Caroline Johnson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Puberty Suppressants Trial · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the pathways puberty blockers trial.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Puberty Suppressants Trial · Hansard source

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  I must first declare my interest as a consultant paediatrician who has looked after children with gender dysphoria in the past and is likely to do so in the future. We must remember that we are talking about vulnerable children. The first and most obvious question is: why? Why have this Government chosen to fund experiments with puberty blockers on physically healthy children? Despite saying he was comfortable with this trial in a briefing to MPs, the Secretary of State told the media on Friday and the Select Committee this morning that he is in fact uncomfortable with it. Why is it even being considered before the data linkage study is complete? Some 9,000 children went through the Tavistock clinic, and many of them came out regretting being encouraged to irreversibly damage their bodies. We should look carefully at those outcomes before we make the same mistakes. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to secure the data from the Tavistock and have it analysed? What steps is he taking to hold to account those obstructing access to data linkage information? What assessment has he made of the motivations of those obstructing that data, when this is a study to safeguard children? And what of the trial itself? We know that 226 children will go through this trial. Is that a limit or a target? Those children will be randomised to get puberty blockers now or in a year’s time, and all will be analysed at two years. They will still be children. They might be only 11 years old. How can the results demonstrate a meaningful outcome? The control group is not properly randomised, but chosen from the Horizon intensive trial group. Is the Secretary of State concerned that this will introduce bias? The criteria for getting puberty blockers in this trial require just one parent to consent and the clinician to think that it will benefit the child, but on what basis will the clinician decide? The Cass review said that the vast majority of children with gender dysphoria would recover, with only a few persisting with trans identities into adulthood. It is not possible to predict which those children will be, so does the Secretary of State accept that the vast majority of children in this, his Streeting trial, who will be given drugs will be physically healthy children whose distress would get better without any puberty blockers, and that the vast majority of the children in this trial are therefore being unnecessarily experimented on with risky medications under his leadership?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) on securing this important debate. I declare an interest: I am an NHS consultant paediatrician and I have cared for those with gender dysphoria in the past, and am likely to do so in the future. As we discuss a fairly heated topic, we need to remember that there are people experiencing significant challenges, and they deserve the very best healthcare based on need and the best evidence. One challenge is that name and sex records are sometimes different from how people are referred to in a ward. The previous Conservative Government launched the Sullivan review, which found that a failure of NHS bodies to record biological sex meant that some people were not invited to sex-specific screening. It recommended that we should not combine questions on sex and gender, and that putting politics before patients threatens clinical care. When will the Government formally respond to the Sullivan report? When does the Minister expect to implement its important recommendations? How will the Government ensure that intimate care is provided by someone of the same biological sex where possible? I would also like to raise the issue of phalloplasty, which is a major surgery on healthy bodies, creating a penis. According to the NHS website, it causes urinary incontinence, loss of sexual function, and in 3% of cases, necrosis and loss of the penis. Is the Minister confident that the NHS is doing the right thing with this surgery? I want to move on to talk about children with trans identity. We have been talking about the puberty blockers trial. Why is that trial occurring? Drugs are, unusually, being given to children with physically healthy bodies. Despite telling Members of this House that he was comfortable with the trial, the Secretary of State said on Friday to the media that he was “uncomfortable”. Why is it being considered before the completion of the data linkage study recommended in the Cass report? Some 9,000 children went through the Tavistock gender identity and development services. Many regretted irreversible damage to their bodies. Why have the Government chosen to experiment on a new batch of children before the data linkage study recommended by the Cass report is complete? What steps is the Minister taking to secure that data? What steps is she taking to hold to account the people who are obstructing the data linkage study? What assessment has she made of the motivation of those obstructing a study that, at its heart, is designed to protect children? What of the trial itself? Some 226 children will receive puberty blockers—is that a limit? Will there be no more by law? They will be randomised into treatment now or treatment after 12 months, and analysed after just two years. When someone receives the drug for only a year, they will still be a child. What meaningful results can be obtained over that period? The true control group of those not receiving the drugs is not randomised, but chosen or matched from a different trial—the Horizon Intensive trial. Is the Minister concerned that that may introduce a bias? The criteria for getting puberty blockers under the trial require that one parent consents, not necessarily both—one might disagree—and the clinician must think it will benefit the child, but on what specific criteria will the clinician make that decision? Is the Minister concerned to ensure that ideology does not affect judgment? The Cass review said that the majority of children with gender dysphoria will recover from their distress without any medication, and that it is not currently possible to predict which children they would be. Does the Minister accept that the vast majority of children in this, the Streeting trial, are physically healthy children whose distress would get better without puberty blockers, and that this Labour Government are choosing to give potentially dangerous drugs to children, most of whom will not need them?