Caroline Johnson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jul 2025 · British Film and High-end Television · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on her statement and on the report she has produced. To succeed, great British films also need a good audience. Will my hon. Friend tell us what she thinks of the Government’s support for local and regional cinemas?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West on bringing forward this very important piece of legislation. I declare an interest as a consultant paediatrician who has looked after a number of children with rare conditions such as teratoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Wilms’ tumour and retinoblastoma, to name but a few. One of the issues with rare cancers, which transposes to rare diseases in general, is that they are often diagnosed late, because people do not recognise that they have symptoms of a rare disease and their health professionals are not as familiar with them because they are rare. The presentation and diagnosis are then late and, as such, the treatment is more difficult. That is compounded further because there has been less research on those topics, so it is not clear what the best treatment for those conditions is. On top of that, the patient may have to travel very long distances to see a specialist who is familiar with the condition, adding both logistical difficulty and cost to that patient’s care. Some steps are in place to try to improve the situation. The orphan drug regime gives market exclusivity for 10 years, and it provides for lower and refunded fees from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for the services it provides. Nevertheless, it can still be non-commercially advantageous to put money into developing a drug that is going to be used on no more than a handful of people, however beneficial it is for the individuals concerned. I welcome the Bill, but wish to make a couple of points. First, in principle it is best that trials are first broached with the patient by a member of their healthcare team. Of course, a member of any given healthcare team—I speak as one myself—will never be aware of all the trials available to all patients at any one time. I welcome the Lord O’Shaughnessy review—commissioned by the last Government and accepted by the current one—which talks about getting a consensus on how best patients can be informed of trials. I wonder whether we should have a system in which patients opt out of not the trial itself but being asked about trials. At the outset, they could be asked, “Would you like to receive information on trials—yes or no?”, so that more people can be aware of how they can contribute. When people are diagnosed with something rare, they often want to contribute to helping others who will come after them. Will the Minister tell us more about the national cancer plan, which was consulted on earlier this year? I welcome the fact that the children and young people cancer taskforce, which was paused, is being reinstituted. Also, how will the Bill apply to repurposed drugs? Sometimes new medicines are developed for a particular condition, but we often find that medicines can be reformulated and used in a different way to provide a different form of treatment to help individuals with a different condition. How will that apply in respect of both the measures in the Bill and the O’Shaughnessy review? As a paediatrician, I am very pleased that the Bill applies to children. Overall, I think the Bill is great. It offers hope for many in the future. Will the Minister say something about other rare conditions? As well as rare cancers, people get other rare conditions, and they are affected by the same challenges with research and treatment, and by delays in diagnosis and travel. Overall, doctors are able to save people’s lives, and improve people’s lives, one at a time, but Parliament and research offer the opportunity to do that on a much bigger scale. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West for what he is doing today.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  It seems entirely reasonable that a Government should want to control the amount that they spend on welfare, and entirely reasonable to want to focus that on the most in need. However, I do not understand why they brought out such rushed changes, which have done nothing but cause anxiety and distress, and left them in a worst position in which they have now U-turned and are neither making savings nor reforming welfare. Will the Secretary of State please explain the rationale for the four-point limit that she brought in?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Glastonbury Festival: BBC Coverage · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State has spoken about responsibility at the BBC, and of those who said those dreadful words. What responsibility do those who were organising the festival have both legally and morally to be held responsible and accountable, and to ensure that this does not happen again?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Passenger Rail Performance: Cumbria · Hansard source

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  Rail services are important in Cumbria, but they are also important in Sleaford. For some time, I have been campaigning for lifts at Sleaford railway station for those who have difficulty with stairs. I was pleased when the previous Government included Sleaford in the Access for All scheme, and having raised it at previous Transport questions, I was delighted when the Rail Minister wrote to me to confirm that the feasibility studies will go ahead. When I met Network Rail yesterday, I found that it is stuck. Network Rail has done as much as it can, but the money ready for it has not been officially unlocked. Could the Secretary of State look into that and ensure that the work goes ahead as soon as possible so that people can access the second platform even if they have trouble with stairs?

