Alison Bennett MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I will not, because I have a time limit. The Committee called on the Cabinet Office to explain how it ensures sufficient staffing and resources, and raised serious concerns about weak contract management and poor oversight. It is now clear that those concerns have come to fruition. I have five questions for the Minister. First, how did this happen, and when will it end? When Capita bid for this contract, did it properly understand the scale and complexity of the work it was taking on, and did the Cabinet Office undertake sufficient due diligence to satisfy itself that the company had the capability to deliver this vital public service? Has the Cabinet Office put a date in place for getting this right? Secondly, are teachers going through the same ordeal? I have received very concerning casework from teachers in my constituency who seem to be having similar or the same troubles with their pensions. The idea that the immense stress and potential financial hardship that we have heard has been inflicted on civil servants has been mirrored for teachers is appalling. Can the Minister tell us what guardrails the Government have put in place to ensure that when the teachers’ pension scheme transfers to Tata from Capita, that will not result in similar issues? Thirdly, the Government must tell us how they intend to put this right. How will they restore the confidence of 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want reassurance that their pensions, earned through years of public service, will be administered competently, fairly and with dignity? The Government must outline exactly how they are ensuring that the most vulnerable of those affected are being prioritised. Fourthly, will the Government commit to inflation-linking payments to all outstanding cases, to make sure that those affected by Capita’s mistakes do not suffer even more for the delays? Fifthly, what assessment have the Government made of the systemic failures in civil service pension administration? What lessons have they learned to ensure that the same thing cannot happen again when similar contracts are awarded in future? These people served this country. They earned their pensions. They should not now have to fight to receive them.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I commend the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate. We always say that in this Chamber, but we can see from the number of Members who have come here today to represent their constituents that this issue really needed to be debated. In August, I hosted a surgery in the bucolic surroundings of the Rushfields nursery, at the foot of the south downs near the village of Poynings. A gentleman called Greg Mountain came to see me. I know Greg because before I stood for election in Mid Sussex, he was the Labour candidate there—I believe in 2015 and 2017. I was not sure what he was going to raise with me, but Greg was there in his capacity as a member of the executive committee of the Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance. He advises former civil servants living in my constituency. Greg described the situation we have heard about this afternoon as a “national scandal”, and he is right. Let us look at some statistics. As recorded by the Cabinet Office on 20 August this year, annual benefits statements for existing members were still not available. There were 68 retirement cases more than 100 days old, with a further 267 requiring additional information before payment could be made. There were six ill-health retirement cases over 100 days old, with another 12 awaiting information. There were 45 death-in-service cases over 100 days old, and a further 242 requiring more information. Perhaps most troubling of all, there were 1,082 bereavement cases more than 100 days old, with another 779 awaiting third-party information. These are people who have given decades of their lives to public service. Newly retired civil servants say they are struggling to pay bills and buy food because delays in their pension scheme have left them without an income for months. These repeated failures in pension administration are causing real distress and uncertainty for people who deserve better. The outrage and anger is particularly understandable given that the Public Accounts Committee warned of a clear risk that Capita would not be ready to take over full administration in December 2025.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Neurodivergent Pupils: Mainstream Schools · Hansard source

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  For some neurodivergent children, mainstream school is not a place where they can succeed. One such child is Livvi, who is 14. Following autistic burnout and a period of not being in education, education otherwise than at school has been an absolute godsend for her, but her amazing mum, Carrie, is worried about the Government’s proposed changes to EOTAS provision. Carrie is coming to Parliament this evening; when I meet her, what should I say about whether people who have fought for their kids, like her, will get a say in what future EOTAS provision looks like?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  On that breach of public trust, my Mid Sussex constituents tell me they do not trust South East Water because it does not take part in planning consultations and does not say if it can supply the water that new housing will inevitably require. Does the hon. Member agree that water companies must contribute to planning consultations for the new housing that is needed?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  On the honours system, when are the next triennial reports and quinquennial review due, and will the public be able to contribute their views to them?

