Andy MacNae MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  A very merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to all House staff and colleagues. Since we were elected, my Lancashire colleagues and I have been campaigning for more funding for our local services. When new local government funding was announced yesterday, I was really pleased to see that the Government have properly listened. Funding is now following need, and a decade of austerity is ending. It is great to see Blackburn with Darwen borough council and Rossendale borough council getting significant increases. We are working with council leaders to ensure that the impacts of that funding are felt in every community. However, most key services in Rossendale are delivered by Lancashire county council. They have been under threat since Reform took control, with cuts to nurseries, gritting and care homes all being considered. Now, thanks to the Government and to lobbying by Labour MPs across Lancashire, the county council will get a massive increase—£310 million more—by 2028, so Reform has no more excuses. Will the Leader of the House join me in calling on Reform to stop the cuts and focus instead on delivering the services that we all rely on?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Grassroots Cricket Clubs · Hansard source

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  I remember that great series of 2005 where we all saw the Ashes on Channel 4 playing out with great drama. It was amazing. There is no doubt that access to those moments on terrestrial TV is massively important. Through the all-party parliamentary group for cricket, my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield has been convening many meetings around this issue, with broadcasters. There are subtleties to it, but the fundamental is that people need to be able to see their heroes. That is one of the great things about the Lancashire league. People could go down and see Viv Richards or Everton Weekes playing. Past generations have stories about seeing these players in the flesh—it was massively inspiring. Modern formats like the Hundred play a real role here. The number of kids in the audiences there is really inspiring. Darwen are relative newcomers to the Lancashire league, only joining in 2017, but were champions in 2022. The club has gone from strength to strength in recent years, under the brilliant leadership of chair Chris Lowe. It has drawn in money through partnerships with Blackburn with Darwen council, the Aldridge trust and the ECB. It has invested in a brilliant new club house and, more recently, a cricket dome, one of only two currently in the country, and a brilliant indoor facility for kids. I was involved in opening it recently. It is a truly inspiring sight and it is so important that we have these year-round facilities in places like Lancashire, because kids want to play all year. That is one of the great risks in our patch: we have these wonderful summer programmes—All Stars and Dynamos—and yet the spark can be so easily lost during the winter. Innovations like cricket domes are brilliant value for money. The Darwen club has already established a partnership with 13 local schools, which gives them a conduit into the game all year round. These are clubs with all sorts of different histories, but what they have in common is brilliant youth programmes engaging kids and great community facilities. At Bacup, where my son was involved in the All Stars, we have brilliant, inspiring trainers—Terry, Lawrence, Ben and Sam. On a Sunday morning in the summer, the sight of all the groups across the pitch is wonderful and inspiring. Indeed, the sausage sandwiches in the clubhouse afterwards are equally inspiring in their own way. As I said, all these clubs have great facilities, which have become the heart of their communities. The first birthday party I went to at my kid’s school was in the cricket clubhouse. We have our town board meetings in Darwen clubhouse. We have so many major, vital community events in these community sports facilities; they are so important to us. The other thing these clubs have in common is that they could do so much more for our communities, which brings us to the funding question. Some great stuff has been done with grassroots funding over the years, but, as all colleagues have said, it has a fragile status. I think we all recognise that there is perhaps a disconnect between the investment we put into sport and the great value of sport across society in terms of health, wellbeing and economic outcomes. One question I am sure the Minister will want to reflect on is the extent to which our investment matches the huge benefits that sport can bring to our communities. In that regard, I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield about Sport England and its role as a statutory consultee. To get the benefits, we have to have the facilities retained in our communities. We have to protect them, and Sport England plays a vital role there. I cannot remember the exact stat, but it only objected to something like 3%—a tiny number—of the applications that it was consulted on. It is not a barrier, but it brings much value and vital expertise into the mix. I will finish with one final reflection on funding, from the point of view of someone who lives in a small town and whose cricket clubs are in small towns. The role of sports clubs in small towns and villages is disproportionate to that of those in big towns and cities. They are vital, so I ask the Minister to consider how our funding approaches and prioritisation might reflect the value that those clubs—not just cricket clubs, but football clubs, rugby clubs and so on—have to our small towns. They are the heart of our communities and we must retain them.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Grassroots Cricket Clubs · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate. It gives me a chance to wax on about surely the greatest cricket league in the country—the historic Lancashire league, of which my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen has been at the heart throughout. Three of the founding 14 members—Haslingden, Rawtenstall and Bacup—were there right from the start. Haslingden is just outside of my constituency, unfortunately. It was the first club, formed in 1853. Rawtenstall and Bacup have proud histories. Bacup has been at Lanehead Lane since 1860—160 years at the same cricket ground—and I think it is England’s highest sporting ground. Clearly, weather plays a factor. Rawtenstall has been at Bacup Road since 1886. These clubs are steeped in history. Perhaps their greatest moment, which epitomises the nature of Rawtenstall and Bacup’s rivalry, was the championship title game of 1922. Both teams were tied at the top of the league and had to play a play-off in Haslingden in front of 5,000 spectators. They got as far as the fourth innings and fell out over the playing conditions. For the next five days, the teams turned up on alternate days, until the match was finally abandoned and they shared the title. That rivalry continues to this day. One of the great factors of the Lancashire league is the international professionals that we welcome. There are too many to list. Rawtenstall had Sydney Barnes for three years—one of the true greats. Bacup had Everton Weekes, at the height of his powers. In the year he was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year, he was playing at Bacup. It is absolutely remarkable. When I moved to Bacup back in the 2000s, I was stunned to find that Chris Cairns was the professional. He was a great New Zealand all-rounder. These places have deep histories.

