Alison Hume MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  11. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) embarrassed herself and this House when she said that the England football team needed to keep winning to keep women safe from domestic abuse. Does the Minister agree with me and with Refuge that linking domestic violence to football allows perpetrators to avoid accountability for their horrific actions?

• 22 Jun 2026 · SEND: Improvement · Hansard source

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  I am delighted that St Martin’s primary school in Scarborough is establishing a brand new targeted mainstream provision centre, backed by funding from this Labour Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that our plans to deliver more TMP places will mean that the many children in my constituency who are currently not in school due to unmet needs will be able to return to school and resume their education?

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  I recently met a constituent on the basic state pension who told me that rising living costs were leaving him worse off in real terms. What consideration have the Government given to reviewing pension thresholds? In particular, is a phased increase over several years being explored?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Short-term Lets: Licensing · Hansard source

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  10. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the introduction of a licensing scheme for short-term lets.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Short-term Lets: Licensing · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, Whitby is being hollowed out by short-term lets. Bordered by the sea and a national park, house building cannot solve the problem of a lack of affordable housing for residents. We must also release more existing homes for families in the town. Will the Minister commit to legislating on licensing for short-term lets at the earliest opportunity in this Parliament? Registration schemes, while welcome, will not be robust enough to tackle the problem.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  Imagine being 81 years old, blind and waking up with a terrible toothache, and then imagine having no car and no local dentist to turn to. This was the reality for John, one of my constituents in Scarborough and Whitby. His story is unfolding at a time when we are seeing a much-needed and welcome shift in how our country tackles dental care. After years of the system being left to decay, we are finally seeing real funding, new incentives to recruit dentists and a genuine, sincere effort to rescue NHS dentistry. Last year, this Labour Government invested around £3.7 billion on primary care dentistry. We are starting to make a real difference to people’s lives. Take another of my constituents, Margaret. She was so grateful for the recent changes that she sat down and wrote a letter to the Minister for Care. After suffering from a debilitating toothache, which had threatened to leave her housebound, the Government’s new emergency appointments meant that she could get her tooth extracted at short notice. The true test of our reforms is whether they reach everyone, and Margaret’s story shows that they have not. The reason that Margaret needed that emergency help was that her regular NHS dentist went private. Last week, I called 13 dental practices in my constituency. Only one, in Whitby, is taking on adults on the NHS, but only those with a Whitby postcode, and no dental practice in Scarborough is taking on adults under the NHS. Because John could not find an NHS dentist in Scarborough, he had to go private for an emergency extraction and was hit with a £280 bill. That is not just an exorbitant fee; it is a breaking point. If someone is blind and cannot drive, an emergency appointment in a nearby town is not much use. We cannot judge success on national averages while people in coastal communities such as Scarborough and Whitby feel stranded. In Scarborough, we have seen practice after practice going 100% private and handing back their NHS contracts. Two constituents who moved to Scarborough were appalled to find that not a single dental practice was taking NHS patients.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I hope that the Minister addresses the challenges faced by rural and coastal communities in his closing remarks. The two constituents I mentioned were told that they could be put on a waiting list. Unfortunately, the waiting lists were 10 years long; aged 80 and 77, they did not think it was likely that they would even get to the top. My Scarborough and Whitby constituency is a dental desert. I worry about any constituent not having access to an NHS dentist, but I worry particularly about those with disabilities, like John. Because people can attend any dental practice, and dental practices can choose who to deliver care to, integrated care boards cannot decide who dentists see under their core contract. That makes it difficult for ICBs to target access at particular patient groups. The Minister has worked tirelessly to deliver on our manifesto commitments, and further improvements are coming. I applaud the progress made so far, but I ask my hon. Friend, on behalf of my constituents: what specific targeted action is being taken to address the complete lack of access to NHS dentistry in coastal towns such as Scarborough? What about people such as John and others who have disabilities but do not receive the benefits that passport them to free NHS care? We have made huge progress in getting children access to NHS dentistry. Is it not time to target access at patients with disabilities?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Child Contact Arrangements · Hansard source