• 10 Sept 2026 · National Resilience · Hansard source

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  After a winter of torrential rain and a summer without any rain, residents in Mid Sussex are incredibly concerned about the impact of drought and flooding, and among those residents are our farmers. Yesterday was Back British Farming Day and I spoke to Caroline, a West Sussex farmer, who is really concerned about their capacity to grow the food that we all need to eat. Will the Government make better use of water storage capacity available on British farms, including by removing planning and funding barriers to on-farm reservoirs as part of their approach to building national resilience?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies: Government Funding · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I sincerely commend the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) for securing this important debate and setting it out in such clear terms. Community pharmacies are often overlooked as a source of care for those in need, but in constituencies such as mine in Mid Sussex they are vital. Many of us know what the 8 am rush for a GP appointment can be like, so the fact that there is an alternative trusted high-street healthcare service where people can walk in, speak to a professional and receive advice and treatment is enormously valuable. It is also exactly the kind of shift towards preventive and community-based care that we need to see more of and not less. Pharmacies take pressure off GP surgeries. They help people get advice earlier, manage conditions locally and, importantly, can keep people out of hospital, but community pharmacies are under immense pressure, as we have heard. Last year, I visited Kamsons pharmacy at the Vale primary care centre in Haywards Heath, where I met Julia from Community Pharmacy Surrey and Sussex, as well as Mark and the wider Kamsons team. I was struck by just how much local pharmacists do beyond dispensing medicines. A little like the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) when he was much younger, Kamsons provides free home deliveries for prescriptions and help patients organise multiple proscriptions into pill organisers. For vulnerable and elderly residents, these services can literally be a lifeline. They enable people to remain independent and to continue living safely in their own homes, while having the support they need to manage their medication. The team I met were enthusiastic and deeply committed to helping local people, but they also expressed real disappointment at the level of support currently available to community pharmacies. There is a strong feeling among local branches that the extraordinary contribution pharmacies made during the pandemic has been forgotten. They are struggling to balance the books, as a number of Members have explained. Community pharmacy funding has fallen substantially in real terms over the past decade. The Government’s recent funding settlement is a welcome step in the right direction, with significant increases announced for ’24-25 and ’25-26 and continued support for services such as Pharmacy First, blood pressure checks and contraception, but we must be honest about the scale of the challenge. That additional funding came after years of financial pressure, while analysis has identified a funding gap of more than £2 billion across community pharmacies. Rising energy, staffing and medicine costs are placing further strain on businesses that are already operating on tight margins, and patients increasingly experience another pressure directly: medicine shortages. Pharmacists tell me that they can spend hours every day simply trying to source medicines that they have been asked to dispense. That time could be spent with patients, and it means that the pressure does not stop at the pharmacy door. In my constituency, I have heard from patients whose pharmacies have had to reduce opening hours and staffing because of financial pressures. When a pharmacy closes earlier, a prescription issued later that day can potentially be delayed until the following day. For someone waiting for an essential medicine, that can be deeply distressing. When a pharmacy is struggling to fulfil prescriptions, the consequences ripple through the entire health service: a patient who cannot get their medication may return to their GP; that GP surgery then has another appointment to deal with; a patient whose condition worsens may ultimately require hospital treatment; and another pharmacy, already under pressure, may have to pick up the pieces when a patient desperately seeks an alternative. That is why I ask the Minister to look at community pharmacies not as an optional extra but as a vital piece of the system. We can see the difference locally. Through Pharmacy First, community pharmacies in my area have reportedly saved almost 2,000 GP appointments—1,937, to be precise. That is 1,937 occasions when people have been able to receive appropriate care closer to home, freeing up GP capacity for those who need it most. That is the model we should be expanding, but we cannot ask pharmacies to keep doing more with less. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a new long-term and sustainable funding model for community pharmacies. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) tabled amendments to the Health Bill about rescuing pharmacies when they have gone bust, which the Liberal Democrats supported; will the Minister seek to add those to the Bill when it goes to the Lords? We want further investment to be directed towards smaller towns and rural areas, as other Members have set out, including parts of Mid Sussex where access can be particularly difficult. We want Pharmacy First to be expanded, giving patients more accessible routine services and freeing up GPs to concentrate on more complex cases, and an exemption for pharmacies from the national insurance contribution increase so that funds are being spent on patients and vital medications. We also need to tackle the practical problem of medicine shortages. Pharmacists need greater flexibility to substitute medicines where clinically appropriate, rather than spending hours trying to source a particular product that may simply be unavailable. The message I heard in Haywards Heath was very clear: pharmacists want to help. They want to provide more services, support their patients and take pressure off GPs and hospitals, but they need a system that recognises the value of what they do. Community pharmacies are often the first place someone turns to when they need healthcare advice. They are local, accessible and trusted. When they are properly funded and supported, they can keep people healthier for longer, help vulnerable residents remain independent in their own homes and take pressure off the rest of the NHS. The Government have made a start with their recent funding settlement; I welcomed that, but a first step is not enough. I urge the Minister to listen to the pharmacists I have spoken to in Mid Sussex and across the country and put in place a genuinely long-term plan for community pharmacy. Our local pharmacies have been there for our communities; we need to make sure that the Government are there for them.