• 4 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This week, residents in Rossendale have once again experienced massive disruption and delays due to roadworks. This time it was emergency works by United Utilities, where necessary four-way lights were not being operated according to the permit. My office has been working with Lancashire county council to get promises of action, but as of this morning there has been no change. My residents are rightly fed up with this happening time and again. Since being elected, I have called on the county council to properly enforce street works and to introduce a lane rental scheme, which could address congestion on our busiest roads. I am once again calling on the Reform council leadership to take urgent action. To shine a light on the issue, will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on the issue of street works?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Our fiscal framework is not working. This is the structure that is supposed to manage compliance with our fiscal rules and deliver stability and confidence, yet we are seeing quite the opposite. Our current framework is leading to speculation, policy volatility and short-termism, so is there a better way? The fundamental problem with the current framework is that it requires the OBR to make binary pass-fail judgments on whether the rules are being met, using highly uncertain forecasts of what the economy might look like in 2029. To compound that, the OBR is allowed to count only the impacts of policies that have a high degree of certainty and evidence. That means that for anything new and innovative, it is likely that only the costs, not the benefits, will be included. On the one hand, we have the requirement for a binary pass-fail judgment; on the other hand, we have massive uncertainty and significant exclusions within the forecast. How are those compatible? The honest truth is that they are not, but that is what the rules currently require, so focus turns to the midpoint of a probability range, which is called a central point estimate. It has no economic meaning beyond being the midpoint. The OBR openly acknowledges that the number has “essentially no chance of being the actual outcome”, yet it is used as if it is the forecast, giving rise to statements such as, “The Chancellor has £9.9 billion of headroom.” Taken at face value, such statements fundamentally misrepresent the inherent uncertainty. The forced pass-fail system and excessive focus on point estimates has real-world consequences. For a start, binary judgments risk binary responses. A marginal fail is seen as a crisis requiring immediate action, whereas a marginal pass is taken to imply that everything is fine. Given the massive uncertainties in the forecast, the reality is that there is actually no difference between the two situations. Overall, this pressure for lurches between crisis and complacency, driving policy recalibrations in response to binary judgments or changes to forecast methodology, is simply not conducive to policy stability. There is also a damaging effect on policy design. A pass-fail mindset inevitably incentivises funding policies that deliver easily quantified impacts within the forecast timescale while discouraging longer-term, less quantifiable ones. That is especially problematic for the kind of policies we really need the most—those that prevent ill health, reduce worklessness and manage long-term liabilities. It is essential to address all those areas if we want to bring down debt over the long term. All that inevitably dampens investment and is bad for growth, and speculation and policy volatility are hardly good for bond rates either. Is there a better way? Many economists and institutions believe so. We need to recognise the really important step that the Chancellor took in this Budget; moving to a single formal assessment each year reduces speculation and policy volatility. That is a significant step and, as it will require the charter for Budget responsibility to be amended, it opens the possibility of further positive change. One such change is that from 2027, the charter introduces a tolerance range for the borrowing rule of plus or minus 0.5% of GDP. That is a big improvement, but there is a strong argument for bringing it forward to 2026 and considering a range for the debt rule too. We could go further. The Institute for Fiscal Studies is exploring a traffic-light approach based around compliance with a wide range of Budget policy objectives. Thinking about longer-term risk management, we could do a lot more to capture the long-term costs of inaction and show how we are offsetting future risk and bringing down long-term debt projections. Proposals have also been made about reforming the OBR’s overall remit and methodology, along with revising the role of the Treasury, which rightly poses fundamental questions about the best tools for judging compliance. Our fiscal rules are vital. Maintaining fiscal discipline is an inherent part of delivering a virtuous cycle of investment, growth and renewal, but there is broad agreement that our fiscal framework, with its reliance on highly uncertain forecasts and pass-fail requirements, is leading to speculation, policy volatility and short-termism. We all pay for that through higher borrowing costs and depressed growth. It is clear that there is a better way that could provide greater stability and enable us to meet fiscal rules and build headroom, while incentivising long-term growth and demand reduction policies. That is what we should strive for, and the time to make it happen is now.