• 26 Jun 2025 · IVF Egg Donation: Young Women · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing an important debate at such short notice. IVF counts as a medical miracle, in many respects. Since the technique was pioneered in the 1970s, some 12 million babies have been born by IVF or associated procedures. In the UK, there have been more than 70,000 donor births since 1991, when we started counting egg, sperm and embryo donations. Such births now account for one in 170 live UK births. For many families and individuals, those treatments have given hope where they otherwise would have none. Those suffering from fertility problems have been able to pursue their dreams of having a family with the help of IVF, and success rates have increased over recent decades. The children born as a result of these treatments have given great joy, love and happiness to their families. With that in mind, the previous Government committed to broadening access to these services. As the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) said, the women’s health strategy for England, published in 2022, included removing barriers to access for same-sex couples. The previous Government also changed the law so that same-sex couples would not have to go through specific infectious diseases screening before pursuing reciprocal IVF. Those measures were designed to ensure that as many as possible could enjoy safe and equal access to treatment. In my constituency, I was approached by a lady who has medical reasons for her infertility, and is married to a gentleman who had a child many years ago in a previous relationship. She found that she was not eligible for access to IVF. If she said she had no partner, she would be eligible for a sperm donor. If she said she had a female partner, she would be eligible for a sperm donor. Since her partner, however, had a child from a previous relationship, she was not able to have treatment for her medical condition. Personally, I did not think she should be denied access to that, so I have been campaigning with the local ICB, which is currently doing a review. I hope that review is not disrupted by the changes the Government have made to ICB funding. IVF is a highly complex procedure, with several different approaches now available to doctors and patients. One of those approaches involves an intending parent receiving donor eggs from another woman. That can be a lifeline for those who cannot use their own eggs, whether due to age, quality or other physiological factors. It relies on the generosity and selflessness of the donor women who contribute their own eggs so that others may have a chance of raising children. That process contains risk, and although we recognise the huge opportunities that IVF offers and the generosity of the donor women, we must make sure that the procedural risks, advertising and regulation are properly managed. Typically, egg donors must be between 18 and 35, be in good health, have no inheritable conditions, and pass a variety of screening and suitability tests. Those requirements are designed to provide reassurance for intending parents, but in order to find as many potential donors as possible, many companies pursue aggressive advertising strategies to attract eligible donor women. When I first thought about this, I thought, “I haven’t seen any adverts for such a process.” Then I recognised that, of course, I am not in the target audience, because I am too old. With social media, when we think about something, before we know it, it has appeared on our phone or another device, in the corner of the screen as an advert. I am advised by women who are of the right age that they feel they get a lot of adverts to encourage them to be egg donors—more than they would like to see. Does the Minister agree that the guidance on internet advertising in particular needs to be updated, especially in the light of the targeting of adverts at particular demographic groups? Will she commit to investigating how many women are targeted by adverts for a service that they would not consider engaging with, and ways of being able to avoid those? There are also risks to the process. It is especially important that women know the full extent of the risks before they agree to a medical elective procedure, in particular one that is not for their own benefit. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is one of the main risks for egg donors and causes symptoms rising from mild discomfort and bloating to serious respiratory problems, renal failure and, in extreme cases, death. A 2023 review study in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics found that severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome occurs in 1% to 10% of stimulation cycles. That is quite a wide range of uncertainty, and it is partly why many donors have argued for more research to be done to support informed consent and proper regulation on how the risks are communicated to donors. We have already heard in this debate about the long-term risks. Given that the HFEA will know who all the ladies who have generously given of their eggs are, does the Minister have any plans to look back at that data in an anonymized fashion to see whether any long-term health risks can be identified? Will she also talk about the steps that the Department is taking to ensure that high-quality research is accessible for those considering egg donation, and about whether companies are mandated to conduct and provide it as part of their advertising? We have talked about compensation during the debate. Fertility companies make much of the altruism motivating donors to give their eggs, and that no doubt forms part of the reasoning of donors who admirably wish to help others less fortunate than themselves by contributing their eggs. It is also true, however, that fertility companies provide compensation payments. Those are capped at £986, a limit intended to ensure that women are not enticed to donate eggs due to financial need, but a risk remains that women more in need of financial assistance may be attracted by the payments. Recent coverage has highlighted that some services present donation as a second income stream. Clearly, however, women who put themselves through a lengthy, often uncomfortable and potentially dangerous process in the name of helping others should not be out of pocket as a result. Getting that balance right requires careful attention. The Government must ensure that they review the compensation rates and how it is provided —as a flat sum or on receipt—to ensure that we get this right. Beyond the financial cap, companies are also allowed to advertise benefits in kind, such as discounted egg freezing for women who donate some of their eggs to others. In essence, therefore, they are saying to ladies, “If you come to donate some of your eggs, we’ll allow you to store your own eggs for a much reduced price, in case you need them later.” Some women might see that as a reason to donate eggs—that they cannot afford to freeze their own otherwise. What are the Government doing to manage the kind of additional incentives that might encourage women to donate eggs when otherwise they would not? Does the Minister plan to regulate non-monetary incentives in the future?

