Caroline Dinenage MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I intend to speak only briefly. We have to be really honest about where we are, and the current situation under the legal status quo is not working. It is failing terminally ill people who want choice, compassion and control at the end of their lives. Right now, those with the means are travelling abroad to die, often alone, away from their loved ones, without medical support, and when they can physically make it rather than at a time of their choosing. Those without the means face suffering they do not want, or try to take matters into their own hands here in the UK unsafely and illegally. It is not humane, it is not fair and it is not sustainable. I spent two years as a Minister in the Department of Health, with palliative care and end-of-life care as part of my portfolio, so this matter came across my desk on a regular basis. I have had a lot of time to think about it. It is not easy to find an answer and a solution, but we owe it to people to try to do that. That is why I support the Bill: it brings the issue out of the shadows and into a framework of regulation with safety and dignity.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I certainly will read that report. The hon. Member makes an excellent point. Palliative care is really important and needs to be improved. In many cases it makes such a difference, but it is not the solution for everybody. There are the most heartbreaking cases—I have met people in these situations in my constituency—where that form of palliative care would not have made the difference. That is why I support the Bill, and that begins with new clause 13.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am addressing new clause 13, which provides the strict regulation of life-ending substances and self-administering devices. That means there will be transparency about what substances are used and how they are stored, prescribed and delivered. We owe it to patients, clinicians and the public to ensure that every part of the process is governed by clinical standards and ethical safeguards. For those physically unable to swallow or self-ingest, the new clause ensures that devices to support self-administration can be safely used. Without that, we risk creating a system that excludes some of the very people it is meant to support. While we must regulate the system properly, we must also reject amendments that would undermine or stall the Bill’s delivery. Amendment 19 proposes adding suicide prevention, the Mental Health Act and deprivation of liberty safeguards to the code of practice. As the Minister who put much of that legislation through, those are really important topics for me, but this is not the legislation to address them. Let us keep the code focused on the Bill’s core function of ensuring a safe, consistent and compassionate assisted dying process. Amendment 20 would allow non-adherence to the code to be used in civil or criminal proceedings. That is not appropriate. Guidance is meant to help professionals navigate difficult decisions, not become a legal trap. If clinicians act negligently, existing law already applies. We should not be creating new liabilities for those acting in good faith in very difficult conditions. I also oppose amendments 97 and 27, which would require the MHRA to license drugs specifically for assisted dying and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to recommend them. That would make the Bill unworkable.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am not entirely sure that I agree with that. However, I want to talk about the MHRA, which is just not set up to license drugs for ending life. Clinical trials to support such a licence and MHRA requirement would be impossible. However, the substances likely to be used are already tried and tested in other jurisdictions and are MHRA approved for other purposes. New clause 13 already provides us with the strict regulation that we need, without putting prohibitive hurdles along the path to a compassionate and painless death. Amendment 42 would remove the backstop date for implementation, giving the Government indefinite discretion over when or whether to put this law into effect. That cannot be right. If Parliament passes the Bill, there must be a clear and reasonable timeframe for implementation. The four-year backstop already gives Government more than enough time to get this right. Removing it simply invites delay. This is a moment to show that we can be both compassionate and competent, and that we can bring an end to the quiet suffering caused by an unjust status quo and replace it with a system that is safe, fair and accountable. Let us support new clause 13, let us reject amendments that would add red tape or stall the Bill’s progress, and let us show dying people that we are ready to treat them with the dignity and trust that they deserve.

