Caroline Voaden MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 13 Apr 2026 · Local Housing Allowance Rates · Hansard source

  More

  Years of freezes to local housing allowance by successive Governments mean that it goes nowhere near covering the cost of social housing, let alone renting privately. In my constituency, the average rent for a three-bedroom home can be well over £1,100 a month, but a family of four will receive only £840 a month. Poor and temporary housing is a key driver of child poverty, so it is really important that we resolve that. Will the Minister commit to working with the Department for Work and Pensions to unfreeze local housing allowance so that we can lift children out of deep poverty?

• 13 Apr 2026 · Local Housing Allowance Rates · Hansard source

  More

  13. What assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of local housing allowance rates.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q11. My constituent Susan suffered horrific, unimaginable, lifelong injury from a pelvic mesh implant. She lost her business, her marriage and her health, and lives in constant 24-hour pain. I would like to congratulate the new Minister for Public Health—the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson)—on her appointment, after her tireless campaigning on this issue, which has clearly been recognised. However, more than two years after the Hughes report set out clear recommendations for redress, thousands of women such as Susan are still waiting for a Government response. Can the Prime Minister tell Susan and the thousands of other women like her how much longer they will have to wait?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Coastal Communities: Start Bay · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this evening a matter of profound importance to thousands of people across the country, including many of my constituents living and working near one of the most beautiful and vulnerable coastlines in England. That issue is coastal erosion—more specifically, what happens when human-built infrastructure such as roads and homes collapse and fall into the sea or are damaged beyond repair by the intensity of storms, waves, wind and tide. This is not just an infrastructure problem; it is a human one. The psychological toll of what is happening in these isolated shoreline communities and the threat of what might happen to others in the future should not be underestimated. To set the scene, Start bay is one of South Devon’s most stunning stretches of coastline—15 miles of cliffs and shingle beaches running from Warren Point near Dartmouth in the north to Start Point in the south, taking in the villages of Stoke Fleming, Strete, Torcross, Beesands and Hallsands. The Slapton Line—the narrow shingle bar that carries the A379 and separates the freshwater Slapton Ley from the open sea—is one of the most remarkable and fragile landforms in this country. The A379 is a vital link road between the towns of Dartmouth and Kingsbridge. Alongside it lies Slapton Ley, the largest natural freshwater lake in south-west England. It is a site of special scientific interest and a national nature reserve of enormous ecological importance, home to rare wildlife and a place of outstanding natural beauty that draws visitors from across the world. The area carries another layer of history that many across the world hold dear. In the autumn of 1943, the area was requisitioned by the British Government, and residents evacuated so that American forces could use the land to train for the D-day landings. Exercise Tiger cost the lives of nearly 800 American servicemen—a tragedy long kept secret—but the bond still runs deep, and many Americans come regularly to visit. Alongside that history is a long and ongoing battle with the sea. In 1917, the thriving fishing village of Hallsands nearby was almost entirely lost to the sea in a storm, not long after hundreds of thousands of tonnes of shingle were dredged from the bay to help build the dockyards in Plymouth. In recent years, the storms have come harder and more frequently. This winter brought a succession of severe weather events that battered the Start bay coastline with extraordinary force. Properties in Torcross suffered significant damage, and businesses that depend on the summer season found themselves counting the cost of repairs before the year had even begun. Then, on the night of 2 February, came the collapse of the A379 and a battering to homes behind the sea wall—windows smashed, roofs lifted, and water and shingle pouring into homes. Huge slabs of tarmac fell into the sea, and one section of the road collapsed entirely. A once-picturesque stretch of coastline looked like a bomb site. It was not a surprise to people who know this coast—the road has long been acknowledged as vulnerable—but the speed and scale of what happened shocked even those who had been warning about it for years. The alternative inland route is completely inadequate and needs an urgent upgrade. I have been contacted by hundreds of residents and businesses over the past seven weeks, and 40,000 people signed a petition, such is the concern. Locally, the impact on daily life has been severe. Travel times to work and school have increased substantially—journeys that once took just minutes now take far longer via inland diversion routes that were never designed to carry this volume of traffic. Bus routes have been cut or diverted; older residents and young people trying to get to school and college have found themselves effectively cut off; and everybody dreads the arrival of the caravans. Access for emergency services is a significant concern. Mr Starr of Torcross told me that his wife required urgent medical attention twice last year, and that “On both occasions the ambulance came across the A379 and therefore responded to the call within 30 minutes, before taking her to hospital. We are now living in fear that an ambulance will not be able to respond quickly enough.” For others, the partial closure of the A379 is a barrier to education, due to increased journey times and altered bus services. This is true for pupils as well as staff at local schools. For local