• 26 Jun 2025 · IVF Egg Donation: Young Women · Hansard source

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  I think it is reasonable for companies to provide IVF as a service in the private sector, but making profit out of the specific egg donation itself is a separate issue. I agree with him on that. Regarding other ethical issues, we must think about the longer-term impacts of egg donation and ensure that women are properly equipped to deal with them. Children born from egg donation have a legal right in the UK to contact the woman who donated the egg from which they were born, and to obtain their name, age and last known address from the HFEA. The first cohort of children with that right were able to use it only relatively recently, in 2023, so it may be too soon to know what the long-term impacts might be for the children or donors concerned, or to what extent it may affect their family relationships or emotional wellbeing. Will the Minister tell us how many children are known to have exercised that right since 2023? What is the Department’s assessment of the likely long-term impacts on those children, their families and the donors? IVF offers a lifeline that can transform people’s lives for the better, but where women are donating eggs to others, we must make sure that they are aware of the risks, and that they are doing it for the right reasons, not because they are being enticed financially. The Government must ensure that compensation does not become financial incentivisation, that advertising is accurate and unbiased, that women’s wellbeing is put first, and that the public have the information they need to make informed choices about their bodies and their healthcare.

• 26 Jun 2025 · IVF Egg Donation: Young Women · Hansard source

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  I am not clear whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to companies making profit out of providing IVF services, or whether he is talking about those who profit from egg donation itself.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the acting chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), on securing this important debate. It is almost one year since the Labour Government took office. They came to power promising that they had a plan to improve our NHS. However, what they actually had was a plan to get a plan by launching a consultation asking professionals and the public for ideas. The consultation was launched in October last year, and I understand that more than 220,000 people have contributed, but despite it being promised for spring, there is still no sign of it. Will the Minister commit to publishing a plan before the summer recess? While the Secretary of State considers what the plan should say, over in No. 11 we have seen the Chancellor follow the usual Labour playbook: higher spending, higher borrowing and higher taxes. There will be more funding for the NHS, yet as the chief executive of NHS England noted, the NHS budget is now equivalent to the entire GDP of Portugal, reaching £226 billion in 2028-29. That is around 50% of public spending. It is said that 18th-century Prussia was an army with a state attached to it; 21st-century Britain is at risk of becoming a health service with a country attached to it. This is not the Government’s money; it is taxpayers’ hard-earned cash, yet the Government have provided no clarity—no meaningful detail and no credible plan—on how such vast sums will be used. In the autumn Budget, an additional £10.6 billion in extra funding was promised for 2025-26. However, Julian Kelly, NHS England’s former chief financial officer, told the Health and Social Care Committee that most of it will be consumed by pay settlements, the national insurance hikes and non-pay inflation. Today, 64% of NHS spending goes towards personnel wages and pensions, which is a far higher proportion than in other comparable systems, but the NHS still faces staff shortages and expensive agency costs. Will the Minister confirm how much of the overall funding will go to salary increases? How much will be diverted into covering the national insurance increases for hospitals, social care, pharmacies, GPS, NHS contractors and social care providers? As we speak in this Chamber, resident doctors and nurses are balloting for industrial action. Strikes would only add to the disruption and delay in care for sick and vulnerable people. Do the Government have a plan to minimise the impact of strikes, should they occur? Let us look at one proposal that the Government have announced: the scrapping of NHS England. This Government by press release announced NHSE abolition without adequate planning. Ministers have dodged basic questions about costs, staffing changes and structural reform. There is, once again, no plan. The details that we know about do not inspire confidence. NHS England has asked the ICBs to reduce their costs by up to 50% by October 2025. ICBs will have to cluster, with the number expected to fall from 42 to 27 in two years. Many have warned that services will be cut, and redundancy payments linked to those restructurings could reach £1 billion in 2025-26. Has the Minister costed that in the Department of Health and Social Care revenue settlement? The Government promised to restore the 18-week hospital waiting time within this Parliament. However, their departmental modelling shows that only 80% of patients may meet that standard for routine operations. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will deliver that promise? Moving on to capital spending, the Minister says that she wants to continue the new hospitals programme, albeit more slowly than we would have done, and invest in technology, but capital budgets remain flat in real terms. The chief executive of the NHS Confederation says that this leaves “a major shortfall in capital funding”. The Nuffield Trust said that “it will be difficult for the NHS to invest in the technology and facility upgrades it needs to meet the government’s…targets.” Will the Minister explain how they will prioritise, and what will be delivered? The Government have said that they want to shift funding from hospitals to primary and community care. Will the Minister confirm or deny reports that the NHS 10-year plan will delay the planned increase in spending on primary community care until 2035, instead of 2029, as was originally promised? A key part of community care is social care, but as Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of NHS Providers, noted, “social care…hasn’t been given the focus it needs”, and that is “a significant blocker on progress for the NHS.” Cross-party talks on reform have quietly been abandoned in favour of an independent commission led by Baroness Casey, but that process is not due to complete until 2028. Yet again, we see headline-grabbing announcements from the Government, with no delivery plan and no real reform, leaving patients, staff and families waiting for the care they desperately need. The Government aim to deliver £13.8 billion in efficiency savings by ’28-29, with more than £9 billion of that total expected to come from DHSC alone. Will the Minister clarify where, within the Department, those savings will be found, and what impact assessments have supported those decisions? The Government say that prevention is better than cure, and I agree. A good example is the “Act FAST: face, arms, speech, time” campaign, which we will all be familiar with, but just last week, in an answer to a written parliamentary question, the Minister admitted that “the Government have made reductions in the Department and NHS England’s communications and campaigns.” Can the Minister tell us which public health campaigns are to be affected? Finally, the dental contract requires reform. The Government started negotiations a year ago, yet the Public Accounts Committee has noted: “NHSE and DHSC do not yet know what reform might look like or to what timescales it can be delivered”. Will the Minister tell us when the Government expect to conclude negotiations and get on with dental reform? In summary, the Government need to stop governing by headline. They need to publish a robust evidence-based plan, and start delivering.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Care Settings: Right to Maintain Contact · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I declare my interest, as an NHS consultant. I know from my own professional experience that hospitals and other care settings can be distressing places for patients and their relatives. Even with our excellent NHS staff on hand, patients want more assurance and familiarity while they undergo care and treatment. For many, that support comes from the family and friends who visit them during their hospital stay, or while they are in a hospice or receiving care in a care home. I pay tribute to the very many excellent staff who work in those settings and provide care around the clock and during public holidays, and put themselves out to care for others. For residents, care homes are just that: their home. They should be entitled to have relatives and friends visit them as they would in any other home. Visitors also improve care. An inability to visit one’s relative in hospital leads to an increased feeling of not knowing how they are this morning—whether they are getting worse or better, whether they are in pain or are comfortable, or whether they can reach what they need to get. Relatives fear not being able to help the resident, and worry about whether they are lonely or stressed because they are not there to support them. That adds to the relatives’ stress. The patient or the person in the care home knows that staff are busy and may not want to bother them for small things, such as reaching a book or their glasses, passing them a drink—which is so important for hydration—helping them eat a meal, moving the curtains so the sun is not in their eyes or providing an extra blanket. Instead, many wait hours for their relative to come. Sometimes, they just want a cuddle and to hold hands with the person they love. Clearly, that is in the best interests of their health and wellbeing. Relatives know the person they are seeing the best, and are able to identify changes in condition that may go unnoticed by staff. I remember visiting a relative of mine who was getting better following surgery and was stepped down from the high-dependency unit to the ward. When I arrived, I realised that he looked grey, pale and unwell. He was indeed in shock and required urgent fluid resuscitation. I shudder to think what would have happened had that not occurred at the beginning of visiting time. It was with those things in mind that the previous Government introduced the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and, in