• 21 May 2025 · Business and the Economy · Hansard source

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  May I just take my hon. Friend back to what he was saying a moment ago about opportunities for young people? I recently met hair and beauty salons in my constituency. As he knows, they have historically been the most amazing employers of apprentices and have given such wonderful chances to young people. I was worried to hear that the rate at which they are taking on apprentices is dropping off. By 2027, there will be no apprentices left in the sector. It is not just hair and beauty saying that; other sectors in my constituency, such as adult social care and early years education, are saying the same. Is he as worried as I am about the lack of opportunities for our younger generation?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  It is almost as if my right hon. Friend had read what is written next on my piece of paper. I was about to say that unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world, even our noblest ambitions have unintended consequences, and the Bill is not a silver bullet. There is already a thriving black market for tobacco in Gosport, and I am extremely concerned about the possibility that prohibition will exacerbate the problem. I am keen to hear from the Minister what action she plans to take, alongside the phased prohibition, to provide proper resources for the police forces in Hampshire and the rest of the country to ensure that the law is upheld, and what plan she has to take on the criminals who are already profiting, and who will only profit more as the age at which a person can legally buy tobacco rises. Even without the Bill, smoking rates are falling across the UK as a result of a number of policy interventions, including education, smoking support and awareness campaigns. I recently visited a company in Gosport that provides innovative smoking cessation support. It is a vaping company, but it has a partnership with Mid and South Essex NHS foundation trust, which signposts smokers to its stores, where they are given continuing support to further enhance their shift away from tobacco. Hampshire county council has a similar Smokefree Hampshire scheme, which it says contributes to 500 quits per year. Interventions such as these have proven to be successful, so has the Minister weighed up their merits against the possible implications of the Bill?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  Like the Secretary of State, I was elected in 2010, and I need to tell her that our recollections differ. When I came into this role, after 13 years of Labour government, 7.5% of young people in the Gosport constituency were not in education, employment or training. That number was down to 3% last year. Since Labour has taken office, 83,000 more people across this country of working age are now unemployed. Businesses in the sectors that take on so many young people across our constituencies, from adult social care to childcare to hair and beauty, are telling me that they are not taking on more staff as a result of her Chancellor’s changes to national insurance contributions. Surely the two are mutually incompatible.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report · Hansard source

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  The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report says what many WASPI women across my constituency have been saying for years, which is that between 2005 and 2007 the DWP and the last Labour Government let them down. I am therefore grateful to the Secretary of State for her apology, but that will come as cold comfort to those who are in this situation in the face of no financial compensation. If I am right in what I hear, she says mitigation is too complicated and that it is someone else’s fault. That will be no comfort to those impacted. What conversations does the Secretary of State plan to have with the WASPI women to see what more support can be put in place for those most impacted?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  My constituent Suzanne is going to miss out on her winter fuel allowance this winter because she is just £10 above the pension credit threshold. As well as losing out on that vital money to keep her house warm, she does not get the £150 warm home discount, the £169 free TV licence or free NHS prescriptions. For the sake of a tenner, is this fair?

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State will know that cancer is the biggest cause of death by illness for children under 14 in the UK, and that this is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. He will not know that it is also the third anniversary of the death of my constituent Sophie Fairall, who was 10 years old. With Sophie’s mum Charlotte, I have been campaigning for the past three years for the children and young people cancer taskforce to be set up. The taskforce was set up at the beginning of this year with the stated aim of meaningfully changing detection, treatment and care for children with cancer. I have listened carefully to the Secretary of State and have heard him passionately set out that he wants to focus on prevention and early intervention, yet this month we learned that he is pausing the taskforce. Parents of children with cancer are deeply disturbed by that announcement, as am I. Can the Secretary of State set out why it was made?

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Betts, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing the debate. I suppose that the best place to start, in the time permitted to me, is the beginning. For a child who needs targeted, tailored support, early identification can make a world of difference, because the impact of failing to spot a child with additional needs can be severe and far-reaching. Early intervention means life-altering adaptations in the way teachers interact and communicate with them and in the way they are supported, reducing the need for EHCPs and one-to-one support and improving academic outcomes, life chances, wellbeing and happiness, which are obviously crucial. Spotting children with SEND—particularly autistic children and especially autistic girls—can be difficult, and there is insufficient training at the moment to enable teachers to do that. There are around 200,000 autistic children in England. The majority are in mainstream education, but the National Autistic Society reports that, staggeringly, only a quarter feel happy at school. That is why some parents take the drastic step of paying for private education that they can ill afford, because they need education that addresses their child’s needs. The effect on a neurodivergent child of being in the wrong education setting can be devastating. In March, The Guardian reported that nearly 20,000 autistic children are persistently absent from school, with Ambitious about Autism reporting that four in five of them experience mental health issues. I have a suggestion for the Minister. According to the National Autistic Society, three quarters of parents said that their child’s school place did not meet their needs. Teachers do a remarkable job, but they need to be equipped with the very best tools and advice to give their pupils the very best possible chance of learning in a happy, safe, well cared-for environment. Currently, only one in seven schoolteachers have received any form of autism training, and 70% of children say school would be better if teachers understood them. There are not enough SEND school places, but as a Health and Social Care Minister I started work on introducing the Oliver McGowan mandatory training for health and care staff, which the Minister knows about. It equips health and care professionals with the skills, knowledge and understanding of autistic people and those with learning disabilities. It is delivered by autistic people and people with learning disabilities—experts by experience who get paid to do it. It is really effective, with 84% of participants saying they feel more confident in their work. Today, it was shortlisted for an NHS parliamentary award. Will the Minister meet Paula McGowan and look at whether this could assist teachers? Using that training in an educational setting would improve the way in which teaching professionals can support autistic children and those with learning disabilities.