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  I have raised with Baroness Levitt not only the lack of access to child contact centres but the cost of access. It appears that many of them are unregulated, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. To conclude, everybody wants to see the family justice system evolve to better recognise children’s lived experiences, support safer and more effective participation, and make decisions that promote long-term recovery and healthy outcomes. I ask the Government to seize the opportunity presented by the Courts and Tribunals Bill to totally discredit the use of experts who subscribe to parental alienation and to enshrine the rights of the child in law, to ensure that those speaking their truth are properly heard.

• 10 Jun 2026 · Child Contact Arrangements · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her work on the issue. I completely agree that unfortunately we are seeing far, far too many mothers who are disbelieved and have had their children removed from them without any basis for doing so at all. Lives are being destroyed. If a parent complains, there is a very significant risk that that will be used against them. Ultimately, it should not matter whether an expert is regulated or unregulated if regulated and unregulated experts both rely on the same harmful pseudoscience and inflict equally devastating consequences, particularly on mothers and their children. The advice provided by experts can have a significant influence on the judge’s decision about child contact arrangements: the Ministry of Justice’s 2020 harm report highlighted the fact that allegations of parental alienation are often accepted by the family court without robust scrutiny. Evidence from survivors continues to show that counter-allegations of parental alienation are taken more seriously than those of domestic abuse. In many cases, claims of alienation can lead to the child being removed from the survivor parent, despite existing evidence of abuse. A constituent of mine had her children removed in an alienation case when the theory was introduced after she alleged domestic abuse. The non-profit Right to Equality has conducted a large-scale survey of mothers whose children were removed from their care in private law proceedings. The survey reveals concerning patterns around child removal, including the role of parental alienation allegations, limited fact-finding on abuse and the influence of expert recommendations. In total, the 217 mothers had 342 children removed from their care. That is quite clearly not in the best interests of those children and is deeply traumatic for their mothers. I have heard countless seriously concerning stories about children put into high-risk arrangements by the family court. Julia Margo, the co-founder of the charity Fair Hearing, with which I have been working closely, had a traumatic experience with the family justice system. After discovering that her former partner had been convicted of child sexual abuse, she endured years of legal battles, during which he took her to court 37 times demanding access to their children. Meanwhile, she felt dismissed and disbelieved by the system. She said that the court seemed more concerned about the risk of parental alienation than about the safety of her sons being left alone with a paedophile. In another case, a child was taken away from her mother without warning at 10 years old. That day, a social worker came to the house and told her that she had half an hour to pack her things. The child recalled: “I stuffed my favourite outfit in a bag—this blue shirt and leggings—along with a photo of me and mum. And then I got this bunny, my favourite soft toy, and I left it on her bed. It is what mum would do for me if she ever had to go away.” The young girl later discovered that that simple goodbye had been used to criticise her mother, who had been her main carer since her parents had separated two years earlier. She said: “The social worker said to my mum that no child should be worried about their parent’s feelings, and it was a sign of abuse.” At 12 years old, the child wrote to the president of the family division, England’s most senior family judge, seeking the representation that she was previously denied. A district judge had found abuse from her father and found that her mother harboured a great deal of anger against him. A consultant psychiatrist, Dr Mark Berelowitz, was then brought into the case and claimed that the reason she was opposed to seeing her father was that she had been subjected to her mother’s “unresolved angry feelings about the breakdown of their relationship.” The judge then ordered that the child should move to live with her father, as her mother was not giving her emotional permission to enjoy a relationship with her father. It is clear that in this case, as in so many others, parental alienation allegations represented the complete disregard of a child’s wishes during the court process. In the child’s words: “I was removed from my mother’s care within hours of a court order being made…I spent the ensuing five years faced with professional after professional who refused to believe me. They said I was repeating my mother’s words and that, despite findings of domestic abuse, it was better to have a relationship with the person who frightened me.” Parental alienation is a harmful ideology that profoundly impacts children. However, there are signs that the