particular, regulation 9A. Like others, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) for doing so. The regulations were designed to ensure that patients staying in hospital or residential care settings could receive visitors in a fair and consistent way. They also aimed to ensure that care home residents would not face barriers or discouragement if they wanted to take their visitors outside, and they made provisions for those attending non-residential hospital or hospice appointments to have guaranteed rights for friends or family members to accompany them. However, now that these regulations are in place, we need to ensure that they are working effectively and that systems are in place to detect any attempts to water down or remove the rights that they provide. I want to raise the exceptional circumstances limitation with the Minister. Members will know that the regulations grant visiting rights unless there are exceptional circumstances. The CQC guidance states that providers should base this assessment “on the health, safety and welfare of people using the service or other people involved. This should include giving consideration to the appropriate balance of a person’s rights, the needs of people using their service and any identified risks”. If concerns have been raised about current levels of compliance with visiting regulations, we must begin by identifying how and why this caveat in the rules is being used. Can the Minister tell us what kinds of circumstances private providers deem to be exceptional? Who is making these decisions and who is overseeing that process? The CQC guidance also states that where additional precautions or restrictions are needed, they should represent “the most proportionate and least restrictive option” that is available. Is the Minister confident that this principle is being followed, and what is she doing to provide transparency for patients and their carers about decision making? In summary, can the Minister tell us how many times the exceptional circumstances provision has been used in the last year by each institution and how many visits or accompanying visits have been blocked as a result? Is she monitoring such blocking? What steps is she taking to ensure that those with reduced mental capacity have their rights to visits upheld? It is important that these rules are followed. The vast majority of care settings provide excellent care, but the concern is that the better care settings are more open than others, and as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, sometimes, visiting times may be restricted to cover up poor care, adding to the stress of the patient or resident and their carers. It is important that the Minister does what she can to improve the education and training of staff, and change the culture of settings so that everyone is able to receive the visits they need. Some providers are even using the realms of infection control measures to exclude visitors. Surely, if infection control measures are frequently being used to restrict visiting, that is a red flag that the infection control measures in that institution are not providing adequate safety for residents. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that staff follow the requirements placed on them and to make sure that individual providers are not being selective in their adherence to the rules? It is clear from what we have heard today that more needs to be done to ensure that patients receive the visits and accompaniments that they are entitled to. If we are serious about putting patients and residents first, more needs to be done to guarantee them the social and emotional support that they need to be comfortable, as well as the best treatment or palliative medical care available. As others have already said, the CQC is not able to prosecute for breaches of regulation 9A, although it can take action such as civil enforcement measures. Does the Minister believe that is a strong enough incentive for providers to meet their obligations, or does she recognise that increased enforcement powers might be needed to ensure that the rights of patients are protected? What other schemes has the Department considered to help providers to better facilitate contact and visiting arrangements? I will finish by saying that I work as an NHS consultant paediatrician, and in paediatrics we always have open visiting for parents. Parents are really helpful in providing the care and looking after the children as part of a teamwork approach between parents and staff. Can the Minister say why such visiting arrangements are not available for people of all ages when they are at their most vulnerable, because I cannot see why they should not be? Indeed, I think that it would help quite dramatically.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Care Settings: Right to Maintain Contact · Hansard source