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) on securing a debate on a subject that I know is important to him, to many of our constituents and to the whole House. The brain is so important. It is responsible for moving and thinking, homeostasis, consciousness, our senses and how we interpret the world—essentially, it makes us the people that we are. Acquired brain injuries are therefore an important issue. As other hon. Members have said, acquired brain injuries are the leading cause of death and disability in those aged between one and 40. Every 90 seconds, someone somewhere in this country—over 330,000 people per year—is admitted to hospital with acquired brain injury. They can have difficulties with walking, with talking, with moving, with thinking skills, with tiredness and fatigue, and with changes in personality. People can have one large brain injury with devastating effects, but they can also have multiple, small, almost unnoticed brain injuries, the cumulative effect of which can be quite severe, and the long-term effects of which can lead to dementia. The previous Government began work on an acquired brain injury plan and made a public call for evidence in 2022. Unfortunately, that work was interrupted somewhat by the general election. It has been picked up by the current Government, who say they will publish such a plan; it is nearly the end of the year, and I hope they are not going to break that promise, and add to the list of the many other plans that they have delayed. Will the Minister tell us when the plan is going to be published? When it is published, will it include the evidence given in response to the 2022 public call for evidence by so many stakeholders, charities and other relevant organisations? What should that plan contain? I will look at it from the perspective of this Government, who are looking for the three shifts in healthcare. First, they want to move toward prevention. It seems sensible to prevent brain injury in the first place, if we can, and we know some things that we can do. When I was a teenager, horse-riding and skiing were usually done without helmets; that would be very unusual now. We have not been so successful with cycling: people know that wearing a helmet is wise, to prevent brain injury, but if we looked outside into Parliament Square, we would see lots of cyclists, many of whom are not wearing a helmet that could protect them from brain injury. What are the Government doing to make people more aware of ways that they can protect themselves from brain injury? Concussion management guidance for those taking part in elite, amateur and school sport is important, as others have said today. Stroke is a form of acquired brain injury and I spoke to representatives of the Stroke Association earlier this term. They talked about two things that can help to prevent or limit brain injury from stroke: first, blood pressure checks and identifying previously undiagnosed hypertension, and secondly, mechanical thrombectomy, which limits the injury that occurs. The previous Government rolled out blood pressure checks to thousands of pharmacies across the country. Will the Minister update us on what further steps have been taken to identify undiagnosed hypertension since she came into office? The previous Government also began to roll out mechanical thrombectomy. I understand that this Government intend to ensure that a universal service for that technique is available by Easter next year. Essentially, mechanical thrombectomy is when an interventional neuroradiologist takes a wire into the vessels, floats it up into the brain and mechanically removes a clot. It is particularly helpful for people who have had a large stroke where the damage is not yet complete in the brain. Damage can be limited significantly by the use of that very clever procedure. Earlier this week, I was kindly invited to visit the mechanical thrombectomy service in Romford and see the work done there. I was told about the delay that can occur due to inter-hospital transfer. The Minister, in response to written parliamentary questions, has talked about what constitutes a universal service: it is being able to access a service within four hours. One limit to that ability, as I understand it, is that when someone who has had a stroke attends a hospital that does not offer a mechanical thrombectomy service, the time it takes to transfer them to a hospital that does, after acceptance for the process, affects people’s ability to have that lifesaving in some cases, and certainly disability-saving, treatment. When I was a junior doctor, I was lucky enough to care for people taking part in the total body hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy trial—the TOBY trial. Essentially, we took babies who had suffered a brain injury around the time of birth and cooled their whole body to reduce the brain injury that they suffered. That was very effective, and became standard practice. What is the Minister doing to help people who want to do research into other ways of reducing brain injury? How is she helping with research, and what is she doing to sponsor it? What work is the Minister doing with the social care teams at the Department for Education? One of the sad things that I have seen during my time as a consultant paediatrician is children with inflicted injury—particularly babies. In many cases their injuries should have been preventable because those families were known to social care before the injury occurred. What is being done to protect those extremely vulnerable children? There are other causes of acquired brain injury too. Could the Minister talk about what she thinks the most important causes are and what she and the Government are doing to reduce their incidence? The other shift that the Government want is from hospital into the community. I was lucky to meet Headway Lincolnshire this week, which told me that there were only 12 in-patient beds available for acute brain injury rehab across Lincolnshire. That is not sufficient. When the charity provides counselling services, it has to do so online from outside the county because there is no one available in the county to