winds of change may now be moving through the family courts. In February this year, the president of the family division handed down a landmark judgment dismissing findings of so-called alienation against the mother. She had been prohibited from seeing her children for five years after alleging abuse in private family law proceedings. Lawyers have since characterised the initial ruling as draconian and extraordinary. In December 2019, the court ordered that the children, who were then aged nine and 12, be removed, and it granted the father sole custody. The evidence was given by an unregulated psychologist, Melanie Gill. In overturning court findings informed by Gill’s reports, the president of the family division’s ruling could open the door for other families assessed by Gill, who has acted as an expert witness in up to 200 cases. Guidance published by the Family Justice Council in December 2024 says that experts should not be appointed to look for alienation; instead, judges should take a factual approach to identifying specific alienating behaviours. It was this new information that enabled the mother to bring her case back to court. In a historic part of the judgment, the president of the family division has recognised the significant barriers that mothers face when seeking to appeal and has asked the Family Justice Council to consider an alternative procedural approach proposed by the legal team representing the mother and her son. I urge the Family Justice Council to consider that proposal as a matter of urgency, so that children and their parents who have been wrongfully separated because of pseudoscientific claims can finally have their cases reviewed. However, there is still more work to be done. Hundreds of children and mothers have been wrongfully separated by family courts in England and Wales. This is a matter of national shame. Although the 2024 guidance and recent judgment from Sir Andrew McFarlane are clear and consistent, there is a risk that by themselves they will not be able to prevent the underlying error. As a route to justice, such judgments depend on the protective parent securing legal representation, identifying the procedural defect and bringing a part 18 application to set aside, years after the original order. As I have mentioned, the president of the family division himself has acknowledged that mothers in this position face significant barriers to appeal. That is why I have been working on an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill; I am grateful to Baroness Levitt KC, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, for the time she has taken to discuss it with me. Through the amendment, I propose to introduce a statutory presumption operating at the front end of proceedings, before findings of fact are made and before residence is disturbed. That would effectively prevent harm, rather than relying on a remedial route that few will successfully be able to navigate. We need to ensure that the family justice system is reformed so that the voice of the child is always put at the centre of proceedings, and so that allegations of alienation never take precedence over allegations of abuse. I welcome the fact that, thanks to timeless campaigning by the indomitable Claire Throssell and by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) the Courts and Tribunals Bill will repeal the presumption of parental involvement set out in the Children Act 1989. This is a long-overdue correction to the pro-contact culture identified in the 2020 harm report and will address what the court must presume about contact in general. I also welcome the Government’s rolling out of child-focused courts nationally, which will put children at the centre of proceedings and resolve cases quicker. An important question remains unaddressed, however: when a child resists or refuses contact with a parent against whom abuse is alleged, what weight should the court give to that response as evidence? That gap is currently doing significant harm. Too often, in current practice, the answer has been to reframe that resistance as the product of so-called alienating behaviour by the protected parent. Doing so risks reinterpreting the child’s voice not as a possible indicator of harm, but as evidence of manipulation. I am also aware of cases in which a child discloses abuse by their father, particularly child sexual abuse, and those disclosures are then used as evidence of alienation against their mother, meaning that when a child makes a disclosure it can work against the mother, who risks losing the child. My simple amendment would effectively prevent the use of counterclaims of alienation to undermine or distract from allegations of domestic abuse, and would ensure that the child’s evidence has the weight that it deserves. Does the Minister agree that for many of the hundreds of children and mothers who have been forcibly separated, the route to justice through appeal is hard to access? Does she agree that further reform is urgently needed to ensure that children’s voices carry the evidential weight that they should carry in family court proceedings? Does she support strengthening the Courts and Tribunals Bill further so that if a child has experienced or witnessed abuse, the child’s not wanting to see the perpetrator is first assumed to be a reasonable reaction in the family courts?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Child Contact Arrangements · Hansard source