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  On social care, the Secretary of State pointed to the better care fund in her statement. I am glad that she recognises its importance, but why is she weakening provisions for pooled budgets, including the better care fund, in the Health Bill? Will she reconsider that?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Vaccination Rates: England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Mrs Barker. I commend the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) on setting out the work that the Health and Social Care Committee has done, and all its members on looking into this vital issue. Not so long ago, hospitals in this country were filled with rows of iron lungs ventilating children paralysed by polio, and schools were forced to close their doors as measles swept through entire classrooms, leaving some children permanently disabled, and some parents burying their children. We do not see those scenes today, and that is because of one the single greatest achievements in the history of medicine: vaccination. In 2026, it is easy to forget that and to take for granted a world in which parents do not fear that a common childhood illness might kill their child. However, we are at risk of forgetting the lessons our grandparents learned the hard way, and the numbers prove it. In England, just 81% of five-year-olds have received their 4-in-1 jab against diseases such as polio and tetanus, down from 89% a decade ago, and only 84% have had both their MMR jabs, down from 88%. No childhood vaccine in this country now meets the 95% coverage threshold the World Health Organisation tells us we need in order to keep these diseases from spreading—and they are spreading. Over 800 cases of measles have already been confirmed this year, closing in on the total for the whole of last year. Vaccine take-up is not evenly spread across our country either. In London, MMR coverage is just 72%, but in the south-west it is 83%—an 11 point gap mapped on to deprivation, inequalities and communities that already find it hardest to access the healthcare they need. It is not just children: only 70% of over-65s and 42% of pregnant women received a flu vaccine this past season, both figures well short of where they need to be. Last year gave us one of the worst flu seasons in memory. As the hon. Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) noted, the tragedy we saw with the Kent meningitis outbreak earlier this year led to a change in policy on vaccination for meningitis, and we saw that there was the capacity for authorities to do more and to take action. As a mum to a teen who has been called for a meningitis vaccination this summer, I am hugely grateful for that change in policy. That action tells us something important: that when we make vaccination easier to access, uptake follows, and that this is not a lost cause but a policy failure, and policy failures can be fixed. There is also a darker force at work, and we must be honest about it. Online medical disinformation is a genuine threat to public health, and it is increasingly being given a platform by people who should know better. Reform has refused to condemn Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism. As was noted by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley), at Reform UK’s conference last year a keynote speaker blamed vaccines for cancer in the royal family. We have seen in the United States exactly where this leads: trusted scientific institutions hollowed out, and the health of a nation put at risk. Doctors and nurses in our own GP surgeries and walk-in centres are now telling us that they are hearing these same conspiracy theories in this country today. We must listen to scientists, not conspiracy theorists, and politicians who lend credibility to dangerous medical falsehoods must be held to account for the harm they cause. What can we do about it? First, we can invest properly, and for the long term, in our vaccination programmes. This cannot keep being treated as a cost-neutral afterthought. NHS England’s strategy exists on paper, but everyone—from clinicians to campaigners—agrees that it lacks the funding and senior leadership to actually turn things around. Secondly, we can take vaccination to where people already are. Community spaces and the places people trust should be central to how we deliver an ambitious new push for record vaccination rates. That is particularly true among the communities that we too often write off as hard to reach. Thirdly, we need a serious, funded strategy to fight medical disinformation head on—not one or two well-meaning social media videos, but a real strategy. That means supporting doctors and nurses with the tools and training to engage constructively with vaccine-sceptical patients; investing in public health messaging that works with trusted local voices and online influencers, not against them; targeted outreach to the communities where scepticism runs deepest; criminal liability for online influencers and politicians alike who profit from spreading dangerous medical disinformation; and a new verification system so that no one can falsely claim to be a medical professional online. None of that is about shaming families who have been misled. It is about meeting them where they are, with facts, compassion and a system that makes doing the right thing the easy thing. We owe it to every family who lived through the era of iron lungs and empty classrooms not to let their hard-won progress slip away on our watch. Let us fund vaccination properly, let us take it into every community and let us have the courage to say clearly and without apology that we follow the science, not the conspiracy theories.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  Happy birthday, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are teachers in West Sussex who are giving up running after-school clubs so that they can take on a second job, because the cost of living, and particularly the cost of housing, is so high in the area. One of the issues is that West Sussex has the fifth-lowest secondary unit of funding in schools. Will the Prime Minister review minimum per-student funding levels, so that they truly reflect the cost of living in West Sussex?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. I put on record my appreciation for the hard work of the Prime Minister’s ministerial team in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in tackling the absolute failings of South East Water. However, last Friday, 1,200 pupils at Downlands community school in Hassocks were sent home because they had no water. For those children, their parents and their teachers, that was another reminder of South East Water letting communities down. I am sure the Prime Minister will agree that something as basic as turning on the taps should never be in doubt. Before new housing developments are approved, does he agree that water companies should be compelled to confirm that they have the capacity to provide a reliable water supply to new homes?