businesses, the consequences have been equally serious: reduced footfall, cancelled bookings, and the sheer visual impact of a collapsed coastline on what should be a thriving tourism destination have cost businesses dearly at a time when many were already operating on very thin margins. The Torcross Boathouse café has suffered substantial damage and remains closed. Its owners, Katy and Rob, told me that “We won’t reopen for several months while the insurance is sorted out—it’s been a huge blow and our business has been devastated.” In the weeks after the A379 was breached, one local pub reported trade being down by 80%. Other businesses highlighted the impact on their staff of a longer commute and issues with receiving deliveries. Matt Darke, who farms land on either side of Slapton, tells me that travelling between sites is now taking an hour longer every day than it used to, and even the viability of a local health centre is now at risk, as patients are choosing to move their prescriptions elsewhere. Besides the damage to the A379, there has also been a serious impact on properties in the village of Torcross. The sea wall that protects the village has been left exposed by the recent loss of shingle along the beach, resulting in severe wave damage to homes and businesses and ongoing concerns about the stability of the buildings. Residents are scared and struggling to sleep due to the constant vibrations caused by the loss of shingle around the footings of the sea defences, which are an Environment Agency asset. The local EA team have been fantastic, working at pace to progress the case for an urgent project to install remedial rock armour in front of the sea wall, and while approval for that project is not guaranteed, the local team hope that the EA will find the funding to support Torcross. I look forward to receiving an update on this soon. However, there will still be the question of what could and should be done to prevent outflanking where the Environment Agency’s assets end. There is a huge cost to works such as these, and there is always a cost-benefit argument to be won, which is what we will all try to do for Torcross. What is never easy to factor into such an equation, though, is the cost of doing nothing. What does it really cost to leave a village to fall into the sea? What is the cost to people’s health and health services, to the wider community, and to the social fabric of a place like this when defences are not maintained? Places such as Torcross and Beesands are more than just houses—they are destinations. They are lifelines for people looking for an escape from the demands of daily life; with their beaches, pubs and cafés, they are a magnetic draw for anyone looking to slow down, breathe the air, watch the birds, swim in the sea, or simply walk along the beach. Who should pay when home owners lose everything that they have worked and saved for? These are not easy questions, which is why there is no clear answer, but the cost of prevention versus evacuation and loss must be part of this, and it is an issue with which the Government must grapple seriously. Time is not on our side, and that is abundantly clear in the village of Beesands, just down the coast. The erosion has accelerated rapidly in recent years. Where about 80 metres of village green previously separated houses from the sea, only 9 metres now remain in some areas, with the access road to the village also potentially at risk. Amid all the trauma for the residents of this special place, I must express my sincere gratitude to officers and councillors from South Hams district council and Devon county council, who have been outstanding throughout the crisis; but for them, gratitude is not enough. Those councils are absorbing the cost of emergency repairs, facing potential loss of council tax, business rates and car parking revenue, and doing all this while operating under significant financial pressure, with limited central Government support mechanisms on which to draw. What they need, and what local authorities and coastal communities across England need, is a genuine financial partnership with central Government when coastal emergencies strike. The Bellwin scheme is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to coastal flooding. As the coastal protection authority, South Hams district council has incurred huge costs since 2 February, including £100,000 for boulders to provide protection in the area that was worst affected. However, it has been informed that only expenditure within 30 days of the event is eligible for reimbursement under the Bellwin scheme. While I understand that the scheme is intended to support local authorities in respect of their emergency response, in the case of coastal emergencies it can easily take 30 days just to formulate and implement a plan. The current system asks councils to carry risks and costs that it is simply beyond their means to absorb, and that must change. I must also mention the flood recovery framework. The current situation is illogical. The framework provides central Government support in cases of severe flooding affecting large areas of England, but weather incidents with localised impacts, however devastating, do not qualify. In Start bay the community is in crisis, but the answer from the system is “Sorry, but not enough people were affected.” That cannot be right, and I urge the Government to reform the framework so that it can respond to severe but localised coastal incidents of exactly this kind. Let me now turn to the question of insurance, a common theme among my constituents. There is currently no specific insurance product for coastal erosion. Flood Re provides Government-backed cover for flood risk, but there is a clear and urgent gap when it comes to erosion. I therefore call on the Government to look seriously at implementing a Flood Re-style product for coastal erosion, and I note that a sobering report published last week by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee makes exactly that recommendation. While home owners in Torcross may be successful in securing insurance payouts to support repairs to their properties on this occasion, it is unclear whether they will be able to