Caroline Dinenage MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the fantastic work that he did as shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and he is absolutely right. We really need the full response to the Fuller report in order to implement not only changes to mortuaries, but all the other amendments that it recommended. New clause 41 would place a duty on the Human Tissue Authority to establish and maintain a register of every business brought within its oversight, with how that register operates set by regulation, so that for the first time a grieving family could check, before they hand over the body of a loved one, whether the business in front of them is properly overseen. I recognise that the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) has tabled new clause 42 on a new, bespoke freestanding regulator. Both new clauses would fix the same issue, and either will do. The key thing is that this is a moment for the Government to seize, not resist. Ministers have already said that, in principle, they agree with what new clause 41 would require of them. Every trade body agrees. Every family who has been failed agrees. Every Member from across the House who signed our letter agrees. It feels like the Government agree, so I ask the Minister to tell the House exactly when a statutory scheme will be brought forward by the Department of Health and Social Care, and to set out the timetable for implementation. None of us is comfortable dwelling on our own mortality, which is exactly why the funeral sector has gone on for so long without proper scrutiny. It is a truism—we hear it all the time—that funerals are for the living; they are for families to say goodbye to their loved ones with dignity. They should be able to grieve without the added horror of questioning whether the body they buried was the right one, or whether the ashes they scattered belonged to the right person. Robert Bush’s sentencing should be the last time that this House has to debate such a gruesome case, but it will not be unless the Government push ahead to close this regulatory black hole.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I will speak about new clause 41, which stands in my name. We put enormous, unquestioning trust in those who care for the bodies of our loved ones when they die. However, in this Chamber six months ago, I told a former Health Minister, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), about Elkin and Bell, the Gosport funeral directors who left 46 bodies decaying in an unrefrigerated room. One of them, an elderly gentleman whose family had already paid for his cremation, was left decomposing for 36 days. I said then that the funeral sector was nothing better than a lawless wild west with no mandatory qualifications to practise, no accreditation for professionals, no licensing of businesses, no inspection of premises, and no law to fall back on when things go wrong. It was only persistence and ingenuity on the part of Hampshire constabulary that saw Elkin and Bell brought to justice. The Minister at the time told me that a decision on regulation would come in the Government’s full answer to the Fuller inquiry, and we are still awaiting. Since then, matters have worsened. In July, Robert Bush, a funeral director in Hull, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 67 charges for bodies left decomposing in squalor. Forty-six grieving families had been reunited with the wrong ashes, but the real horror is that these will not be isolated cases. Under the law as it stands today, almost anyone can set themselves up as a funeral director.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I genuinely could not agree more. This is not at attack on the profession. The vast majority of funeral directors do their job with extraordinary skill, great care and huge professional integrity. It is precisely because of the trust that grieving families place in them every single day that we cannot allow a rogue minority to drag the reputation of the whole sector through the mud. In a written statement on 1 September, the Government said they intended that proposals for regulation would be forthcoming, but they set out no timetable, and detailed plans were promised only “in due course”. Families have already waited years and cannot be expected to wait indefinitely. New clause 41 would require the Secretary of State, within six months of the Bill passing, to extend the remit of the Human Tissue Authority beyond hospital mortuaries, which it currently covers, to funeral directors, private mortuaries, direct cremation services and any other organisation that transports or holds the bodies of the deceased.

• 6 Jul 2026 · Operation Valour · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister for Veterans and People to his new role. He will be interested to know that my Gosport constituency has the highest proportion of veterans in the country. A lot of them are saying that Operation Valour has good intentions when it comes to improving visibility and triaging access to care services, but it does not invest in services like housing and healthcare. The new Conservative administration that has just taken over Gosport borough council has inherited a 541-strong waiting list for council houses, and the NHS waiting list for treatment has gone up by 17,000 across Hampshire, this year alone. What will stop Op Valour being more than just window-dressing? How will it invest in the services that our veterans rely on?