• 20 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  It is national Road Safety Week and soon the Government will unveil their much-anticipated road safety strategy. In my constituency, road safety is now the issue that is raised most often with me and our neighbourhood police, but when we raise these concerns with the Reform leadership at Lancashire county council, they consistently refuse to take action. The Reform policy is to wait for accidents to take place, stating that there need to be at least 10 collisions, of which 20% must have killed or seriously injured, before action is taken. This flies in the face of common sense and is an insult to our residents, who see close calls and near misses every day. We must listen to our communities. I have been calling on the leadership of Lancashire county council to work with me, but so far they have refused even to meet. Road safety should be above local politics, so will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on this important matter?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Typhoon Fighter Sovereign Capability · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is reaching levels of technicality that I do not fully understand, but I think the fundamental point is that we should strike a balance and try to get the best of both. The Typhoon is a platform that can deliver capabilities that we very much need. As has been pointed out, other Eurofighter partner countries have taken exactly that decision. In December 2024, Spain ordered an additional 25 Typhoons. At the same time, Italy ordered 25 to replace its tranche 1s. Last month, Germany placed an order for another 20 Typhoons, taking its total order pipeline to 58. Those countries have protected their domestic fast jet manufacturing capability while ensuring that they have a mix of capabilities to address the full range of conflict scenarios that, sadly, we can look forward to.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Typhoon Fighter Sovereign Capability · Hansard source

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  It is truly a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), a fellow Lancashire MP, on the passion with which he spoke. I associate myself with all the remarks that have been made, and will be made, in welcoming the Turkey deal. As has been said, it was a massive boost for workers at Samlesbury and Warton, and has been received with great enthusiasm. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster), the hon. Member for Fylde and I have long been calling for it, and it comes on the back of huge amounts of hard work from Ministers and civil servants in the Department. We must not underestimate the massive impact that the order will have, but it is not job done; we now need to look at how we can kick on. As has been highlighted, it is imperative that we secure the sovereign capability, production base and competitive position for the next decade and more. We need to finish the job. I have come to the conclusion that the only way of doing so is through a UK Typhoon order. That is what we need to maintain our world-leading position, the skills and the expertise that were so crucial in securing the Turkey deal. The decision was not taken by the previous Government and it now falls to this one. A UK order would mean that maximum value is retained here. We will hear all the arguments about the sections being made at Samlesbury for assembly at Warton. I agree with the argument that a UK order would also build confidence in the quality and longevity of the aircraft, which would bolster our ability to secure future international orders. In any case, the fundamental point, as has been highlighted, is that we need more new fast jets. We had 137 Typhoons. Thirty tranche 1 aircraft will be retired by 2027, and that leaves 107 tranche 2 and tranche 3 fighters, which are ageing and will be retired by 2040. Despite upgrades, they do not have the full range of capabilities that could be delivered with the latest tranche 5. For sure, we all get very excited by the potential of the Tempest global combat air programme, but it will be, at best, the late 2030s before it comes online. As has been said, it is not a direct replacement or comparator for the Typhoon, so we have a clear capability gap to fill somehow. Part of that is being addressed by the purchase of the F-35, which creates an opportunity. Although the F-35 is a brilliant aircraft, it is, as has been pointed out, a very different aircraft from the Typhoon, with different design philosophy and different capabilities. That creates an opportunity for a blended Air Force. The F-35 is primarily a stealthy, ground-attack, precision strike aircraft able to penetrate heavily defended areas. The Typhoon is an air dominance fighter with a higher top speed, faster acceleration, better climb rate and superior sustained turn performance. The Typhoon is also compatible with a full range of British-made missiles such as the Meteor and Spear 3, whereas the F-35 currently is not. There is an opportunity for a blend there. We do not need to choose one or the other; we can bring the capabilities together to create an Air Force truly fit for the 2030s and onwards.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Typhoon Fighter Sovereign Capability · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. I would not use the same sort of pejorative language, but a recent National Audit Office report highlighted exactly those integration issues and, as I have pointed out, the Meteor and Spear 3 are not currently compatible with the F-35. There is no doubt that sovereign capability means maintaining all the controls to deliver the independence and resilience that a tier 1 nation surely requires in its defence strategies. I will briefly take a wider perspective. Lancashire is home to world-class defence industries, as we all know. Every single growth plan that talks about Lancashire’s future has those at its heart. The fact that we can go into schools in places like Bacup, Whitworth and Darwen and talk about some of the best engineering and technical jobs in the world being just down the road is invaluable to building aspiration in places that need it most. The apprenticeships and career opportunities at not just at BAE, but the many innovative companies in the supply chain, mean that Lancashire and the north-west is the best place for anyone who wants to work in the cutting-edge manufacturing industries of the future. Surely we should not be happy with merely sustaining that jewel in the crown. Rather, we should seek to strengthen and continually build skills, scale and competitive advantage. Turkey chose to order the Typhoon because the experience, quality and skills of workers at Samlesbury and Warton cannot be matched. We have the opportunity to build on that and give the ultimate vote of confidence by ordering UK fighters that will maintain our balanced and multifunctional fast jet capability through the next decade and more. I hope that the defence procurement strategy delivers just that.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. Will the Chancellor please update the House on progress made with the implementation of the Green Book review and that change, as a result, might better enable investment in small northern towns such as those that make up Rossendale and Darwen?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Reform-led Lancashire county council proposes to close a gritting depot that serves my borough of Rossendale, which could cause absolute chaos this winter. That is just one of many cuts that Reform is considering, with nurseries and care homes already in the firing line. Will the Leader of the House join me in calling on Lancashire county council to listen to our communities and stop cutting the services that we rely on?