obtain new insurance in the future. I therefore ask the Government for an assurance that those who are affected by coastal erosion and coastal flooding—particularly those whose properties are in areas with coastal protection measures in place that are supposed to work—will be helped to gain access to affordable insurance in the future. It is also crucial for people buying homes near the coast to be given the full picture of the coastal erosion risk that they face during the conveyancing process—not just the risk to the property itself, but the risk to the surrounding access routes, utilities and insurance availability. Given the climate-induced threats that we now face, those risks must be included as material information in conveyancing. There is also a problem with the way in which the Government respond to crises of this kind. The community impacts of coastal erosion fall primarily to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, while the physical erosion challenges are overseen by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That fragmentation has real human consequences, and it places an additional burden on local authorities, which find themselves navigating a confusing and fragmented central Government landscape at precisely the moment when they need clarity and support. I want DEFRA to set out clearly how it recognises the full range of the human impact of coastal erosion and incorporates it in policy development and funding decisions, with clear actions and a defined approach to community engagement. The EFRA Committee report calls for exactly that, and I endorse its call. Finally, one of the most troubling gaps of all is the complete absence of any national strategy for those who lose their homes to the sea. No one should face the loss of their home to the water and find that the state has nothing to offer them but a place on a housing waiting list for social homes that simply do not exist. The EFRA Committee has recommended that a long-term national strategy providing financial assistance and relocation support should be in place by no later than March 2027. I fully support that recommendation, and I urge the Government to commit to it. What are my asks? First, we need funding for the repair of the A379 Slapton line and for the improvement of our inland road network. Devon county council is currently working on a full business case for the Department for Transport, and I urge the Government to respond to the application swiftly. Secondly, we need funding for sea defences along the Start bay coastline. I ask the Government to commit that the Environment Agency will have what it needs to respond in an agile and timely manner to coastal emergencies such as this one. The process for accessing such funding is incredibly complicated, but speed is of the essence in a situation like this. Thirdly, we need meaningful, dedicated financial support for local authorities dealing with coastal emergencies, which have to cover the cost of emergency repairs and the potential loss of business rates revenue, car parking income and council tax. Councils are doing extraordinary work in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. They should not be left to carry the financial consequences of a national challenge on their own. Fourthly, we need urgent action on the flood recovery framework to ensure that localised weather incidents are treated just as seriously as national events. This is a big problem in a small place, and it needs a big solution. Fifthly, we need a national strategy for households displaced by coastal erosion to be in place by March 2027. Lastly, we need a commitment to provide Government-backed insurance for coastal erosion, and insurance policy premiums must be capped for people whose properties have been damaged by coastal flooding, including those in Torcross. I am very aware that not all those asks are the responsibility of MHCLG, but I hope the Minister will relay them to colleagues in other Departments. I will close by making a broader point, because although this debate is about Start bay, it is also about something much larger. Communities the length of England’s coastline are facing versions of what Start bay is facing right now. From the Holderness coast in Yorkshire, where land is disappearing into the North sea faster than almost anywhere else in Europe, to the eroding cliffs of Norfolk and Suffolk, coastal communities are watching the ground literally shift beneath their feet. Many of them are already among the most socially and economically vulnerable in the country, and many feel forgotten. According to the EFRA Committee’s report, over 10,000 properties are at risk from coastal erosion in the next 80 years, as are 183 km of roads and 6 km of railway. If local authorities are to be able to manage the impacts of coastal erosion, they must be supported by the Government to carry out long-term strategic planning. What this Government do in response to the crisis in Start bay will be noticed far beyond South Devon. It will send a signal about whether coastal communities can expect a national Government to treat their situation with the seriousness it deserves, or whether they will continue to be managed at the margins and left to local authorities and agencies that are doing their very best with nowhere near enough support. The sea does not respect administrative boundaries, departmental silos or funding formulae designed for a different kind of emergency. It requires a response that is strategic, sustained and genuinely cross-governmental. The EFRA Committee has provided a road map, and the communities of Start bay have provided the urgent human case. What is needed now is the political will to act. The people of Torcross, Beesands, Hallsands and the wider Start bay are not asking for the sea to be stopped; they are asking for a Government who see them, who invest in them and who work with them to find a way forward. They are proud and resilient communities that deserve a response equal to the challenge they face, and so do coastal communities the length and breadth of this country.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Coastal Communities: Start Bay · Hansard source