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for setting out so brilliantly, with her professional expertise and human touch, what it means for corridor care to be a normal habit across the NHS in all parts of the country—not just in the winter, with winter pressures, but throughout the year. She made many good points, and I hope I can add some context with the stories I have gathered in Mid Sussex, from constituents who have experienced corridor care first-hand, whether as patients or staff. They have shared some of the most frightening, painful and vulnerable moments of their lives with me. First, I thank them, and to those whose stories I cannot share today due to a lack of time, I apologise. Many of those people wanted the House to be told one thing before anything else: the staff who cared for them were extraordinary. They spoke of nurses who never stopped smiling despite being exhausted, doctors who apologised because they knew patients deserved better, and paramedics who stayed compassionate under impossible pressure. One constituent arrived at the Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath after falling and breaking both a shoulder and a kneecap. It was a Friday night, and A&E was overflowing. After X-rays, they spent hours on a trolley in a corridor beside the nurses’ station because there was nowhere else for them to go. They told me that the nurses were attentive and kind throughout the night. They checked in constantly and did everything they could. However, kindness cannot create another treatment cubicle, compassion cannot magic up another doctor, and dedication cannot create a bed that is simply not there. Another constituent, Chris Philpot, shared an experience that I found impossible to forget. Following a ruptured appendix and serious complications, he spent 19 hours on a trolley in the corridor at the Royal Sussex county hospital. During that time, he watched an elderly lady have her blood pressure taken while resting her arm on his leg because there was nowhere else to support it. No privacy, no dignity—that is not the standard of care patients should expect in modern Britain.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. What we see time and again is that one problem becomes another until eventually the patient pays the price. My constituent, Catherine Jeater, has seen corridor care as a patient and as a relative of a patient. She watched her father being treated for appendicitis in an emergency department that was so overcrowded that patients were double-parked on trolleys, changing into hospital gowns in full view of strangers. Months later, while undergoing chemotherapy herself, she attended the Princess Royal hospital with a chest infection. Because she was immunocompromised, she should have been isolated. Instead, she received intravenous antibiotics sitting on a chair in a corridor, because no cubicles were available. She told me the staff were amazing, but she also made it clear that amazing staff should never have to work in those conditions Perhaps the most difficult responses I have received were from the healthcare professionals themselves. One doctor told me that they regularly examine patients in corridors. Another said that corridor care is not just an A&E problem, and that it is now normal for people to be on trolleys in non-clinical areas throughout the hospital. That means there are no curtains to provide privacy, no piped oxygen and no name above the bed, and patient safety is inevitably compromised. A senior nurse described to me the moral injury that they and their colleagues face every day, having to try to deliver the best care possible in terrible conditions, all the while apologising for something that is beyond their power to fix. They have to do that every single day. I am not personally enjoying this third heat wave, but imagine A&E departments without air conditioning: they become furnaces. Imagine trying to treat incredibly frail patients when the temperature in a corridor is 40°C. Another clinician wrote something that stopped me in my tracks. They said that corridor care had become so common that they were teaching medical students and junior doctors how to provide it—and that is not just during winter pressures, but all year round. This should trouble every single one of us. We are training the next generation of clinicians to adapt to something that should never have become normal in the first place. The real danger is not simply that corridor care exists, and not that we begin to accept it, but that we shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves that this is just how the NHS works now. The solutions are not easy—hospitals cannot fix this on their own—but we do need to get it right. We need to invest in capacity, in workforce, in social care, and in reducing waiting lists so that treatable conditions do not turn into emergencies.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I will not, in the interests of time. This is happening not because our NHS staff are failing, but because they are being asked to deliver excellent care in circumstances that make excellence almost impossible. My constituents have not shared these stories because they have lost faith in the NHS; they have shared them because they believe that the NHS can and should be better than this. Let me therefore end with a plea that we never describe corridor care as the “new normal”, because there is nothing normal about receiving intravenous antibiotics during chemo in a corridor. There is nothing normal about waiting 19 hours on a trolley. There is nothing normal about losing your privacy, your dignity, and sometimes even your safety, simply because there is nowhere else to go. The NHS was founded on the belief that every person matters. We need to make that happen once again.