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Baby Loss · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered baby loss. I am deeply privileged to be opening this debate in the middle of national Baby Loss Awareness Week, and in advance of the international “wave of light” on Wednesday. I want to start by welcoming the bereaved families who have joined us in the Galleries, and particularly for doing so at such a late hour: they have shown fantastic stamina in sitting through some fascinating business. I know that a number are also watching online. I have no doubt this will, for many of us, be an emotive debate that will bring back many memories, so I say this to those in the Galleries: I am grateful for your courage in joining us, and your presence lifts this whole debate and this whole day. I know that for many of you, your story is one of being let down by the system. While today cannot undo that, I hope that this national spotlight on what you have experienced, and our shared commitment to fundamental change, will be of some comfort. I also thank everyone in the Chamber for their attendance today, and for the cross-party support that the debate has received. This is a personal topic for me and for my family. Our daughter Mallorie was born in 2015 with Edwards’ syndrome, a condition that we were told was not compatible with life; yet she lived for five days, and died in my arms. Those days were both the hardest of our lives and the time that we value most. We spent those days in the butterfly suite, a bereavement room funded by the local baby loss charity Friends of Serenity. Throughout that time, we received amazing support from the maternity team at Burnley hospital. I want to take this opportunity to thank, once again, all the team at Burnley, and to recognise the amazing work that baby loss charities do throughout the UK. The years since Mallorie’s death have been challenging. The impacts of losing a child do not end after a week or a month or a year; they stay with us. My wife, Vanessa, suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder following Mallorie’s death, and has never been able to fully recover and return to her work as a health visitor. For 10 years she has had consistent difficulties in accessing sustained specialist mental health support, instead being bounced between short-term interventions and generalists. Her NHS career has now been terminated on grounds of ill health, and she is back on a five-month waiting list for therapy. Yet we count ourselves among the lucky ones. We had as good a hospital experience as we could have had in the circumstances, and time to prepare for what we knew was an inevitable outcome. We did not leave feeling that more could have been done, or that we had been let down; we felt listened to and supported in the weeks that followed. Sadly, however, as we will hear today, far, far too many families have had the very opposite of that experience. We will hear heartbreaking accounts of babies who should not have died, of families’ concerns being belittled and ignored, of practices that fall well below any acceptable standard, and of institutional cultures of denial and cover-up. I believe that as we reach the end of today’s debate, no one will be in any doubt that addressing the long-term systemic failings in maternity care once and for all must be an imperative for this Government. Let me start by detailing the extent of this challenge. Tragically, 13 babies die shortly before, during or soon after birth every day. Every day, 13 mothers know the immense grief of losing a child they were expecting to welcome into their lives. In 2023, there were 4,478 baby deaths in total. Some 1,933 of these were neonatal deaths, while 2,545 were stillbirths, with the cause of one third of those stillbirths still unknown. More broadly, ectopic pregnancy affects one in 80, while 240 infants die every year from sudden unexplained death syndrome, and evidence suggests that one in six pregnancies in the UK ends in miscarriage. Crucially, these family tragedies are not shared equally throughout society; ethnic minorities and those living in deprivation are far more likely to experience this loss. This has been known for 70 years, yet little action has been taken to address it. Even in 2023, black babies were over twice as likely to be stillborn compared with white babies, while neonatal mortality rates among black and Asian babies were over one and a half times higher than the rate among white babies. Similarly, babies born to mothers living in the most deprived areas are twice as likely to die shortly after birth than those in the least deprived areas. This profound inequality must be rooted out. These deaths occur amid a pattern of poor culture and practice in too many of our maternity wards and trusts. In its 2022 to 2024 review, the Care Quality Commission found that only 35% of maternity units were rated as “good” for safety. No units were found to be “outstanding”, and 65% were rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. Behind these figures lies a litany of family tragedy. In response, there has been no shortage of inquiries. Over the last 10 years, we have seen reviews or investigations into care in East Kent, Morecambe Bay, and Shrewsbury and Telford, as well as the ongoing review in Nottingham. These have revealed much and made many recommendations, yet change has not come and the cycle of failure has continued. It is in this context that the Government have rightly decided to launch a national investigation—a systematic and urgent national review of maternity services. This is an opportunity that we must grasp, and we have a Secretary of State who I believe truly understands the urgency and importance of making it count. We have the investigation being led by a chair of the highest reputation, we have a commitment to a taskforce to deliver on recommendations, and we have many colleagues in this place who are determined to make sure that the voices of families are heard and acted on. We must get this right, so before I hand over to colleagues, I would like to make four key asks. First, the investigation must provide clear and binding steps to achieve national change in maternity care, particularly to tackle the inequality of outcomes that is dependent on the race or wealth of the mother. To this end, the investigation must set out clear, consistent approaches to safety across all maternity units in England, which means unequivocally defining “safety”—amazingly, there is no shared definition of “safety” across maternity services. The inquiry must identify the reasons why past recommendations have not been implemented or resulted in change. It must be willing to address any embedded cultural, structural or governance factors that undermine quality, safety and accountability. When the investigation reports and the taskforce releases its action plan, the Government must fully resource the delivery and ensure there is robust monitoring and real accountability. Secondly, it is crucial that the Government set new national maternity safety ambitions. In 2015, the then Government announced ambitions to halve relative rates of stillbirth, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and brain injuries by 2025. Alongside that, they also announced an ambition to reduce preterm births from 8% to 6%. Those ambitions are due to expire and, in any case, were never on track to being met. It is a stark reminder of how important this issue is that 2,500 fewer babies would have died if the targets had been reached. The UK’s baby death rate is still considerably worse than those of the best-performing countries in Europe. To match those countries, Sands and Tommy’s have proposed new ambitions, with an end date of 2035 to align with the NHS 10-year plan. I apologise for the list, but they include a stillbirth rate of two per 1,000 total births; a neonatal mortality rate of 0.5 per 1,000 live births for babies born at 24 weeks’ gestation and over; a preterm birth rate of 6%, with disaggregated data for iatrogenic and spontaneous preterm births; and eliminating inequalities in these outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation. The Government’s commitment to close the black and Asian maternal mortality gap is welcome, but it must explicitly include closing the black and Asian stillbirth and neonatal mortality gaps. Establishing routine data collection on miscarriages should be prioritised. Once that is established, an ambition to reduce the miscarriage rate should be added. I