provide them. What is the Minister doing to ensure that there is good neuro-rehab across the country, including in rural areas? Also, what is the Minister doing to make sure that rehab is long term? Neuro-recovery takes a long time. It is not just a case of a couple of appointments on leaving hospital; it needs to be over a more sustained period. For people suffering complex injury, there are many professionals involved. Some people will have a physio, an occupational therapist, a speech and language therapist, nurses, doctors, carers and many others. NICE’s new neuro-rehab guidelines, published in October, talk about how it is difficult for patients to negotiate that, and they recommend a single point of contact. Does the Minister plan to ensure that that NICE recommendation is delivered? If so, how and when? I would like to pay particular tribute to a young lady I met recently who is one of my constituents. She experienced a traumatic brain injury as a child, but with her determination, great family and community support and rehab, she has made a good recovery and is training as a nurse so that she can help others who suffer as she has. She is an incredibly impressive young woman. She highlighted to me the need for better rehab and school support. I urge the Minister to ensure that they are delivered. The final shift that the Minister has talked about is from analogue to digital. Digital offers us huge capacity in rehabilitation from acquired brain injury. I talked to a gentleman who had had a stroke and was admitted to a rehab unit where he got involved in Wii Fit—a Nintendo game from some time ago. He was using it along with another person who was recovering from a stroke at the same time, and they became very competitive at these balance and movement games. That really helped them to recover. What is being done to make rehab more fun or competitive? Some of the exercises that people are asked to do can be quite difficult. How can we make them more enjoyable? There are apps available to improve communication, memory and fine motor skills, and virtual reality can help with cognitive rehab. How is the Minister ensuring that those are available to all who would benefit from them? In summary, we need a detailed plan looking at prevention, acute treatment and rehabilitation. I hope it will not be delayed in the same way as all the other Government plans seem to be. I also hope that it will contain a delivery chapter that sets out not just what the Government want to do, but how they want to do it and when they want to do it by. Will the Minister confirm whether the relevant workforce will be included in the plan, or whether we will have to wait for the long-delayed workforce plan? Neuro-rehabilitation is really difficult, but many people show huge courage and determination in their work to rehabilitate. We need to support them in every way that we can.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  I understand what the Minister is trying to say with his whataboutery, and his “Somebody else might have done it first,” but the point is that his Government are in government, and they are not delivering on their promises. The ministerial code already requires Ministers to be open and transparent, and to answer the questions, and they are not doing that. A tightened-up ministerial code will not be worth the paper it is written, given that the current one is not being adhered to.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Take the Department that has received the most questions this parliamentary Session, the Department of Health and Social Care. It has received 15,000 questions since 4 July 2024, which is 29 questions per day. It has five Ministers and a whole army of civil servants to answer those questions.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister understand that £130,000 for a part-time job is a damn sight more than most of my constituents—in fact, almost all of my constituents—are getting, and that if the Prime Minister has appointed somebody or signed off on someone’s appointment, having received money from the person he is appointing, the public will want to know how much that person and their businesses may have given him?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Because you are not listening.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  I hope I speak for everyone in the House when I say that it is a special privilege to be elected to represent our constituents. The British people put their trust in each and every one of us to be their voice in this place. Our nation prides itself on a strong democracy, and the role of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition is critical to that. I remind hon. Members on the Government Benches that the relationship between Opposition and Government is symbiotic: the Opposition are here not merely to be a critic, but to subject a Government to scrutiny, which is a vital safeguard of public trust. Amplifying the voices of the British people, asking the questions that they want to see answered and offering an alternative vision for the United Kingdom are essential roles of an Opposition in a democracy. Government opaqueness is not conducive to such accountability. The Prime Minister seems to agree. He said he would deliver “a different way of working. One of openness, of collaboration and transparency in everything we do”. However, Ministers have shown a complete disregard for Parliament, the ministerial code and the Nolan principles by refusing to submit themselves to scrutiny and by withholding information from Parliament without good reason. There are a number of levers put in our hands to help with scrutiny: written questions, oral questions, urgent questions and debates on the Floor of the House, including Adjournment debates such as this one. One further lever that Members can use to hold the Government to account and ensure transparency is writing letters directly to Ministers. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that the Chancellor has had a busy week, but when I and my right hon. Friends wrote to her over 12 months ago, after last year’s Budget, to express our concerns about the rise in national insurance and how it would affect the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire air ambulance, we did so out of a deep concern for what the policy would mean for those charities, which deliver crucial, lifesaving care and that support our NHS every day. Despite my office chasing that correspondence, and despite our raising it in the House repeatedly and raising it with members of the Procedure Committee, we have had no reply in over 12 months. I raised the matter as a point of order earlier this week, and it has now been acknowledged that the Chancellor has the letter and excuses for the lack of response have been made, but we have still not received a reply. But, after the Budget yesterday, I guess the answer to whether the Government will help air ambulances is no. Madam Deputy Speaker, you might be thinking that this is one isolated error, but unfortunately that is not the case. A constituent of mine who has 15 years’ experience as a church warden in a village contacted me to outline the huge difference that a scheme would have on efforts to fund urgent repairs, and how removing it would harm this vital community asset. I sent my constituent’s correspondence to the Chancellor and asked for her comments on the concerns expressed. On 21 January I was informed that my correspondence had been transferred to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, yet despite chasing I received no response whatsoever. It is 323 days since I wrote to the Chancellor and 310 days since it was passed to the Culture Secretary—no response. On 23 September 2024 I wrote to the then Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology regarding my constituent’s concerns about broadband speed in his village. On 4 December 2024—relatively quickly for this Government—I received a response, but my constituent saw potential errors in the response, so I wrote back to the Minister on 23 April 2025 to request that he look into these important matters. Again, despite chasing, I received no response until 20 November 2025, 211 days after that April letter, to confirm that the Department “aim to respond within 20 working days”. You could not make it up. It does not stop there. I wrote to the Department for Business and Trade on 6 June about the UK bioethanol industry and received no response. I sent letters to the Department for Work and Pensions in July and August about my constituent’s dissatisfactory experience with and concerns about the Child Maintenance Service and received no response. I wrote to the Minister for Water and Flooding, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), on half of a parish council in my constituency that wished to invite the Minister to a meeting on 22 October. Now, I understand the pressures on a Minister’s diary, but I do not understand how we have reached 27 November and the Minister has not yet been courteous enough to respond. These instances are not anomalies; taking an inordinate amount of time to respond to Members has become the Government norm. Most disappointing, however, is the fact that the responses received, despite taking so long, are too often completely unrelated to the matters raised and questions asked. On 11 June I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about the statutory scheme for rebate pricing for drug manufacturers to highlight serious concerns raised with me about potential impacts on a local business. I asked for clarity on three matters in three perfectly clear questions, and 156 days later I received a response from a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, although none of the questions I asked were answered or addressed in any proper way. Not only did I wait 156 days to receive a response; I waited 156 days to receive a response that did not answer my questions. These examples clearly demonstrate that the service this Government and Ministers are providing to MPs, and therefore to our constituents, is simply not good enough. Correspondence is not being lost in the system; it is wilfully neglected. When responses do arrive, they should be accurate. When I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at oral questions why he had not delivered on his commitment to deliver the RSV vaccine to the over-80s this winter, he told me, “We have”, when, in fact, the Government had not, with the actual expansion not happening for winter 2025. I then raised a point of order, followed by a named day question, to which a Minister responded by redefining “delivered” to mean accepting the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation—stretching credulity—all while admitting: “The RSV programme could not be expanded ahead of this winter.” This linguistic gymnastics is Kafkaesque. What other options are available to us? I understand the pressures that Departments face, but there are many Ministers to answer these questions, not to mention an army of civil servants. I again refer to the ministerial code, which clearly states: “Ministers should, where possible, provide full and timely responses to written parliamentary questions, ministerial correspondence and select committee reports.” With that in mind, earlier this month I ended up submitting 16 written parliamentary questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care just to ask when he planned to respond to 16 of my named day questions, which should have been answered in three sitting days but were all overdue—in some cases by up to two weeks. In what can only be described as a farcical situation, I submitted a written question asking when the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care planned to respond to a written question, which itself asked when the Secretary of State planned to respond to another written question, which was then finally responded to. It is with regret that I must inform hon. Members that I have 11 further written parliamentary questions that remain unanswered and overdue. The oldest was due for an answer by 14 October, which I have still not received. I lament that the Nolan principles of openness and accountability have sunk to such depths under this Government that I am required to submit so many follow-up questions, but it was not always like this. Some 92% of ordinary written questions and 88% of named day questions were replied to on time in the 2023-24 Session under the Conservatives. Another lever open to us is the urgent question, yet that is just another question to which the Government do not respond with answers. The most recent and most glaring example of the Government failing to uphold their obligations to be transparent and accountable to Parliament and the public is the appointment of David Kogan as chair of the Independent Football Regulator. As the