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  Can the Minister clarify what constitutes a visit in those circumstances? Would an hour’s visit once a week count, or is there a specific timeframe that qualifies?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with my right hon. Friend, and I shall come to coercion a little later. First, let me go back to new clause 1, which decriminalises the woman having an abortion in relation to her own pregnancy. It seems to me that what many wish to do is decriminalise abortion up until term. That is a legitimate position that some people take.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Currently, it is illegal for a woman to procure her own abortion between 24 weeks and term if the baby is healthy. If there is a problem, she has to have it done by doctors in hospital. Under the proposed new rules, we will have is a situation where a woman can legally have an abortion up until term if she wants to do so— [Interruption.] Yes, at any gestation. That is a completely legitimate argument. It is not one that I support or agree with, but it is a legitimate argument that people can make. If that is the case, they should have the courage of their convictions and make it.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is right to say that we have seen an increase in incidences of people taking abortion pills late. Previously it was very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the pills—it was certainly impossible to obtain them through NHS clinics—but now it is possible, because people can use a telemedicine clinic. They say that they are seven weeks pregnant and ask for pills, and we have seen examples where people have asked for the pills much further on in their pregnancy—into the 30 weeks—obtained the medicine and made themselves very unwell in doing so. Turning to coercion, when a doctor sees a patient, they take at face value everything the patient tells them. When a lady uses telemedicine to have an abortion, it is not possible for a doctor or clinician to know whether somebody else is in the room with them, or sat the other side of the camera forcing them to say what they are saying. It is not possible for the doctor to know whether the lady is pregnant or not or whether the person asking for the medicine will be the person who takes it. That is very unsafe.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Every jurisdiction has a democratic right to do as it chooses and I respect that, but it is a tragedy when we hear of cases where late-term abortions have not been supported by medical care or the law, and women and infants have suffered significant harm as a result. I want to raise the case of Stuart Worby. Some people say that this issue is about protecting vulnerable women, but in this case, which was prosecuted in December 2024, a man who did not want his partner to be pregnant, when she did want to be pregnant, decided to take matters into his own hands. He asked a woman who was not pregnant to get the pills for him. He put them in a drink and gave them to his partner, inducing a miscarriage. He has rightly been put in jail for that, but the case demonstrates that there are men out there who will obtain tablets with the help of a woman. That could not have happened if women had to have an in-person appointment, because the woman arriving at the clinic to get the abortion pills on the man’s behalf would be clearly seen not to be pregnant, so would not be able to obtain the medication. My amendment seeks to protect women—women who are wrong about their gestation or who are mistaken in thinking they have had a bleed or whatever—to make sure that they have a safe termination using the right mechanisms.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I think we need to consider both. I remember a case involving a lady, Carla Foster, in June 2023. From my reading of the case, she admitted to lying about where she was in her gestation, saying that she was further back in pregnancy, at seven weeks, when she was actually much further along; she turned out to be around 33 weeks pregnant when her baby—her little girl, whom she called Lily—was born. In the papers I have read about the case, she described being traumatised by the face of that baby, which could have been prevented if she had been to a proper clinic and seen a health professional, as that health professional would have clearly seen that she was not seven weeks pregnant, and that taking abortion pills intended for early pregnancy was not a suitable or safe medical intervention. If one has a termination later in pregnancy, it is done by foeticide. Essentially, an injection of potassium chloride is administered to kill the baby, and then the baby is born in the usual way, but deceased. That is why it is important to know what the gestation is—because the termination offered under the law is done by a different route, to make sure that it is done safely. We know that the later in pregnancy a termination happens, the more a woman is at risk of medical complications.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of new clause 106, which stands in my name, but first I will speak briefly to new clause 1, which we have been discussing so far. The hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) spoke about some pretty harrowing cases, and said how the first lady was utterly traumatised by having had her abortion at home, which she received via telemedicine. My new clause seeks to make women safer by ensuring that they are seen and given the opportunity for proper medical consultation before they get to the stage where they are given inappropriate medication because of a misunderstanding, and then end up traumatised, delivering a relatively mature foetus unexpectedly at home. The hon. Lady did not say during her speech whether she believes that a baby should be terminated right up to