• 2 Jul 2026 · Alternative Dispute Resolution Regulations · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for that response. Caroline from Lindfield owns a small business that provides arbitration services. Since the introduction of the one-size-fits-all fees set down earlier this year, her business model and that of so many other small ADR providers has become nigh on impossible to sustain. Has the Minister considered the impact on the sector from the fee changes? Can she explain why no impact assessment has been done? In particular, has she received feedback from trading standards since the legislation came into force?

• 2 Jul 2026 · Alternative Dispute Resolution Regulations · Hansard source

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  6. Whether his Department has provided guidance on the potential impact of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (Alternative Dispute Resolution) (Fees) Regulations 2026 on small businesses providing arbitration services.

• 2 Jul 2026 · Historical Forced Adoption · Hansard source

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  The apology today is so welcome, and my heart goes out to all those people who have campaigned and been hurt by the failings of the state. In his statement, the Prime Minister said, “These harms were compounded by the actions and failures of the state.” Just this week in this Chamber, we have heard of that happening to women—when they are pregnant, labouring, or have just had a baby and are vulnerable. The Adjournment debate on Monday night was about diethylstilbestrol—DES—and justice for women who, over the decades, were prescribed a drug long after it was known that it was harmful. Baroness Amos’s report this week says that this is not just a historical problem of misogyny in the state; today, women who are having children are ridiculed and not listened to, and are hurt as a result. I ask the Prime Minister: how can we unwind misogyny from the state?

• 2 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Cellnex estimates that Mid Sussex is ranked 499th out of 650 constituencies for quality of mobile signal strength. The current obligations on mobile operators are clearly failing to provide the coverage that my constituents deserve in villages like Cuckfield, Bolney and Fulking. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the merits of changing these mobile operator obligations, so that we can have the coverage that we so badly need?

• 2 Jul 2026 · Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths · Hansard source

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  For the record, my request was that the public health grant be restored back to 2015 levels, not 2010 levels.