ministerial code makes clear, Ministers are responsible for ensuring that no conflict arises between their public duties and private interests. As the Commissioner for Public Appointments has made clear, the Culture Secretary breached the appointments code by not declaring her conflict of interest before signing off on Kogan as the Government’s preferred candidate, having received undeclared donations from Kogan for her leadership campaign in 2020. Despite that, the Prime Minister still felt it was appropriate to also sign off on Kogan’s appointment and to clear the Culture Secretary of any wrongdoing. It is clear that the Prime Minister was in no position to do so, having also received donations from Kogan for his leadership campaign—the very same conflict of interest as the Culture Secretary—and supposedly having recused himself from any involvement in the appointment process. When somebody is given a part-time job for £130,000 a year, and that person is giving money to the person appointing him, it is clearly in the public interest to know how much money that person has given the person appointing him—the Prime Minister or other Ministers. Despite there being an urgent question in the House on this, the Prime Minister has still not declared how much money Mr Kogan or his businesses gave. The Prime Minister says that rule makers cannot be rule breakers, so why are Ministers refusing to confirm that no current Minister has a criminal conviction? Surely the public have a right to know. How can we get around the Government’s obfuscation? It is shameful that in order to get answers to our questions, we must resort to submitting numerous freedom of information requests to public bodies to get the details on the issues we are concerned about because written questions have not been answered. I will give an example. After the strategic defence review in 2025, I submitted a written parliamentary question to the Secretary of State for Defence to ask which industry bodies, defence industry companies, media organisations and other non-government bodies or people were given access to the review ahead of its publication, and at what times. Because they did not answer the question, I submitted an FOI request. I did not receive a timely response to that. I therefore had to go back to where I started and submitted a written question on 1 September, asking when the Department planned to respond to the FOI request. I finally received a grossly belated response on 16 September—yet it was dated 9 September—from the Secretary of State. That reply was incomplete and I have had to submit another FOI request to get the rest of the information. Is this not the kind of wasteful and inefficient use of time in Government Departments and the civil service that our constituents want rooting out? Why should Members need to submit an FOI request to get an answer to their written question and then submit a written question about that very FOI request in order to get the answer that the Department clearly had all along? I am sure that Ministers are very busy, so how is that a good use of their time, or indeed Members’ time? How does it reassure Members that the principles declared as important within the ministerial code are being taken seriously? It clearly does not. Ministers have developed a habit of announcing policy to the media instead of to this House in order to avoid scrutiny. I appreciate, Madam Deputy Speaker, your many attempts, and those of Mr Speaker and other Deputy Speakers, to stop this. I asked a named day question on 11 November about the maternity and neonatal taskforce, which the Secretary of State promised an update on in June. I asked who is on the taskforce and how many times it has met. I have still not received an answer, but fortunately I read the answer in the New Statesman on the weekend, because the relevant Minister in the Lords made an announcement at a public event with the answer, which is that the taskforce has not met but will do in January, and that the people on it have not been decided yet. Why are the Government announcing the answers to questions in public and to the media but not in the House? We all have a duty in this House to answer questions and address the issues that face our constituents. These are not isolated examples; these are my experiences as one MP among 650 in this House, and I know that this is happening to many colleagues. I can only image the scale of evasion of accountability across the House. On the steps of Downing Street, the Prime Minister promised to “restore service and respect to politics”. Yet when Ministers are not firefighting reports of tax avoidance or criminal convictions, they are tap dancing around parliamentary questions and feeding policy announcements out to favoured journalists, instead of announcing them to this House and the public first. Let me be clear: accountability is not a courtesy, and it is not optional. When Members ask questions and submit letters, we are doing so on behalf of our constituents. Ministers may regard swerving, stonewalling and spin as shrewd tactics, but they are not. It is an affront to this House and to the British people we represent. It is high time that this Government lived up to their own lofty rhetoric and started giving us answers. The public deserve a lot better.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Government Transparency and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Will he answer that point?

• 25 Nov 2025 · NHS Waiting Lists · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State does not seem entirely sure, so perhaps he can write to us with an answer—

• 25 Nov 2025 · NHS Waiting Lists · Hansard source

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  As someone who is on the waiting list myself, I do hope that the Secretary of State is correct. Waiting lists for procedures and operations requiring day care or overnight admission are both rising and higher than they were a year ago. Orthopaedic surgery waiting lists are up, yet this Government scrapped our major conditions strategy and say that they have no plans for a musculoskeletal conditions framework. Gynaecology surgery waiting lists are up, yet the Government scrapped and are now reviewing the women’s health strategy. Waits for procedures and operations in ophthalmology, general surgery, neurology and gastroenterology are going up too. When is the Secretary of State going to get a grip of the surgical waiting lists?

