Andy McDonald MP: speeches

Speeches

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on spinal cord injury to speak to amendments 103 and 104, new clause 160 and amendment 105 in my name. I thank the Minister for meeting me during the passage of the Bill and for her subsequent letter. I also thank the Spinal Injuries Association for its support for the APPG and, crucially, for people living with spinal cord injury. These amendments are not about preventing reform; they are about ensuring that when responsibility for highly specialised services changes, patients continue to receive safe, equitable and nationally consistent care. Spinal cord injury is a relatively low volume but complex lifelong condition requiring specialist expertise, rehabilitation and long-term follow-up. National commissioning exists to prevent fragmented services and postcode variation. If commissioning moves to integrated care boards, we need confidence that specialist workforce capacity, national standards and the sustainability of specialist centres will be protected. I therefore ask the Minister to clarify how those safeguards will work in practice, particularly around workforce, rehabilitation and geographical variation. I also seek clarity on whether spinal cord injury services will transfer to ICBs and what criteria will determine that decision. Amendment 104 and new clause 160 would provide national assurance and parliamentary accountability for outcomes, access, workforce and geographical variation. Amendment 105 addresses the single patient record. Specialist charities provide vital practical and peer support after life-changing injury, even where they are not part of the clinical care. That is why this appeal is so resonant. If we can engage with those providers at that early stage, the outcomes will undoubtedly be improved. The amendment would allow referral, with patient consent, to approved condition-specific organisations sharing only necessary information. I will not press these amendments to a vote today. I hope that the Minister will consider further safeguards and clarification during the Lords stages of the Bill. The care and access to support for patients dependent on specialist services should not depend on where those patients live.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a true privilege to have been present for this debate, and to have heard some of the most incredible contributions that I have ever heard in this place. I will be mercifully brief. I recognise that it is to the Prime Minister’s considerable credit that he has fulfilled his manifesto commitment and got the Bill to this point within a year of his remarks at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last year. I also put on record my recognition of my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) for his persistent work on this subject for many years. Principally, however, it is the families of Hillsborough victims, the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, Pete Weatherby KC, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) and many others who have to be recognised for not letting the matter rest, and for their tireless determination to get us to where we are today. We must not forget the Manchester Arena victims, the Grenfell families, the Chinook families, the contaminated blood families, the British nuclear test veterans, and all those who have been part of this campaign. The duty of candour on the NHS did not deliver for the families of my constituents Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif and Emily Moore, and many others who died in the scandal at the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust. I have welcomed confirmation of a public inquiry, and the information that applications have been received to chair it, but families need that inquiry to be up and running. I hope that the Health Secretary can progress that urgently this summer. We are being asked to support dozens of Government amendments today that were tabled with little notice, and without our having been able to scrutinise them in detail, but I am led by the families to support those amendments. I recognise the calls for oversight and monitoring mechanisms, such as those set out in new clause 5, tabled by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), and in new clause 1, by my old friend and doughty campaigner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). Those measures would assure us that the new Government amendments will function effectively and, among other things, allow us to hold to account police officers and members of the armed forces and the security services, as we are led to believe. I sense that many Members across this House would like to hear more from our Front Benchers about commitments made to ensuring oversight and monitoring. Perhaps the Minister can address that when she responds to the debate. The expectation of honesty and transparency is not, and never can be, a threat to national security. Will the Minister set out how the application of the duty of candour and the prevention of carve-outs will be applied to the work of the Northern Ireland Legacy Commission, which is being established by the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill? Perhaps the Minister can confirm that the Government will table amendments to that Bill, or can otherwise provide guarantees that the measures in the Bill cover the families who have suffered so much in Northern Ireland. The common characteristics of these appalling human tragedies are the most unimaginable trauma, pain and grief, and the demands are the same. They are for truth, justice and accountability, and today provides the means to deliver on those demands. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member from Liverpool, West Derby: if anything tells us why we come to this place to change the country for the better, surely it is what we are doing today, and I very much welcome this landmark legislation.