  More

  Does the Minister accept that in such a cost-benefit analysis, there is also a cost of doing nothing? Maybe she could advise me if this is already the case. The cost of moving an entire community, with all the social and economic impact that has, is possibly much more than the cost of improving defences so that that community can stay put.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Coastal Communities: Start Bay · Hansard source

  More

  Something that came out in conversations that I had today was the complication of Torcross having assets that are owned by the Environment Agency and other assets, such as the road, that are owned by the council. There might also be third-party assets, such as quayside walls and other infrastructure. The complication of managing all the different agencies involved, alongside the complication of the MHCLG, DEFRA and the Department for Transport all having to work together, might suggest that we are reaching the point where the Government need to think about an office for climate change events or something like that; I do not know what we would call it, but we need to bring all those things together and for there to be oversight, because it is incredibly complicated to navigate this patchwork landscape of responsibility.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Every year, the UK loses £33.4 billion in tax revenue, as multinational corporations and the super-rich choose tax havens over tax payments. However, the UN tax convention has the potential to solve this problem, so will the Minister show leadership, not ambivalence, and commit to securing an ambitious UN tax convention in this Parliament?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Lady is being very generous with her time. In my constituency, several homes along the seafront were very badly damaged by storms in February, and as they cannot be lived in, the residents have been evacuated. Seafront protection, which is a responsibility of the Environment Agency, is key—particularly if those people are to live in their houses again—but the Environment Agency tells me that there is no emergency funding, and it cannot suddenly shore up the sea defences. The work would have to go through the normal process of allocation, and it might take up to two years before money can be allocated to improve the coastal defences in front of the houses of Torcross. For the people who have been moved out of their homes, that is an absolute disaster. Does she agree that, as we encounter more extreme weather events, the Environment Agency must be more flexible and nimble, and should be able to access funding quicker in order to shore up defences?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience · Hansard source