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  I completely agree that the child’s voice must be heard and is too often overlooked. Some of these so-called experts lack proper qualifications and are not regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Changes proposed in 2025 to address the issue of unregulated psychologists have been criticised as too weak and do not affect experts who are registered with the HCPC. HCPC regulation is also limited, with complaints taking up to seven years, during which experts can continue to practise. The proposed changes will not do anything to address parental alienation experts who are successfully registered and regulated. I am concerned that if any reviews or reform focus only on unregulated experts, all that will do is drive more business into the hands and pockets of experts. If parents do file a complaint, that in itself can be used as evidence against the parent alleged to be practising parental alienation, as proof that they are entrenched and unable to accept professional opinions that do not align with theirs.

• 10 Jun 2026 · Child Contact Arrangements · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered children in child contact arrangements. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison, and to lead a debate on putting children first in child contact arrangements, an issue that is of great importance to me, to my constituents and to other Members of this House. When parents have separated and children are involved, they often turn to the family court. Family courts are at the centre of a child’s right to safe family arrangements. However, so many are not functioning in the child’s best interests. Allegations of domestic abuse are estimated to occur in up to 62% of private law cases under the Children Act 1989 in family courts in England and Wales, and counterclaims of parental alienation are increasingly being made in response to allegations of abuse. So-called parental alienation syndrome is when one parent undermines or destroys the child’s relationship to the other parent through a pattern of manipulative behaviour. It is a pseudoscientific concept with no basis in law or medicine. However, accusations of parental alienation have been made on multiple occasions by unregulated experts appointed to assess the family and provide recommendations to the court.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Seasonal Hospitality Businesses in Coastal Areas · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is talking about holidays. Our Chancellor has just announced the great British summer savings, which will see VAT slashed from 20% to 5% on activities, children’s meals and attractions. Does he welcome that move?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Small Towns: Transport Links · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing this important debate. When it comes to transport links for small towns, few can boast the train to Hogsmeade station, where the Hogwarts Express ended its journey north from platform nine and three quarters. The real-life Goathland station, which starred in the Harry Potter films, is just one of the beautiful stations on the Esk Valley railway line from Whitby to Middlesbrough, which follows the route of the River Esk for much of its 24 miles, passing through verdant farmland, rolling moors and picturesque villages. Sadly, the scenery is far more beautiful than the train service. The villain of the piece is not Lord Voldemort, but Dr Beeching, the Minister who cut the Whitby to Scarborough line back in 1965, condemning Whitby to reliance on cars and buses. That Whitby lost its train link to its coastal neighbour is bad enough, but to add insult to injury, the current service that connects Whitby to the nearest big town, Middlesbrough, is one of the worst in the country. That is not the fault of the not-for-profit Esk Valley Railway Development Company, a dedicated community rail partnership that runs the line with passion and flair. Indeed, the company fought hard to get a station opened at James Cook hospital in 2014. The whole point of that stop was to provide access to the hospital; instead, Whitby residents find themselves isolated from essential healthcare. There are only six trains a day, with four-hour gaps in the morning and afternoon. That makes it impossible to plan for a hospital appointment. Constituents have told me they have to stay over at Middlesbrough because they cannot get to and from the hospital in a day. It is not only hospital patients who are frustrated by the poor service, but constituents who want to work in Middlesbrough, where there are many more employment opportunities than in Whitby. The lack of ambition and investment in this essential transport link for Whitby is laid bare when it is compared with another seaside town, in the south. Newquay in Cornwall is not unlike Whitby in size, and it is also at the end of a branch line. Office of Rail and Road figures show that in 2023-24 the Newquay line carried 146,000 passengers, which was down 2%, while the Whitby line carried 257,000, which was up 6.3%. Until recently, both lines suffered from poor train services, but Newquay now has 15 trains on weekdays, 14 on Saturdays and eight on Sundays, thanks to a £57 million investment. According to a press release, there is also a through-train to London, while on the same day Whitby has just six trains. I would love to hear from the Minister how Great British Railways can improve transport links to small towns like Whitby, and open up a world of possibilities for its residents.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Despite the efforts of dedicated teachers in Scarborough and Whitby, only 36% of pupils achieve grade 5 and above in both English and maths GCSEs. Does the Prime Minister agree that Mission Coastal has the potential to deliver the same transformational impact for young people in deprived coastal communities as the London Challenge achieved, and that it is the kind of bold and targeted intervention that only a Labour Government can deliver?