urge the Government to be ambitious, and to implement these new targets, which will help to guide and inform the improvements that will be made in services in the years to come. Thirdly, we must urgently improve bereavement care for parents in hospitals and the mental health support they receive after discharge. Losing a child is devastating, and compassionate care, both immediately and in the long term, is vital to processing grief. The national bereavement care pathway aims to standardise bereavement care, and states that this should be given by trained staff, with dedicated grieving spaces provided, opportunities for parents to have meaningful moments with their baby offered and referrals for further support made. Since its 2017 launch, NHS trusts have gradually adopted the pathway, with full coverage achieved in 2024. However, voluntary uptake and a lack of ringfenced funding have led to highly inconsistent implementation, and sometimes it is entirely lacking. A bereaved mother described the hospital support she received as: “Terrible. No aftercare whatsoever. I felt abandoned. My mental health spiralled due to lack of support and not knowing where to get help… I left that hospital with a broken heart.” Bereavement support must continue post discharge. I have described the challenges that my wife Vanessa has faced in accessing specialist support, and she is by no means alone. Sands’ 2025 report found that over 80% of bereaved parents needed specialist psychological support post discharge, yet despite the introduction of NHS maternal mental health services in England, only 17% of bereaved parents were actually able to access it. We must also recognise the additional barriers that fathers and partners face in accessing support. Only 29% of services offered basic assessments to fathers in 2024, and those are often quite perfunctory. One father explained how he was assessed and recommended for psychological interventions and a referral to a clinic, yet the only support he actually received was a leaflet outlining local self-help groups. It is not good enough, and services must recognise that fathers and partners also grieve. So I urge the Government to issue clear standards and national guidance for commissioning specialist mental health support services for bereaved parents, including fathers and partners. Support must also be given to healthcare professionals, who can themselves be impacted by baby deaths. Training remains inaccessible for many healthcare professionals, and staff often lack the time to attend sessions. Bereavement care training must be available during work hours, and overall we must ensure staff are equipped to support grieving families and to look after themselves. Finally, I want to touch briefly on the role of regulators, most notably the Nursing and Midwifery Council. In an area as critical as maternity safety, an effective and accountable regulator is a crucial component, yet issues with the NMC are long term and well documented. As was noted in relation to the 2024 culture review of the organisation: “Good nurses are finding themselves being investigated for years over minor issues and bad nurses are escaping sanction because of a system that’s not functioning as well as it should.” Such failures can have tragic consequences. For instance, the NMC cleared a midwife who had been referred to it following the avoidable death of a baby in Morecambe Bay in 2008. In 2016, the same midwife was linked to the death of another baby, and subsequently dismissed by their trust for actions fundamentally below acceptable standards. This cannot continue, and if we are to deliver on our maternity safety ambitions, we need an effective, culturally healthy regulator. The NMC still has a long way to go until it could contribute in this way. The Government must continue to offer rigorous scrutiny, demanding accountability and ensuring that the NMC becomes the regulator that nurses and midwives, as well as the public as a whole, deserve. To sum up, each year babies die who should not have died, every year mothers are failed and harmed, and every year parents experience profound loss without the support to deal with it. We cannot continue as we are. We have both an opportunity and an obligation to act. This Government have the chance to drive a change that will be felt in the lives of families for generations. To do this, we must deliver on the full potential of a national investigation. Clear, impactful and binding actions must address systemic weaknesses and embedded cultures. To ensure long-term focus, we must also adopt ambitious, measurable targets to align with the NHS 10-year plan. These steps to reduce baby loss must come in tandem with a compassionate system of care for those who do experience loss despite our best efforts. To this end, the Government should issue national guidance on commissioning specialist mental health services for bereaved parents. Finally, the Government must ensure the sector has capable and accountable regulators to ensure that professional standards are maintained. Taken together, we can make what has been a story of national tragedy into one of national pride, delivering compassionate and exemplary care for women and babies when they need it most. This is the challenge and the opportunity before us, and we must not fall short.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Baby Loss · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will speak relatively briefly. I would just like to thank everybody for their presence, honesty and passion today. This has been a moving, deeply powerful and deeply impactive debate. I particularly thank the Secretary of State, not just for being here, but for the passion, anger and urgency in his speech. There are a million things I would like to talk about, but I will just reflect very briefly on the words of the hon. Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) about Billy and Billy’s parents and taking tragedy and turning that into positive change. If there is one idea that I think sums up this debate, it is the chance to take tragedy and turn it into positive change—an action that makes real difference. That is the task before us, and I thank everyone for supporting it.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As we move into autumn, flooding is once again on the minds of residents in Rossendale and Darwen. This Government have already made vital commitments to our flood defences, but recently some communities have expressed concern that flood modelling is out of date and is either not fully identifying risk areas or identifying risk areas as high-risk that no longer are. The Environment Agency is aware of that, so will the Secretary of State join me in urging it urgently to prioritise new modelling?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As the Leader of the House well knows, Rossendale is the only local authority area in the north without a commuter rail link. Rossendale council’s city-to-valley proposal would have finally addressed that by linking us up with Manchester. The idea was repeatedly shot down by the previous Government, but this Government’s increased regional transport fund means that we finally have a chance to get a fair hearing. However, challenges remain in getting the project delivered into the investment pipeline, particularly as it crosses local authority borders. Will she agree to a debate on how we can get vital projects such as Rossendale’s city-to-valley rail over the line?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I enormously welcome this Bill. It is a thoroughly rare thing for a Government to seek to actively give up power, but this Government understand that we are going to deliver an economy that works for everyone, with a new way of governing that shifts powers away from Westminster once and for all. At its heart, this Bill is about putting power back in the hands of communities, recognising that decisions should be made by those who know their communities best and who are fully accountable for the consequences of those decisions. For somewhere like Lancashire, this Bill is a great opportunity to address the fundamental issues that have held us back for so long. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) explained the dysfunctional nature of Lancashire eloquently, but I will recap: we have 12 district councils, two unitaries, a county council, and a police and crime commissioner. This confusing two-tier structure—hollowed out by austerity, with little accountability and remote, fragmented decision making—sits in stark contrast with the clarity of leadership and devolved resources of our neighbouring city regions. We have had to watch Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire forge ahead while we have been stuck in the slow lane. This lived reality is the status quo that the Conservatives—including the shadow Secretary of State, who is no longer in his place—have sought to defend and maintain, but this Bill gives us a chance to change all that. It is a chance to take back control and empower our communities, and a chance to rebuild local government—to make it more effective and to save money that can be reinvested in local services. It is a chance to bring in resources that can turbocharge growth and deliver on our potential. I urge Lancashire leaders to work together with a sense of urgency in order to grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But there is an additional challenge. Even with clear determination from local leaders, it will be at least two years until Lancashire has a mayor and a restructured combined authority. It is likely to take much longer before we have the sort of capacity and capability that is already in place in the likes of Liverpool and Manchester. In that time, those city regions will move further ahead. The risk is that Lancashire will fall further behind, yet as the new Lancashire growth plan shows, there is a bright future for the county if we have the tools to create it. The plan identifies 12 transformational projects that will be game changers for us, ranging from transport infrastructure to world-class innovation zones. Overall, the proposed project pipeline has the potential to attract over £20 billion of additional investment to our county, but as things stand these are just bold ideas and possibilities. Taking them to the stage where they are fully worked-up, investable proposals requires the sort of capacity and capability that Lancashire no longer has. That is in contrast with our neighbouring city regions, which have been able to use devolved resources to have full business cases and shovel-ready projects ready and waiting for the green light. We can see the result, with the vast majority of infrastructure pipeline projects located within strategic mayoral authorities. The stark contrast between the investment in established mayoral authorities and in areas like Lancashire, which is just starting the devolution process, risks embedding inequality in our regions. Places like Lancashire cannot wait until the devolved authorities are in place. To stop inequality taking root, we need support now to ensure that we can progress our transformational projects and deliver on our growth potential. The recent Green Book review rather fortunately recognises this issue and helpfully identifies some ways of addressing it, including expanding the Treasury’s better business case programme, progressing the National Wealth Fund’s strategic partnership programme and, crucially, secondments from central Government to the regions. That is exactly what we need in Lancashire so that we can start to deliver on our growth plan, with our projects taking their place in the infrastructure pipeline. Although I strongly welcome the Bill and call again on councils to come together to seize the opportunities it offers, I ask the Government to work with Lancashire MPs and local leaders to ensure that Lancashire receives the up-front support we need to start to catch up with our neighbours and to play our full and rightful role in delivering growth and prosperity for all our communities.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Virtual Teachers · Hansard source

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  In Rossendale, the academy trust that runs our “stuck” school, Valley leadership academy, recently announced plans to introduce a virtual teacher for top-set maths. This approach has understandably raised a lot of concerns, and I have been working with the trust to make sure it is designed in the pupils’ best interests. I have been assured that this will be a temporary measure, that a qualified maths teacher will be in the room to provide additional support, and that an appropriate range of adjustments will be made for SEND pupils. However, I remain concerned that, without safeguards, virtual teachers may become a default cost-saving measure to address recruitment challenges. Will the Minister share her view on how we can ensure that such an approach is always designed in pupils’ best interests—

• 21 Jul 2025 · Virtual Teachers · Hansard source

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  15. If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of virtual teachers on school children.

• 16 Jul 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q3. Last week, four-year-old Eli Testa was killed in Rawtenstall cemetery when a memorial stone fell on him. All of Rossendale was shocked by this tragedy, so I hope the Prime Minister will join me in offering his deepest condolences to Eli’s parents and family.Families in Rossendale are also deeply concerned about reports that Reform-led Lancashire county council is considering cuts to nursery funding, which would raise costs for working parents and might force some nurseries to close. If this is an example of the sort of efficiencies that Reform is considering, then all of Lancashire—indeed, all of us—should be worried. Will the Prime Minister join me in asking Lancashire county council to think again?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I cannot help but note that the news of the defection of my predecessor, Jake Berry, has generally been greeted in Rossendale and Darwen as bad news for Reform. It has been suggested that the party should re-establish its vetting procedures. On further Reform news, I was informed this week that the Reform-led Lancashire county council plans to cut £3 million from the education budget by significantly reducing support for nurseries. That is despite increased childcare funding from this Labour Government. I have been contacted by several Rossendale nursery managers who have made it clear that this will result in increased costs for parents and even closures. If these are the sort of efficiencies that Reform is pursuing, increasing costs and stress for young families, we should all be deeply concerned. I and fellow MPs have written to the leader of the county council opposing the cuts in the strongest possible terms and asking him to think again. Does the Leader of the House share our concerns and will she agree to hold a debate on this subject?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Victims of Terrorism: State Support · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered state support for victims of terrorism. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. In a week when we remember the victims of the 7/7 attacks and all terror attacks, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this important debate to consider our response to what should be one of the gravest responsibilities of any Government: the duty of the state to stand with and support British victims of terror. Terrorism is not simply an attack on individuals; it is an attack on our way of life, on our shared values and on the very idea of a free and open society. When civilians are targeted in terror attacks, they are targeted as proxies of the state. That places on our Government—indeed, on each and every one of us—a special, inescapable obligation to ensure that those citizens are recognised, supported and treated with dignity, yet historically that obligation has not been fulfilled. Previous Governments promised change and failed to follow through, offering thoughts and prayers when the attention of the world’s media was on them while quietly ignoring and dismissing the pleas and plights of victims. I know that the Minister, as a veteran of the war on terror, will be all too aware of these issues. It is my hope that the debate is an opportunity not only for us to shine a light on the topic, but for parliamentarians of all parties to demonstrate to the Minister our strong interest in seeing this Government be the one who finally resolve this issue once and for all and substantively improve support for victims. No fluff—just change. I commend the Minister on his recent announcement on issuing a Government tender for the establishment of a victims of terrorism support hub. May I commend Pool Reinsurance for its financial backing and support of the hub, investing millions in support for victims of terrorist attacks past, present and future? I know that we have a long way to go in improving support for victims, but this support hub, if implemented effectively, with correct oversight provided, will make a huge difference to the lives of victims of terrorism across the nation. More generally, where have we been falling short? Before coming to the House, I, like many members of the public, was blissfully unaware of just how lacking our current support system was. We would all assume, perhaps understandably, that support for victims of terrorism is a given. After all, why would not we support those people? To think that they would go without support flies in the face of all we see reported on the news. Government pledges talk of resilience and strength and of how we will not be cowed in the face of terrorism, but as the election loomed last year I was contacted by my constituent Travis Frain, who was injured in a terrorist attack on Westminster bridge and this House in March 2017 when he was just 19 years old. Travis told me his story. I would like to share a portion of it with hon. Members now. While in hospital immediately after the attack, Travis received fantastic support and treatment from doctors, nurses and paramedics in the emergency department, but after his eight-day stay in hospital and two operations he was discharged home and simply told to contact his GP and say that he had been involved in a terror attack. He received no family liaison officer or point of contact of any kind in the police; the Metropolitan police deemed him not injured enough to receive one. When Travis contacted his GP, he had to wait several weeks for an appointment, by which time his stitches had been left in for far too long, causing further and unnecessary scarring. He told his GP that he needed physiotherapy and that he wanted to offload what had happened to him, sharing it with someone trained and able to cope with such a traumatic situation and details; someone other than his friends and family. He was told that there would be a long waiting list for both services. After six weeks, he received a physiotherapy appointment but was told that he could be offered only non-contact physio. He was provided with a sheet of paper with suggested exercises and told to return in a few months. Travis had to wait nearly 13 weeks for any form of psychiatric assessment, after which he received a phone appointment. By that time, having received little or no support, he was suffering with sleep issues, struggling to get to sleep and to stay asleep as well as struggling with nightmares, night-terrors and so on. The doctors told him that they were not able to provide any one-to-one support and the only advice they could provide for his struggles with sleep was to open the bedroom window for an hour or so a day to let in fresh air and drink a cup of warm milk before bed. Travis was forced to start using his student finance to pay for private medical treatment, serving only to push him and his family into deeper financial worry at a time when the entire country would have assumed and expected the Government would wrap around him and such people to provide them with the support they rightly deserve. Since the attack, Travis has been working with other victims to improve support for victims of future attacks, and I am pleased that he has joined us here today. His is just one story of many, and I expect we will hear others in the debate. Before I move on, Travis said something that stuck with me: survivors of terror can be an incredibly powerful voice in the prevention of future attacks, but only if we afford them the support and assistance they deserve. By investing in their support, we are not only investing in their recovery, but in a more secure and safer Britain. With that in mind, I hope the Minister will join me in thanking organisations such as Resilience in Unity, which is based in my constituency, for their incredible work to incorporate the voices of those with lived experience of terrorism in the prevention of radicalisation. Their work is undoubtedly having a significant effect on our national security space, and only serves to provide further justification of why it is so important that we improve support for victims of terror. As the Minister will be aware, after a campaign by the charity Survivors Against Terror during the 2019 election, both major parties committed to implement Martyn’s law to improve security of venues and crowded places. It has been wonderful to see that it has now received Royal Assent, but parties also promised to consult on a survivors’ charter—a comprehensive guarantee of rights and entitlements for survivors. The charter was not designed as an aspiration, but as a clear blueprint for justice and dignity. Six years on, however, there has been sadly limited progress to respond to the charter. I want to set out the eight key tenets of the charter in full here, because every one of them is essential, and they will do well to frame the debate today. The first tenet is guaranteed proactive personal support. As so many survivors have testified, it is not enough to offer passive signposting or vague advice. Proactive support means dedicated caseworkers, continuity of care and outreach that ensures no one slips through the cracks. The Government should maintain a dedicated database of people affected by terrorism to ensure proactively they are receiving the support they deserve and need. Victims should not be—as was the case with several of my constituents including Travis and survivors of the Sousse attacks in Tunisia and the Manchester Arena attacks—simply discharged from hospital after an attack and left to their own devices without any point of contact in the police, continuity of support from the NHS, or any form of assistance with their physical or psychological recovery. The second is guaranteed access to rapid psychological triage and services. There is a good report by Survivors Against Terror, which I recommend. It reveals the scandal of survivors left to waste away for years on waiting lists for trauma counselling, in total distress and often forced to pay privately for therapy just to stay alive. One Manchester Arena survivor described being “in an appalling state of psychological distress”, unable to leave home. We are a first-world country and we can and should do better. The third is guaranteed immediate financial assistance. Terror attacks destroy not only lives but livelihoods. Families can lose their main breadwinner overnight. Others face sudden costs of travel, funerals or accommodation. Immediate financial assistance must be available without bureaucratic delays. The fourth is guaranteed state compensation funds. Hon. Members will likely be aware of concerns that the Ministry of Justice’s criminal injuries compensation scheme is thought to be not fit for purpose, and survivors of terrorism are faced with a system so unresponsive that nearly three quarters of them are reported to have felt that the process was neither fair nor sympathetic. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority demands thousands of pages of paperwork from victims, forcing them to retraumatise themselves continuously for miserly small amounts of compensation. It has, in many cases, demanded repayments years later, reduced awards for irrelevant reasons, and retraumatised survivors with invasive evidence requests that require them to provide grisly evidence of their injuries. Like those young girls in the Manchester Arena attack, who had been peppered with fractures and shrapnel wounds across their bodies, they are forced to list their top five injuries, which will then be calculated in decreasing order of compensation awarded. Are we so inhumane that we treat our fellow citizens with such disdain for what is often a very small amount of money? It is particularly disappointing, therefore, that the Ministry of Justice recently confirmed that it is shelving the long-awaited review of the compensation authority. The Minister might want to comment on that. The fifth is guaranteed legal support. Survivors and bereaved families often face complex legal challenges: coroners’ inquests, criminal trials, civil claims and compensation appeals. Too often, they are left to navigate that alone. The charter rightly calls for guaranteed legal support to guide survivors through this ordeal. The sixth is guaranteed recognition. Recognition is more than a symbolic gesture. A recent report showed that 97% of survivors support the establishment of a national day of remembrance and tribute to survivors of terrorism. That would bring us in line with our international partners in France, Spain, Germany, Canada and the United States, which already observe such a day and recognise its importance. Other nations have even created national honours to mark the sacrifice of victims. Given that we have recently implemented initiatives such as the Elizabeth Emblem for first responders killed in the line of duty, I think the UK could consider following suit. The seventh is guaranteed memorialisation. This calls for a commitment to support a permanent national memorial for all British victims of terrorism here and overseas. Survivors and bereaved families deserve a place where their loss and resilience can be honoured publicly and permanently and for the wider public to become better educated on the threat of terrorism. We have only to look at places like the US, where the 9/11 and Oklahoma City national memorial museums fulfil that exact purpose, ensuring that the next generation does not forget. Eighth, and finally, is guaranteed comprehensive, long-term support. Trauma does not fade on a timetable, as many of us who have experienced loss know too well. For those with additional or different needs, such as children or adolescents or those from underrepresented communities, long-term support must be guaranteed, resourced and proactively offered so that no one is left isolated after the initial months have passed and the conversation has moved on. Taking all that together, I believe that we must act now to put right years of neglect. I hope that today’s debate will mark the beginning of a renewed movement in this House towards the betterment of support for victims of terrorism—both those who are already dealing with the impacts and those who will be affected by future attacks. Survivors have waited years for action. They waited through repeated reviews into compensation, mental health and memorialisation, many of which remain unpublished or unimplemented. I am glad that, just months into his term, my hon. Friend the security Minister published in part a long-awaited Home Office review into support for victims of terrorism, especially as it sat on the previous security Minister’s desk for two years after it was completed. However, more clarity is required on the 63 recommendations identified; it is not enough to publish just two. As I move towards my conclusion, I note that in almost all the seats in the Public Gallery sits a victim of terrorism—I welcome you and thank you for being here. It should be clear to all of us that there is no Member of this House who does not have at least one constituent directly impacted by these issues. There is one clear and shared message from their many testimonies: the current system is not working. It does not recognise the unique nature of terrorism as the deliberate attempt to destroy public morale. It does not recognise that citizens have been targeted precisely because they are British. It does not recognise the dignity that survivors are entitled to as a matter of right. I call the Minister to respond to three key requests. The first is to publish in full all, or as many as possible, of the 63 recommendations identified in the Home Office review of support for victims and set out a road map for implementing them with an explanation of why the Government feel that any need to remain unpublished, for instance for security reasons. The second is to update us on the Government’s statutory consultation on the establishment of a national day for victims of terrorism, which concluded last month, and provide a timeline for when it will finally be implemented. The third is to share his understanding of how long it will take to set up the survivors hub that the Government have promised to implement and how long it will be before its services are up and running and available to victims. I am sure the sense of urgency will be not lost on the Minister, for another attack could happen at any time. We must be clear that this is about not charity or pity, but justice: justice for those who, through no fault of their own, became participants on the frontline of a battle to protect our democracy and way of life. This debate is about more than policy; it is about who we are as a country. When terrorism strikes, it strikes at our shared values and our shared humanity. In standing by the survivors, we reaffirm our common purpose. If we fail to act, we are complicit in a further betrayal, and we will have allowed those who set out to divide and terrorise us to succeed by abandoning the very people that they harmed. Let us commit today that no British victim of terrorism will ever again be left to feel that their country has abandoned them. Let us be the Parliament that finally acts to improve support for victims of terrorism—that proves to every survivor of terrorism that this country stands strong and unbowed in the face of terror.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Victims of Terrorism: State Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his response and every colleague present for their brilliant contributions to the debate. I was just reflecting on how many Members present have been personally touched by incidents of terror. For so many of us, it is removed by just one or two persons. This is a personal matter for so many Members of this House, and it was enormously reassuring to hear the cross-party and consensual nature of the debate—the recognition that the subject is something I think we all feel a great imperative to address. I hope that our guests in the Gallery will feel reassured that this is a Parliament that, across the Benches, is absolutely committed to delivering true change in this area. Through the all-party group, which we formed recently and of which colleagues present are members, we have an opportunity to support the Minister in all the work being done to deliver on those commitments now and in the coming years. I thank everyone, and you, Mrs Harris. I hope that the debate has given everyone a great sense of reassurance. Question put and agreed to . Resolved , That this House has considered state support for victims of terrorism.

• 3 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Every day in my constituency, we are faced with poorly organised and overrunning street works clogging up our roads. A lane rental scheme through which companies pay for the time the works take would reduce such delays on our busiest roads. However, I remain frustrated that, so far, Lancashire county council has refused to introduce one. I welcomed the announcement last year by the Secretary of State for Transport that the authority for lane rental schemes would be devolved to regional mayors. However, it was notably absent from the English Devolution White Paper, so I am concerned that it may fall by the wayside. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on this important subject?

• 19 Jun 2025 · Access to Nature: Young People · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking to improve young people’s access to nature for outdoor activities.