and...