• 21 May 2026 · Middle East: Economic Response · Hansard source

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  The news that bus travel will be free for children this summer is extremely welcome. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a golden opportunity for East Yorkshire Buses and Transdev to boost summer capacity, ensuring that children from deprived communities in Scarborough are not squeezed off the buses by tourists travelling to the coast for a great British summer?

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on securing this important debate and on his excellent opening speech. There are countless amazing organisations across the country that support victims of domestic abuse. I pay tribute to Independent Domestic Abuse Services, the largest specialist charity in Yorkshire, which does sterling work to support my constituents in Scarborough and Whitby. It is clear that our family justice system needs urgent reform to ensure that children are at the heart of proceedings. That was made incredibly clear to me earlier this week when I chaired a roundtable with charities, legal professionals and women with lived experience about improving outcomes for children in domestic abuse cases. Everyone on the panel agreed that children’s voices are lost in the system. One of the many inspirational speakers was Julia Margo, co-founder of the charity Fair Hearing. After experiencing the unimaginable—discovering that her partner, the father of her two children, was a convicted child sex offender—her ordeal was continued by the family court system, as her ex-partner claimed legal aid and took her to court 37 times over the next eight years to demand access to their children. About the process, she said: “The lawyers, magistrates and judges seemed to look on me as a hysteric, whose claims of trauma were exaggerated…The courts were more worried about ‘parental alienation’—that I should turn our sons against their father—than about two little boys being left alone with a paedophile.” Since being elected to Parliament, I have been motivated by a brave constituent to work on reforming the family courts so that abusive partners cannot claim parental alienation to undermine and silence survivors and influence child contact arrangements. In recent years, there has been a rise in the use of experts to “prove” alienation—a pseudoscientific concept with no basis in law or medicine. A perpetrator of abuse will allege that a child’s refusal of contact or reluctance towards it is due to the survivor parent alienating the child from them. That has led to survivors having their children removed from them, which is against the interests of the child and the mother. The non-profit Right to Equality conducted a large-scale survey of mothers whose children were removed from their care in private law proceedings. The survey reveals concerning patterns around child removal, including the role of parental alienation allegations, limited fact finding on abuse and the influence of expert recommendations. In total, the 217 mothers had 342 children removed from their care. That is clearly not in the best interests of those children and is deeply traumatic for the mothers. I welcome the fact that the Government are rolling out child-focused courts nationally, which will put children at the centre of proceedings and will resolve cases more quickly, saving children months of trauma. Repealing the presumption of parental involvement—a long-overdue correction to a pro-contact culture that has failed to put children first—is a brilliant step forward. However, there is still a gap in legislation that risks the wellbeing of children in private family law proceedings. It simply does not address the question of what happens when a child resists or refuses contact with a party against whom abuse is alleged. What evidential weight does the court give to the child’s response? I am currently drafting an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that aims to stop counter-allegations of alienation being used to undermine or distract from reports of domestic abuse. It would ensure that the child’s evidence has the weight that it deserves. It would ensure that a child’s resistance towards an abusive parent is treated not as evidence of manipulation, but as evidence of harm. When a child is reluctant or refuses to spend time with a person against whom allegations of domestic abuse have been made, it should be regarded as reasonable and justified. As the Government move forward with putting children at the heart of the family justice system, will the Minister commit to working with Parliament on changes to ensure that a child’s resistance to contact with an abusive parent is treated as credible evidence of harm and not of manipulation?