• 2 Jul 2026 · Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) on securing this important debate and thank him for sharing his story. Like so many families across the country, mine has its own history of heart disease, either with tragic, early death or, for my father, a triple heart bypass in 2012. He celebrated his 80th birthday this year. Reducing premature deaths from heart disease and stroke is one of the defining public health challenges facing our country. It is also one of the greatest opportunities. We know what works and where the risks lie; the question is whether this Government are prepared to invest in preventing illness rather than simply responding to it once people become sick. Cardiovascular disease remains the second biggest cause of death in England; every day, around 390 people die from a heart attack or stroke. Heart and circulatory diseases are responsible for one in four premature deaths, while more than 6.4 million people in England are living with cardiovascular disease. It is particularly concerning that progress has stalled. After years of improvement, premature mortality from cardiovascular disease has begun to rise again. The latest figures show that rates have returned to around where they were over a decade ago. Behind those statistics are families who have lost loved ones far too early; many of those deaths could have been prevented. Perhaps the greatest injustice is that outcomes are not evenly distributed. People living in the most deprived communities are twice as likely to die prematurely from cardiovascular disease as those in the least deprived areas. If we are serious about reducing premature deaths, we have to be serious about prevention. Too often, prevention is spoken about warmly but funded poorly. We hear Ministers say that they want to shift healthcare from hospital to community and from treatment to prevention. Those are welcome ambitions, but ambitions alone do not reduce blood pressure, identify atrial fibrillation or prevent strokes. The reality is that the NHS and local government continue to struggle to fund many of the programmes that are proven to save lives. Freedom of information data published earlier this year reveals that more than 70 local authorities are limiting the number of NHS health checks that GP practices can carry out because of financial pressures. The programme designed to identify people at risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease, which is credited with saving hundreds of lives every year, is being rationed because councils simply cannot afford it. That is the direct consequence of years of underfunding in public health. A straightforward first step would be restoring the public health grant to its 2015 level, which would give local authorities the resources they need to expand NHS health checks and deliver wider prevention programmes that reduce smoking, improve physical activity and help people to manage the risk factors that lead to cardiovascular disease. The Liberal Democrats have also proposed widening access to blood pressure checks by making them routinely available in community settings such as pharmacies and libraries. An estimated 7 million people are living with undiagnosed high blood pressure. Many of them have no idea that they are at increased risk of suffering a devastating stroke or heart attack. Detecting hypertension earlier is one of the simplest and most cost-effective interventions available. However, prevention is about much more than screening alone. If we want to tackle heart disease properly, we must also be far more ambitious in addressing obesity and the wider causes of poor health. The evidence is clear that obesity is closely linked to deprivation. A poor diet often begins in childhood, and families facing food insecurity are more likely to rely on cheaper foods that are higher in fat, salt and sugar. That contributes to stark inequalities in health outcomes later in life. That is why we believe that more children living in poverty should receive free school meals. We would also do more to protect children from the relentless marketing of unhealthy food, including supporting councils to restrict outdoor junk food advertising and maintaining stronger protections on television advertising. For those already living with heart disease or recovering from a stroke, continuity of care is equally important. The Liberal Democrats want everyone living with a long-term condition to have a named GP. Continuity improves outcomes, reduces unnecessary admissions and ensures that patients receive co-ordinated care over many years, rather than fragmented treatment from multiple clinicians. Recovery following a stroke also deserves much greater attention. Around 60% of stroke survivors leave hospital with a disability. Rehabilitation cannot be treated as an optional extra. Every stroke survivor should have access to personalised, high-quality rehabilitation services that help them regain independence and improve their quality of life. Finally, I want to touch on emergency care. When someone has a stroke, every minute matters. Rapid assessment and treatment can mean the difference between a full recovery and lifelong disability. I pay tribute to Olivia, the wife of the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), for the work that she and her team do at Queen’s hospital. I pay tribute to all practitioners carrying out the same work across the country. Ambulance delays and overcrowded emergency departments continue to place patients at unnecessary risk. We know that too well in my village, where, a few years ago, we lost a dear friend far too young as a result of a slow ambulance response time. We need action to reduce ambulance handover delays, expand staffed hospital bed capacity, improve social care so that patients can be discharged safely, and ensure that every A&E waiting room has a qualified clinician able to identify patients whose condition is deteriorating while they wait. Preventing premature deaths from heart disease and strokes will require action across the whole health system. It means investing in prevention rather than allowing it to become the first casualty of financial pressures. It means tackling the inequalities that leave poorer communities carrying the greatest burden of disease. It means strengthening primary care, community services, rehabilitation and social care rather than focusing solely on elective waiting lists. The Darzi review warned: “Care for cardiovascular conditions is going in the wrong direction.” That warning should not be ignored. If the Government are serious about achieving their ambition to reduce deaths from heart attacks and strokes, they must match warm words with sustained investment in prevention, public health and community care. The best way to reduce premature deaths is not simply to become better at treating illness; it is to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

• 30 Jun 2026 · National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State’s announcement of 1,000 extra midwives is welcome, even if the funding is temporary. However, this is a review of maternity and neonatal services. In Baroness Amos’s review of Sussex, she noted that in the 12 months ending in October 2025, only 50.1% of shifts at the Royal Sussex county hospital in Brighton were staffed according to British Association of Perinatal Medicine guidelines. What provision is the Secretary of State making to ensure that neonatal staffing is safe?