  More

  On the point about utility companies, we had a major gas outage in South Devon at the beginning of the year. We had a problem that is probably very familiar to MPs in Cornwall; the utility company could not trace who owned the second homes, because the homeowners were not there. As the utility company was working through an intermediary energy supplier, it did not have the data on who the customer was. That meant that the power was switched off for about three days, when it could have been switched off for only a few hours. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a serious problem in areas like ours, where there is a large proportion of second homes?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Extreme Climate and Weather Events: National Resilience · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Would the hon. Lady agree that the film-style age rating system that the Liberal Democrats have come up with speaks to exactly what she is saying? An app that allows children access to strangers or is built with an addictive algorithm, for example, would have a different age rating than something that is absolutely safe and gated, like a game, which could be rated safe for younger children.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, and to respond on behalf of my party to this debate on World Book Day. I commend the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for her excellent opening speech and for securing the debate. World Book Day gives us a wonderful opportunity to discuss the power of reading, and we have heard some wonderful contributions about favourite books, much-loved authors and the transformative effect of a special book. Arguably the most important of Labour’s five missions for Government is breaking down barriers to opportunity for disadvantaged children, improving social mobility and seeking to lift children out of poverty. An incredibly powerful and often overlooked way of progressing towards those goals is by ensuring that more children are reading for pleasure, especially in their early years. Research shows that young children whose parents read just one book a day to them will hear about 290,000 more words by age five than those who do not regularly read books with a parent. Consistent, early exposure to books, rather than just infrequent reading, is crucial for closing a vocabulary gap that can stunt a child’s prospects all the way through school. I hope that the Government’s support of family hubs will include a focus on educating parents about the importance of early reading, because it is crucial that all new parents are aware of the powerful, transformational difference that it can make to their children’s life chances. The Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, spoke passionately about the enormous value of shared reading between parents and very young children.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member’s contribution illustrates the draw of the smartphone, which is pulling children away from books—and it is not just children. I am sure many of us in this room are guilty of being addicted to the algorithm late at night, rather than going to bed early and reading a book. Finally, we need to pay more attention to the curriculum and how we teach English, especially in secondary school. For many, English has become a box-ticking exercise where students are taught to answer exam questions on specific books, rather than being given the space to foster a love of reading. We need children to read for pleasure, rather than being forced to trawl through the same books repeatedly in order to answer set questions for their GCSEs. It is no coincidence that rates of reading decline with age. Over twice as many children aged five to eight said they read something in their free time daily compared with those aged 11 to 14. We need space in our curriculum, especially in secondary schools, for reading for pleasure, which is why the Liberal Democrats are committed to a broader curriculum that makes genuine space for the arts and humanities and expands extracurricular enrichment, especially for disadvantaged children. That should include reading for pleasure. The Liberal Democrats believe that every child deserves an education rooted in curiosity, creativity and critical thinking. Reading sits at the heart of all of that—it opens doors, builds empathy and gives children the tools they need to thrive. Every child deserves the chance to find a book that changes their life, so let us celebrate World Book Day and all the other initiatives designed to get children and adults reading for pleasure. The opportunities, ideas, dreams and passions it can unlock are endless.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is absolutely right. When I was a rather frazzled single parent of two young children, I remember that my mum would sit calmly and quietly with the girls and read them stories when I did not have the headspace. It was a lovely thing to see, and they developed a very special bond. This week, we on the Education Committee have heard some powerful evidence from experts on reading. Reading to children exposes them to millions of words that differ substantially from everyday spoken language, as books contain a wider range of vocabulary, more complex sentence structures and richer narrative forms. Reading helps children to develop their own vocabulary that they can go on to use during their school years and beyond. Dr Jo Taylor, associate professor of language and cognition at University College London, explained to us how exposure to language leads to vocabulary development. There is also clear evidence that reading improves cognitive development, tuning an area of the brain that specialises in word processing. Several studies show that, alongside those developmental benefits, young people who develop the habit of reading in early childhood are likely to achieve higher qualifications and better upward social mobility later in life. An evidence review by BookTrust found that shared reading is consistently associated with stronger academic performance. By age 16, reading for pleasure is a much stronger predictor of progress in vocabulary, mathematics and spelling than parental educational attainment. Compared with their peers, disadvantaged children who achieve highly at the end of primary school are twice as likely to have been read to at home in their early years. Reading is such an important thing to do with young children. That evidence shows how vital it is for improving social mobility that we strongly encourage and educate parents to read to their children regularly, throughout