• 19 May 2026 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  I welcome the announcement of a new energy security Bill in the King’s Speech, which will meet our manifesto commitment not to issue licences to explore new oil and gas fields. Crucially, it will also deliver on our commitment to ban fracking. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting fluid at high pressure to fracture rock and extract hydrocarbons. In 2019, a moratorium on fracking was introduced following earthquakes linked to fracking activity at Preston New Road in Lancashire. Currently, UK legislation defines fracking based on fluid volume thresholds: 1,000 cubic metres per stage, or 10,000 cubic metres in total. This leaves a legal loophole for oil and gas companies to exploit. In beautiful Burniston in my constituency of Scarborough and Whitby, Europa Oil & Gas has proposed extracting gas using a technique called proppant squeeze, which is just hydraulic fracturing at lower fluid volumes. This means the technique exists outside the fracking moratorium. In Burniston, on the edge of the North York Moors national park, villagers have been involved in a David and Goliath battle with Europa Oil & Gas. I am delighted to say that North Yorkshire councillors threw out the recommendations of its officers and formally rejected the planning application. However, to create indisputable clarity over fracking legislation in our country and close this loophole, any future ban must include all forms of fracking. Currently, 66 existing licences remain active, and planning applications can still proceed under current rules. If our definition of fracking remains volume-based, we risk companies continuing to frack—just under a different name. Make no mistake: the frackers have not given up. Following North Yorkshire council’s rejection of Europa’s proposal, Europa stated that it felt confident about winning an appeal. The evidence is there for the Government to include small-scale fracking in our ban. A recent report published by the University of Edinburgh found that earthquakes from high-volume fracking and low-volume fracking are equally large and equally unpredictable. This means that the risk of seismicity such as earthquakes induced or triggered from proppant squeeze cannot simply be ruled out. This evidence echoes findings commissioned by the then Oil and Gas Authority into Preston New Road, which also showed that seismic impacts cannot be accurately predicted regardless of fluid volume. I urge the Government to use the upcoming energy security Bill to replace the volume-based definition with one based on intent and process, and to introduce a blanket prohibition on fracturing rock for hydrocarbons. All forms of fracking contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and undermine our net zero commitments, and therefore all forms of fracking need to be banned. Last December, I held a Westminster Hall debate on this issue, and the Minister responded, confirming that the Government remain open to evidence regarding a comprehensive ban. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to confirm what further evidence he requires to ban small-scale fracking—unless, of course, it is earthquakes in Scarborough.

• 29 Apr 2026 · Autism: Employment · Hansard source

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  2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support people with autism into employment.