term, but I want to put on the record that I do not. I work as an NHS consultant paediatrician, and I have cared for and personally held babies in my hands from 21 weeks and six days’ gestation right through to term. I am very aware that babies from, say, 30 weeks upwards have a more than 98% chance of survival, so although I am supportive of women’s right to choose early in pregnancy, I am not supportive of similar rights in relation to healthy babies right up to term. Until the pandemic, women had to attend abortion clinics, where they would see a professional and talk through their desire for an abortion and the reasons for it. At the clinic, it would be checked that the woman was pregnant and how far pregnant she was. The hon. Lady raised cases of women who believed they were so far pregnant, but who turned out to be much further pregnant, which are well known; sometimes it goes the other way. One of the key reasons for this confusion is that women often bleed in early pregnancy, and they may believe that those bleeding episodes represent a period; when a woman thinks that she is 10 weeks pregnant, therefore, she may actually be 14 weeks pregnant. That consideration is important in the context of accessing an abortion because at-home abortions via telemedicine are allowed only up until 10 weeks. The reason for that is not to be difficult or awkward, or to make it more difficult for women to access abortions; instead, it is a safety issue, because we know that complications are greater later in pregnancy. What happens in the early stages is that the procedure essentially causes the foetus to be born. If that happens to a baby much later in pregnancy, the procedure will cause it to be born when it has a chance of survival, which can lead to a traumatic experience for the mother as they deliver a much larger foetus than expected. It can lead to bleeding and, in one case I am aware of, has led to the death of a mother who was given pills to take at home when she was much further along in her pregnant than she had expected.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is correct that if a woman got the tablets at a clinic, she could give them to somebody else, but in order to get them in the first place she would need to be 10 weeks pregnant, and the clinician would check that she was pregnant. When the medication appears not to have worked, questions would perhaps be asked about where the tablets had gone, so I think there is an inherent safety feature there. The hon. Lady brings up the issue of bus routes. That is important, but the question is whether we should improve the bus routes or make medical services less safe. Most clinical services are accessed by individuals attending hospitals or clinics, and in some respects this instance is no different, because it is important that proper medical checks are done. I am not trying to limit people’s access to what is clinically legally available. I am trying to make sure that people are safe when they do so. I want to turn to women who have been trafficked or are being forced into sex work. We talked yesterday in the House about young girls who had been groomed and raped in the grooming gangs scandal. Would we put it past those evil, nasty men to have got drugs and given them to these young girls to hide the evidence of their crimes? I would not. What about those who want to preserve the honour of their family by preventing their daughter from being pregnant? What about those who think that the baby being carried by their partner is of the wrong gender—they would like a boy but are having a girl? What about those who are trying to cover up sexual abuse, particularly of teenagers and young girls, by causing a termination to hide the evidence of their crimes? What if a partner does not want a baby? Stuart Worby got caught, was prosecuted and is rightly in jail, but how many others have done that and not got caught? We simply will never know. No one knows who is taking these medications. If we have proper clinics, gestation can be checked, a clinician can ascertain more effectively if a woman is being coerced, and they can make the abortion medically as safe as possible. My amendment is not pro-life or pro-choice. It is pro-safety.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During proceedings of the House on 2 June 2025, it became clear that some media organisations had been given access to the strategic defence review document before Parliament. We also became aware that the timing of such early access may have been different for different organisations. I asked a parliamentary question on the matter of who and when, and although the Government did not answer the question, they made clear that trade associations and think-tanks had also been given early access. I asked again, and they refused to answer but made clear that trade unions and “our people” had been given early access. Mr Speaker, Ministers are required to answer questions using the Nolan principles, which include accountability and openness. The principles state: “Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.” The Government have not followed these processes in answering the question, and that is particularly relevant to the Minister for the Armed Forces, because in his declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, he declares membership of the GMB and Unite, and that a family member is working as a constituent for Babcock International, and that—