the early years, and that we continue to push children to keep reading for pleasure throughout their childhood and into their adult lives. No opportunity is better than World Book Day to demonstrate to children the simple joy of reading. World Book Day is a wonderful reminder of the difference that reading can make in a child’s life, not just in the classroom but far beyond it. I commend the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) for her competition. I love the fact that she knows someone called Liam the librarian—he sounds like a character from a children’s book. Dressing up as a favourite book character is great fun for children. It is a fantastic way for them to bring their fantasies to life and to live, if only for a moment, the life of their favourite character. It is perhaps less enjoyed by the frazzled parents, and I think that World Book Day has the potential to become a bit of a competition about who has the best fancy dress costume, so I welcome the alternative approaches taken by some schools to avoid that, and welcome costume lending libraries. I clearly remember the horror of, the day before World Book Day, remembering that a costume was needed. I am very proud to say that my younger daughter is now a professional costume maker in film, trained at a very early age by her disappointment in her mother’s attempts. She would begin deliberating about her World Book Day costume weeks before the event. Although I am biased, I have to say that her costume of Effie Trinket, from “The Hunger Games”, was quite phenomenal. So, for all those parents who did not manage it this year there could be an upside. Beyond the fancy dress, it is important that we remember what World Book Day is really about: reading. That is especially so this year, the National Year of Reading. The current state of children’s reading in this country is deeply concerning. We heard a lot of evidence about that in today’s debate. Reading rates are plummeting: the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey found that in 2025 the percentage of children and young people who said that they enjoy reading was at its lowest level in 20 years. Just under a third of children aged eight to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in their free time last year—that is a shocking decrease of 36% over the last 20 years—and less than a fifth of eight to 18-year-olds said that they read something daily in their free time last year. As hon. Members have discussed, there is a noticeable gendered aspect to the decline in the love for reading. Some 39.8% of girls aged eight to 18 said that they enjoy reading, compared with just a quarter of boys. That gap has expanded massively in recent years. It is also important to note that in 2020, research by the National Literacy Trust found that children and young people from minority ethnic groups, particularly those from black ethnic backgrounds, reported that they did not see themselves in what they read. It is far harder for children from such groups to find pleasure in reading when they struggle to find a book that they can relate to, or feel a cultural connection with. This week in the Education Committee we heard that that might have as much to do with the marketing of books, and with the industry, as with anything else. How do we address the concerning trend of reading rates that continue to fall? As we have heard, libraries are a good place to start. The importance of a child having the opportunity to choose any book they like and take it home for free cannot be overestimated, especially for those who cannot afford to buy new books. Access to books is a key issue for disadvantaged children. The National Literacy Trust’s research found that one in 10 children and young people reported having no books of their own at home, rising to one in six for those who receive free school meals. That is why the Liberal Democrats would fund additional library opening hours as part of our commitment to hobby hubs—community third spaces where people can gather and enjoy hobbies, including reading. We would encourage children to utilise these spaces, providing access and opportunity for them to read more. It is a sad fact that Libraries Unlimited in Devon has just had to declare that it can no longer sustain the opening hours of our much-loved libraries as they are, due to the chronic and sustained underfunding of local authorities like Devon county council over the past decade or so. I am pleased that my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Devon have just committed an extra £1 million to help libraries transition to a more sustainable footing, although that will have to rely on volunteers as well as paid staff—and it should not have to be that way. I am really encouraged by the extraordinary response to my colleagues’ consultation, showing just how important libraries are to the people of Devon, who are clearly readers. We have an astounding array of bookshops in my constituency, and I commend everyone in the East Gate Bookshop, Castle Books, Oxfam Bookshop, the Harbour Bookshop, Another Chapter, Browser Books and Dartmouth Community Bookshop—I hope I have not forgotten any. Additionally, like public libraries, libraries in schools need proper resourcing, and school librarians need training to encourage children to find books that will light a spark for them. Reading for pleasure means that children need to find something that they genuinely enjoy reading, so on this World Book Day I welcome the Government’s ambition to have a library in every primary school by the end of the Parliament. I hope the Minister can set out how the Government will invest specifically in school libraries, including all those that already exist, to ensure that children have access to books and support with fostering a love for reading, especially children with SEND, who may find reading more of a challenge but can still enjoy it. When trying to explain the recent decline in reading rates, we cannot ignore the recent increase in recreational screen use. Children are being engrossed by addictive algorithms, swiping through TikTok rather than investing time and attention in a book. That is why the Government’s campaign to increase the number of children reading for pleasure must be accompanied by stronger measures to crack down on addictive social media platforms and children using phones in schools. That should start with legislating to introduce film-style age ratings for social media platforms that use addictive algorithms, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats, and legislating to ban smartphones from all school premises.