• 29 Apr 2026 · Autism: Employment · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his answer. I recently chaired an employment roundtable with the all-party parliamentary group on autism where individuals with lived experience highlighted that a significant barrier to employment is a fear factor among some employers. That stems from a concern about getting it wrong when recruiting or supporting autistic employees, which can result in employers opting out of recruiting them altogether. Will the Minister outline what steps the Government are taking to address that fear factor and incentivise employers to recruit people with autism?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Park Home Owners · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing this timely debate. My constituency is known for its coastal beauty, and as such it is a hotspot for park homes. Of UK mobile home owners, 80% are aged 65 and above, and they buy their homes in pursuit of a quiet, secure retirement. Unfortunately, many end up enduring a living nightmare, due to the widespread intimidation and mis-selling by some site owners. My constituent Dennis is one such retiree. He was mis-sold a holiday home on a holiday park under the false pretence that it was a residential home. He was persuaded to make the purchase by signage that suggested that the caravan could be used as his sole residence and inhabited all year round. After moving in, Dennis discovered that he was legally required to have a permanent home elsewhere, which is the rule for holiday parks. After the summer was over, Dennis faced, in his words, a “relentless campaign of harassment, intimidation and verbal abuse”. He was frequently approached by members of staff and warned that his home would be removed from the site if he did not vacate it. My constituent was threatened with physical violence. Eventually, when that intimidation became too much, Dennis sold his home back to the site at a 60% loss. The site sold it four days later for a substantial profit. Dennis told me earlier this year that, having lost tens of thousands of pounds in savings and with legal representation having cost more than £4,000, he felt that his retirement was ruined. That story is repeated again and again, up and down the country. The Holiday Park Action Group represents more 84,000 holiday park home owners across the country. As its founder Carole Keeble told me, Dennis is one of thousands of victims whose lives have been severely impacted by an unregulated industry. Sites often have a mixed licence that permits them to sell both residential and holiday homes, and they are sometimes deliberately unclear about which type they are selling. Buyers are often not properly informed of their contractual rights and obligations and are then forced to resell at a loss. Victims are led to think that they are at fault for having bought the home, not realising that they were intentionally misled. According to the Holiday Park Action Group, that has led to mental health problems and, tragically, to suicides. Will my hon. Friend the Minister respond to this debate by telling us how his Department plans to work with the Department for Business and Trade to establish robust protections and to regulate this industry, where people such as my constituent Dennis are being exploited?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last month, I was thrilled to see Scarborough rugby union football club crowned regional 2 north-east champions—the highest level in the club’s history. The club does brilliant work in the Scarborough community, with various teams for women and for rugby players of all levels. Will the Leader of the House join me in celebrating Scarborough RUFC’s historic victory and its vital contribution to Scarborough?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Wheelchair Provision: Independent Review Body · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) on securing this important debate, and on his excellent speech, which drew on his lived experience. I contribute to this debate on behalf of the many constituents in Scarborough and Whitby who have been profoundly failed by NHS-contracted wheelchair services. One such constituent is a woman in her early 80s, who became reliant on an electric wheelchair to leave the house following a traumatic road accident. Her family and friends reached out to me after failing to be told when a wheelchair might be provided and not being offered any interim support. At that point, all the necessary adaptations to accommodate the wheelchair had already been made to the outside of her home. AJM Healthcare, which is contracted by NHS wheelchair services, was contacted for an urgent update but was completely unable to provide a specific timeframe for the progress of her application. Two years ago, AJM Healthcare was investigated by the parliamentary ombudsman following a surge in complaints. As we have heard, those involved people not receiving new wheelchairs or the correct parts, delays to receiving equipment and poor communication. Two years on, sadly, it seems that nothing has changed. Other constituents have also come up against significant delays to wheelchair repairs, leading them to become prisoners in their own homes. One resident requested my help after being housebound for three months while waiting for the supplier simply to send on the correct replacement parts. Another constituent endured three months of delays over a routine maintenance issue, only to discover after countless unanswered calls that the repairs company had gone into liquidation. It is clear that the current system is not working. Wheelchair providers are failing to meet even the most basic standards, leaving people isolated, housebound and ignored. What is worse, they are getting away with it. Despite repeated complaints and investigations, failing providers are still contracted and continue to offer an appalling service to people such as my constituents. My constituents deserve better. Waiting months for a wheelchair or essential repairs is unacceptable, and it is high time that wheelchair service providers were held to account by an independent national regulator. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government plan finally to put an end to this catalogue of failure.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and his positive efforts on the issue of the strait of Hormuz. Last week, I met with farmers in Whitby who are deeply concerned about the skyrocketing price of red diesel. In January, the fuel cost 64p per litre, and it has since doubled. With the busiest period of the farming calendar approaching, will the Prime Minister outline what measures the Government are considering to support farmers impacted by these rising costs?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. In Scarborough, British electric bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis employs more than 700 people and is vital to our local economy. Tax-funded bus procurement should support UK industry, rather than fund international competitors. However, with the social value requirement in public procurement set at only 10% and price still weighted at 70%, social value has little to no real impact. Will the Minister look at increasing the social value requirement in public procurement to support our great British—