• 29 Jun 2026 · Diethylstilbestrol: Intergenerational Impact · Hansard source

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  One of the people in the Gallery is my constituent, Heather Farrant, who came to Parliament today with two of her three daughters. She has lived with the lifelong consequences of her mother’s exposure to DES. Will the hon. Lady commend Heather and all the campaigners for their bravery in speaking so publicly about something that has been hidden for a long time? Until Heather came to speak to me in my surgery, I had not heard of DES, and without those campaigners, we would not have known about it and been able to raise it here today.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Nottingham Maternity and Neonatal Services · Hansard source

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  I thank Donna Ockenden, the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), and the Nottingham families for all the work they have done to bring us today’s report about what went on across Nottinghamshire. It is truly shocking. At the same time, they were also supporting Sussex families to get their own justice when those families were repeatedly begging the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) to appoint Donna Ockenden to review what happened in Sussex. I thank them for their support for other families right across the country. When the Secretary of State was appointed to his role, I shared with him a letter I had written along with Sussex and Leeds MPs, asking for the duty of candour to be written into the terms of reference of the Leeds and Sussex reports. I am so grateful that he has announced today that the Hillsborough law will apply once it is enacted. That is very welcome, but that law has not yet been enacted, and it was delayed in the last Session. Does the Secretary of State know when the Hillsborough law will be enacted, and if he is not clear on that, will he commit to pushing at Cabinet to make sure it becomes law as soon as possible?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that I will not. Liberal Democrats have been arguing for many years that improved access to better specialist healthcare services for children and young people struggling with their gender identity is extremely important. Those young people have been badly let down by low care standards and extremely long waiting lists. The closure of the Gender Identity Development Service made it clear beyond doubt that change was needed. We have consistently campaigned for real action to tackle the shocking waiting times across the NHS, including for gender identity services. Liberal Democrats welcome the move to create new regional centres to offer this care to the young people who need it. There is a need for multiple geographically dispersed clinics so that care is closer to those who need it, but roll-out has been slow, and more needs to be done to tackle the waiting lists—quite simply, a three-year average wait is not acceptable. For the centres to run effectively, we must support the specialists who provide children and young people with high-quality, compassionate and clinically appropriate care. Treatment, first and foremost, should be based on talking therapies. Space and time to talk through feelings is vital for young people struggling with their gender identity. It is a deeply complex set of feelings, and questioning and understanding one’s identity is never an easy thing, especially for a child, but for talking therapies to be an effective first step, children must be able to access them when they need them, not after years on a waiting list. The debate is about access to a form of healthcare—one that is led by doctors and clinicians—and, as for any other form of healthcare, we must listen to the experts: the people who have spent years training and years delivering care.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  This debate is on a subject that, it goes without saying, is emotive and complex. We must therefore as always endeavour to have this conversation with compassion and empathy. The Liberal Democrats’ position is clear and simple, as reflected in our amendment to the motion: any medical treatment and the approval of any clinical trial, including the one we are discussing, must be led by expert medical advice. It should not be led by personal belief, no matter how sincerely and passionately that belief is held. Politics has a place, but not in questions of medical trials and clinical consensus—those are better left to experts. The Cass review, originally commissioned by the Conservatives, was clear that there was a need to gather more evidence. The safety of young people is paramount, and the experts involved in this space know that better than anybody; they work with these children day in, day out and understand the risks of both action and inaction. That is why we supported the previous decision to pause the trial after the MHRA raised concerns, and why we now support the decision to start it again. We will listen to the experts and the clinicians, but to build trust in expert advice we need transparency and clarity, and throughout the process, we have pushed for exactly that. We want the expert opinions on the public record, as that allows us as politicians, as well as the wider public, to approach this issue with clarity and facts, not ideology or misunderstanding. That is why we called for the Government to publish how the MHRA arrived at its decision when concerns were first raised, and yesterday we called for the Secretary of State to confirm that the MHRA had confirmed that its concerns had been substantially addressed. Transparency is needed so that people can be confident that clinical advice is being followed.