• 5 Mar 2026 · World Book Day · Hansard source

  More

  Communal groups where children can read together and parents can be encouraged can really boost a parent’s confidence in their ability to share a book with their child, because some parents to do not feel as confident reading as others do. Last Friday night, I had the pleasure of reading “The Gruffalo” to my 18-month-old grandson. It was the first time that I have sat and read him a bedtime story, so I am starting again that long journey of reading to children, which ended with my eldest daughter after the fifth “Harry Potter” book, at which point I said, “No more,” and that she would have to read the last two on her own.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Coastal erosion has caused immense damage in South Devon to homes, businesses and a vital A road. The impact of winter storms this year illustrates the need for joined-up thinking in Government and for support for local government in coping financially with the eye-watering costs of repair. Can we have a debate in Government time about the need for a cross-departmental coastal erosion unit that brings together all the necessary parts of Government to respond in a co-ordinated way to events such as these, which have left one of my communities completely battered?

• 4 Mar 2026 · NHS Capital Spending · Hansard source

  More

  Medical devices and equipment are increasingly becoming pressure points as trusts rely on ageing, life-expired kit. Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust has had fantastic results in bowel surgery from a free trial of a robotic surgery system that it was offered, but it cannot afford to buy the system because it has to replace other equipment that is on its last legs. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister should set out how the Government will ensure that NHS capital policy supports not just buildings and maintenance backlogs, but clinical equipment and the technology needed to deliver safe, high-quality, innovative care for patients?

• 3 Mar 2026 · West Bank: Illegal Settlements · Hansard source

  More

  Last year, the Israeli Government issued nearly 10,000 units of settlement housing tenders, which was more than the combined total of tenders over the previous six years. The extremists in Netanyahu’s Cabinet clearly have the explicit intention of undermining any prospect of a viable Palestinian state, let alone a two-state solution. The Minister said that he condemns the expansion and is considering actions to take, but will he do the right thing now and introduce a full ban on all trade with illegal settlements in the west bank, to show that this Government are truly committed to pursuing a two-state solution?

• 3 Mar 2026 · West Bank: Illegal Settlements · Hansard source

  More

  21. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that, as our electoral system fractures into a multi-party system—we have traditionally had a system involving two parties in this country—there is a massive missed opportunity to use the Bill to introduce a commission that could bring forward a proportional voting system? That would ensure that we never again had a Government who won 62% of seats with only 34% of the vote.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 2 Mar 2026 · National Year of Reading: Phonics · Hansard source

  More

  Reading daily to young children is shown to have a direct correlation with better outcomes, qualifications and social mobility later in life. Just one book a day means a child will hear approximately 300,000 more words by the age of five than those who are not regularly read to. However, many parents are not aware of this, so as part of the National Year of Reading, have the Government given any consideration to repeating the success of “Clunk Click Every Trip” and running a national advertising campaign to promote directly to new parents the need and the value of reading to their children every day?