• 17 Jun 2025 · Health of the Elderly · Hansard source

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  Many of those on waiting lists are elderly and have chronic conditions; rather than seeing consultants at regular intervals, which may coincide with them being relatively well, they are often kept on open appointments so that they can call when they are ill. This is efficient and responsive care. Is the Minister aware that this provision is being stopped in some areas in order to improve figures? I will quote from a letter about an elderly patient: “I regret cannot keep him on my waiting list under the open appointment” for treatment, and, “I have explained the politics of everything and where we are at.” Being re-referred to a GP each time is expensive and a waste of time. Can the Minister explain why doctors are being asked to make decisions for political reasons, instead of clinical ones?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Health of the Elderly · Hansard source

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  Last health questions, I asked about delays to crucial medications in A&E and the Secretary of State said he was interested to hear more, but his office said he would delegate it to a Minister and we still have not been offered a date, so could I encourage him to look into that, please? The U-turn on winter fuel will help the elderly to stay warm and healthy this winter, but another way to help elderly people would be to protect them from the respiratory syncytial virus. Will the Government extend the vaccination to the over-80s?

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

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  I refer right hon. and hon. Members to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I am an NHS consultant paediatrician. The debate so far has focused primarily on ethical considerations, legal frameworks and who will be eligible—the who, the when and the why—but I want to focus my remarks on the how. As a doctor, I know that various drugs in different combinations can be fatal; in other words, there is more than one way to kill people. Which would be the best drug, if that is what we wished to do? Which would be the most comfortable, and how do we know? Some forms of assisted dying use neuromuscular blockades, which, in common parlance, means that they paralyse the body. Imagine a situation where someone in a lot of pain is given such a drug; from the outside they would look relaxed and peaceful as their muscles relaxed, but inside they would be in a lot of pain, and unable to express that to anybody else. Do we want people to be comfortable and to know that they are comfortable, or only to appear comfortable to us? Clearly, we want them to be comfortable inside as well. We therefore need to have drugs that are properly understood and regulated for this purpose. Assisted dying is often portrayed as safe, peaceful and controlled, but the reality in comparable countries where it has been legalised so far is more complicated. Technical difficulties frequently arise, leading to complications causing greater suffering, requiring intervention and potentially leading to a prolonged and painful death. A report in The BMJ by Dr Suzy Lishman, former president of the Royal College of Pathologists—who, I should say, works at the same trust as me—showed that there is a lack of reliable data on the effectiveness and safety of the drugs used, largely due to inconsistent reporting in jurisdictions where such dying is legal. In Belgium it is estimated that only 52% of euthanasia cases are reported to the Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia. During a Select Committee visit in the last Parliament to Oregon to discuss assisted dying, which I and two other hon. Members from the Labour Benches went on, we heard about the complications being unknown in 71% of cases. No healthcare professional was present when the drugs were given so we could not really know, and we did not even know if the drugs had been taken in some cases. Where we did, we found a history of seizures, vomiting and prolonged deaths. On having been given the drugs, patients in nine cases in Oregon in 2023 had reawakened later. How they felt in the intervening time is difficult for us to know. In Washington, a 2018 report found that 31% of patients took more than 90 minutes to die. I also remind hon. Members that an absence of evidence that things are not going well is not evidence of an absence of things going wrong.

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

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  I think one of the key problems with this form of intervention, compared with others, is that we cannot ask the patients afterwards how that felt. We cannot get their feedback, because they are dead. If we are going to give them things such as neuromuscular blockers or sedatives, we may not be able to tell what they feel. There are physiological ways in which we can monitor patients and get some idea—perhaps in their heart rate or blood pressure—but we will not be doing that. That is, therefore, one of the reasons for my tabling the amendments, to ensure that the drugs are properly regulated by the MHRA, so that we know that they have been properly tested on the purpose for which they are to be used.