• 25 Nov 2025 · NHS Waiting Lists · Hansard source

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  I would first like to say I am sorry that the Minister for Public Health and Prevention is unwell and convey to her the best wishes of the Opposition. I would like the Secretary of State to consider a patient who has waited a year for a procedure and then, after three waiting list validation calls, finally sees the consultant to check that the procedure is still necessary. If the consultant agrees that it is, do the Government figures show that patient as waiting for a year or a much shorter period?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Ministerial Code · Hansard source

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  The Minister says that the Prime Minister is committed to transparency, so how much did Mr Kogan give to the Prime Minister’s leadership campaign?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  Over a year.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is now over one year since myself, the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), as well as my right hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Robert Jenrick), for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), my hon. Friends the Members for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies) and for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), and the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), wrote to the Chancellor to express our concerns about the rise in national insurance affecting the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire air ambulance. Shamefully, despite the matter being chased repeatedly by my office, by our raising it in the House repeatedly and by raising it with members of the Procedure Committee, we have still had no reply. The Government have shown huge disrespect for this House and for people right across Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. With the Budget on Wednesday, what can we do to get this sorted out?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Parkinson’s Disease · Hansard source

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  As I am a rural MP myself, the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I agree with him. The problem is with wider specialisms, too. According to the 2022 audit by Parkinson’s UK, just 40% of people with Parkinson’s had access to a speech and language therapist, 45% had access to an occupational therapist and 62% had access to a physiotherapist. I want to particularly highlight that to the Minister because there are no treatments that slow down the progression of Parkinson’s disease, but evidence published last year suggests that exercise might do, so physiotherapy—making sure that people are doing the right exercises to help them—is important. What plans does the Minister have to recruit, train and retain the NHS Parkinson’s health workforce? For the benefit of charities, hospitals and patients, will she shed any light on how her delayed long-term workforce plan, when it is published, might assist in that mission? As was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), Parkinson’s disease patients can live for many years, often with huge positivity. I was inspired to read of Neil Russell, a 65-year-old gentleman who ran from London to Barcelona—almost 1,000 miles—to raise money for Parkinson’s disease research. One in three of those living with Parkinson’s is of working age. It is crucial that they can get support, because many work as doctors, nurses, chief executives, scientists, journalists and in other professions. I was inspired by a meeting that I was privileged to have with Dr Acheson last week. He is not only working as an A&E consultant, after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s almost 10 years ago, but is leading work on a time-critical medicines project. We have already heard that medicines for Parkinson’s are time critical. If people with Parkinson’s do not get their medication within 30 minutes of the prescribed time, it can lead to them being unable to walk, talk or swallow. Research by Parkinson’s UK has found that 58% of people with Parkinson’s—a clear majority—do not get their medication on time every time when in hospital. That will not only cost hospitals £65.8 million in excess bed days and readmissions, but cost over 150 people their lives this year. That is inexcusable. Just half of NHS trusts provide staff with training for time-critical medication, and one in four trusts in England does not have policies allowing people with Parkinson’s to take their own medication in hospital. That leaves patients capable but unable to take their medication, and they suffer detriment as a result. I was pleased that last week—following repeated questions to the Minister, both in the Chamber and outside—that the Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), met me, Dr Simin Nikou from the RCEM, and Dr Acheson to talk about self-administration of medicines. I am pleased that the Minister was able to commit that the chief pharmaceutical officer will work with those individuals to ensure that there is a protocol for self-administered medicines in A&E for those who are capable of taking them, and to ensure that the protocols for time-critical medicines are enhanced. NHS England launched a three-year national quality improvement initiative on time-critical medications that is not yet complete. I worried that the Minister’s eagerness to merge NHS England and her own Department may cause such ongoing initiatives to be simply lost. I encourage the Minister to correct me if I am wrong but, from conversations with her ministerial colleague, I understand that NHS England’s three-year initiative on time-critical medicines will be completed. Research is important because, at the moment, treatment for Parkinson’s is symptom-relief treatment, not disease-modifying treatment. In fact, some of it is not symptom-relief; it is treatment to relieve side effects of the treatments that are providing symptom relief. Ramping up research is an important step towards finding better treatment, and hopefully chasing down a cure for Parkinson’s. Between 2019 and 2024, the last Conservative Government invested almost £80 million into research for Parkinson’s disease, on top of a £375 million investment over five years for research into neurodegenerative diseases. Will the Minister confirm whether that funding commitment will be renewed as part of her Government’s spending review? What assessment has the Minister made of companies pulling out of billions of pounds of life sciences investment in the UK? How does she think that will impact critical research into conditions such as Parkinson’s? Is she working with her colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to resolve matters for the health sector? Within the treatments that we have so far, Produodopa was approved in February 2024, and made available on the NHS, under the last Conservative Government, to around 900 people with Parkinson’s. As people with Parkinson’s often struggle with taking numerous tablets to manage fluctuating symptoms, delivering a continuous dose of medication 24 hours a day by a canula under the skin can be ideal to manage symptoms day and night. What assessment has the Minister made of the benefits of Produodopa so far? What steps is she taking to make sure that more people with Parkinson’s have access to that potentially life-changing treatment? More broadly, what is she doing to mitigate the supply issues for some Parkinson’s medications?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Parkinson’s Disease · Hansard source

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  The debate today is about the Parky charter. I am sure the Minister will answer that question in her speech—at least I hope she will. The Government established the Neuro Forum, which was designed to address the gaps in treatment and care for people affected by neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, but its achievements so far are unclear. Progress in this space demands clear action, not just empty roundtables, so will the Minister confirm how many times the Neuro Forum has met in the year since it was established, what budget and resources have been allocated to it, and what its successes have been so far? The Government want to shift towards technology. New, affordable technology is available: focused ultrasound can help with tremor; at the most invasive, there are deep brain stimulators. There is also very simple technology. I recently met the former MP Steve Double, who gave me a device that shakes to put on my wrist for a few minutes. Apparently, people find that it helps with dyskinesia, rigidity, walking problems and speech difficulties. What assessment has the Minister made of the benefits of technology as a treatment pathway for people living with Parkinson’s in the UK? What is she doing to facilitate research so that, when someone has a good idea that may benefit patients, it is brought to the fore as quickly as possible? I note the Minister’s response to a written question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking). Will she clarify whether NHS England’s neurology transformation programme will indeed be concluding at the end of this financial year? Will she reassure us that the conclusion of the programme, which includes Parkinson’s disease treatments, is not related to the Department’s abolition of NHS England? What will she replace it with? The linchpin of the e-petition is that it asks the Government to consider implementing the Parky charter, which encompasses faster diagnosis, better support, welfare support, access to multidisciplinary care and investment in research—all things that I and others call on the Minister to give answers to today. Given the Government’s decision to do away with the major conditions strategy, I am concerned that Parkinson’s disease will not get the research and workforce it requires. People can live with Parkinson’s for very many years. For the quality of life of the patients and their families, greater consistency is urgently required in the administration of time-critical medicines in hospitals. Parkinson’s is a condition that is time-critical by its neurodegenerative nature; the Minister’s actions must be equally urgent and time-critical.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Parkinson’s Disease · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for securing this debate and I thank the charities and organisations including Parkinson’s UK and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine for meeting me and sharing the insights into Parkinson’s that they have as patients and clinicians. In the UK, 166,000 people have Parkinson’s. It is a progressive neurological disorder that can start with a tremor or muscle stiffness, sleep problems or a whole range of symptoms, and end in complications such as swallowing difficulties, falls and bone fractures. Like all degenerative conditions, it impacts not only the individual but their family. It is vital that our NHS has the neurologists and therapists to care for people with Parkinson’s, because they depend on them for world-leading care. Unfortunately, this is an area in which we could do better. The UK was ranked 44th out of 45 European countries for the number of neurologists per head of population. The UK has only one neurologist per 100,000 patients, compared with one for every 25,000 patients in France and Germany, and one in five patients here has no access to a Parkinson’s disease nurse.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Budget: Press Briefings · Hansard source

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  There appears to have been a lot of speculation about this Budget, and it seems to have been the same measures that have been speculated on by a number of different news sources, which leads to suspicions of a leak. The Minister must surely recognise that there was a possibility of a leak, in which case either he knows who the leak was and that is why he does not want to investigate, or he does not know who the leak was, in which case he should want to investigate. I am not asking him to speculate on the contents of the Budget, so he should please not give me that answer again. Why will he not institute a leak inquiry?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  The ministerial code requires honesty and transparency. On 28 October, in a written parliamentary question, I asked how many of those released in error under this Government remain at large. On 3 November I received an answer, but it did not answer the question. Was that because the Government did not know how many people were at large, or because they chose not to be transparent and give the answer?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Moles: Histological Testing · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Members for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) and for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) on securing this debate and on their very emotional speeches. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk for his bravery in talking about his own care. I commend Zoe’s family for their bravery and for their work to turn a family tragedy into something positive for other people, which is fantastic. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and, frighteningly, the fifth most common cancer in the United Kingdom: almost 20,000 people are diagnosed each year. It usually starts in skin or a mole that is over-exposed to ultraviolet radiation, and then it spreads to vital organs such as the lungs or the liver. One of the challenges is that melanomas can be difficult to identify. I am a paediatrician, not a dermatologist, but I remember looking at pictures of melanomas and moles in medical school, and in lots of cases I struggled to see the difference that the lecturer was pointing out. They can be brown, red or pink; small or large; flat or raised. Unlike other cancers, which tend to progress as they grow larger, melanomas can be lethal even when they are very small, which means that there is no time to lose in having the diagnosis. All suspicious moles removed by the NHS should be tested, but those judged benign or removed in cosmetic or beauty settings are not necessarily tested, as has been said. There is therefore the risk that, if that judgment was wrong, the cancer can go undetected and it can have tragic consequences. I want to ask the Minister what steps she is taking to strengthen the regulations in the aesthetics and beauty sector, in particular, and in the private medical sector. What will be done about lasering moles in a way that prevents identification of a melanocytic lesion? We know that AI can help. There are now computer systems that look at moles in photographs and are reasonably reliable at discerning whether something is malignant. That can be done in conjunction with doctors and histology as an additional layer to ensure there are no mistakes. Will the Minister update the House on what she is doing with AI? One of the big shifts that the Government have talked about is digital, and that is one of the options available to them. The Government have said that improving diagnosis is a key part of their national cancer plan. Will the Minister give us some highlights from the plan? We were expecting it to be published this year, but it is apparently now delayed until next year. There are rumours that that is to have a presentational effect on 4 February. Given that more than 1,000 people are diagnosed every day across the UK, I really hope that there are not presentational reasons for the delay. It would be helpful to know when she intends to publish the plan. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact that the plan will have on the progress of speeding up cancer diagnosis for patients? How does she plan to expand access to genomic testing, which can also help to identify the most at-risk patients? The Government have talked a lot about the shift to prevention, which is always better than cure. In about nine out of 10 cases, melanoma can be prevented. Avoiding over-exposure to the intensity of the sun, applying sunscreen and wearing suitable clothing can help to defend our bodies from the risk of developing melanoma. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the VAT charged on sun cream to the incidence of skin cancer? Sun cream can be quite expensive and young people may find that a barrier to applying it. With the Budget coming up just next month, the Minister is in a prime position to make that case. It takes only one blistering sunburn to more than double someone’s chances of developing melanoma later in life. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that young people are aware of the risks of sunburn? What discussions has she had with the Department for Education about making sure that young people are aware of the risk? Figures show that 65% of 18 to 32-year-olds report annual sunburn. Alarmingly, in May 2024, researchers predicted a record high of 20,800 skin cancer cases for the year. I worry that sunburn is increasingly regarded as one of those things—a sort of hallmark of a foreign holiday. What steps is the Minister taking to raise awareness of the link between sunburn and skin cancer? It is not always sunny in the UK. That is why over one in four people, and 43% of 18 to 25-year-olds, use sunbeds to top up their tan. However, that comes with significant health risks. Researchers estimate that sunbeds cause 440 cases of melanoma and around 100 deaths every year in the UK alone. I was surprised to discover that only 62% of people know that sunbed use increases the risk of skin cancer. Worryingly, researchers found that 23% of 18 to 25-year-olds thought that using sunbeds instead of the sun would reduce their risk of skin cancer. What steps is the Minister taking to bust those myths? Will she consider using her women’s health strategy to raise awareness of these issues, which put mostly young women at risk? Banning under-18s from using tanning beds was undoubtedly sensible, but insufficient enforcement mechanisms have been set up. Unfortunately, a 2025 survey by Melanoma Focus of 100 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK found that 34% were still using sunbeds despite the ban. Exposure to indoor tanning before 35 is associated with a 59% increase in the risk of developing skin cancer. Does the Minister have any plans to strengthen the enforcement of regulations that restrict the use of sunbeds by young people? Frustratingly, not only do the regulations not stop vulnerable people using sunbeds, but they fail to restrict irradiation levels. A report suggested that over half of Tyneside sunbed salons exceeded the irradiation limits, putting users at even greater risk of cancer and melanoma. What steps will the Minister take to put safety first and ensure that sunbed irradiation levels are enforced? The key measures against a cancer as deadly as melanoma, and our best defences against fatalities, are prevention, early testing, catching it early and good treatment. Given that such a high proportion of cases are preventable, I am interested to hear more about the Minister’s plans for further prevention and to know how the cancer plan will help. What are her thoughts on the plan for Zoe’s law to ensure that a histology test is always done so that no one slips through the net?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that stamp duty also gums up mobility, so that people are unable to move, and if they lose their job under this Labour Government it will be more expensive for them to move to another house?

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for answering the question and talking about universal services being available from next year. Can he confirm whether they will be 24/7 and what he means by “universal”? If someone is living in a rural area, what is the greatest distance or time they should expect to travel to get to their local thrombectomy centre?