• 26 Feb 2026 · Bereaved Children: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; I could not agree more. In 2017, it all changed: the previous Conservative Government replaced the widowed parent’s allowance with the bereavement support payment—an 18-month flat-rate payment paid regardless of the child’s age. That decision drew cross-party criticism and was opposed at the time by us, the SNP and Labour MPs. It severed the historical link between national insurance contributions and long-term family protection. It created measurable disadvantage for widowed parents and bereaved children. The bereavement support payment has not been uprated since it was introduced, and it remains at 2011 figures. The very minimum we are asking for today is for the Government to uprate it in line with inflation, and I ask the Minister to respond to this call. However, I want to see the Government go further and consider calls from campaigning organisations, such as WAY, to reinstate a bereavement payment that lasts until children leave school, to iron out the disadvantage that children are under from the moment they lose a parent. Grief does not last 18 months; bereavement lasts a lifetime, and for children it comes back again and again in huge, destabilising waves every time they reach a different stage of growth and understanding of what death really means. Believe me, you have to keep going through it again and again as they get older, explaining exactly what death means—“No, he’s not coming back”—what they did to his body, and all that stuff. It goes on right the way to adulthood. Parents navigate this through a child’s life. Adding the extra strain of financial worries on to a widowed parent makes a difficult job far harder and puts a bereaved child into an even more dangerous place. Lucy from West Sussex is 31 and a teacher. Her husband died aged 36 from sudden adult death syndrome in January 2023—out of the blue, with no warning. Her children were nine, six and three when their dad died. She said: “Losing one income overnight has a huge knock-on effect. Combined with rising living costs, there are times I genuinely struggled to afford food. I always made sure my children ate, but that often meant skipping meals myself or relying on the cheapest food just to get through the week. I’ve had to use food banks. Even now those payments would still make a meaningful difference to us as a family—not as a luxury, but as support that recognises what has been lost and what continues long after the funeral.” We know that poverty is directly linked to poorer life chances, reduced attainment in school and more vulnerability to harms, and there is a societal impact to this too. Taking it to its very extreme, there is an association between bereavement and negative outcomes, so it is perhaps unsurprising that bereavement is prevalent among people in custody. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has reported that 41% of young offenders have experienced the death of a parent as a child— a rate significantly higher than for the general population. Other research shows that up to 90% of young men aged 16 to 20 in specific institutions have suffered at least one bereavement, with many experiencing multiple traumatic losses. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North East said, we do not do grief well in this country. It is still often something to be brushed under the carpet. I know from my personal experience that it makes people embarrassed and awkward. It is something to be avoided, not talked about. We desperately need grief education, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West said, because it could be transformational. On top of our financial calls on the Government today, we support the Winston’s Wish “Ask Me” campaign to make nurseries, schools, colleges and universities places where grieving students feel seen, understood and supported. Right now, at least one child or young person in every classroom across the UK is grieving the death of a parent or sibling, and 72% of students who were bereaved while in education said that they had never been asked what support they need. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West said, they need to be asked, “What do you need, and how can we support you?” I remember vividly having to go through the story of my children’s bereavement again and again with different teachers every time they moved up in school or moved to a new school, to make sure they were aware that the children had lost their dad when they were very young. I often felt that the teachers just did not understand the impact, or how the loss could manifest itself at different ages as they grew. Emmeline told me that her brother died aged 10 after a long illness. She said: “I was 11 and my sister was 13. We said goodbye to him in the hospital, but it didn’t feel real, and when he died, we had so many unanswered questions that we didn’t feel able to ask for fear of upsetting our already grief-stricken parents. Although family members, teachers and our friends were kind to us, we weren’t offered counselling or professional support—I doubt it existed then—but in hindsight, this was something we really needed. I had struggled with the grief for years and as an adult sought counselling to unravel those feelings, to learn how to cope with them when they resurfaced and understand the impact losing my brother had on me.” The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) referred to that in his very powerful speech. “I am sure had this help been available when I was younger, I would have been able to express my grief more openly and come to terms with it much earlier. I can completely see how losing a close family member could negatively change the course of a child’s life and in some cases, impact society itself.” For people who work with children as teachers, care workers, youth leaders or wellbeing professionals, understanding developmental grief is essential. Grief is not rare; it is a common childhood experience that shapes how children see themselves and the world. I know that we are asking a lot of schools at the moment, with big changes on the horizon once again, but it is a small but absolutely fundamental ask of nurseries and schools to take the time to understand how grief affects children and how they can be supported. Schools must have the tools to signpost families to support organisations. I absolutely agree with the calls for data to be collected on how many children have suffered such bereavements, which could be done through registrar offices. Until we understand the problem, we cannot begin to fix it. I was going to ask the Minister to talk to the Department for Education—I was not sure who would respond to the debate—but he is from the Department for Education. Can we discuss how to implement better understanding of developmental grief across the education lifetime, and find a way to collect data through registrar services? Will he talk with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about uprating bereavement support payments in line with inflation, and begin the conversation about reinstating a bereavement payment that lasts until children leave school, in order to give them the best chance of overcoming the impact of the death of a parent? Bereavement is a long, complicated and difficult journey. Members can see that, even after 23 years, it is still very, very real for me. Adding financial hardship to that journey is unjust and discriminatory, and it is time that it ended.

• 26 Feb 2026 · Bereaved Children: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for her powerful speech introducing the debate and for all her work on this subject. It is normal in debates in this Chamber to bring the stories of our constituents to illustrate the issue, but today I am going to share my story as well. In 2002, I had a five-month-old baby and a two-year-old toddler, and my beloved husband was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer. A year later, he died, just a week before Ellie’s fourth birthday and Laura was 17 months old. You cannot explain to a baby or a four-year-old what death means. One day their parent is there, the next he is gone. I remember Laura, who had just learned to say the word “Dadda”, going round the house opening the doors, going “Dadda, Dadda”, because she could not find him. I did not really know anything about the impact of bereavement on children, but in the last 20 years, I have learned quite a lot. In the UK, around 120 children are bereaved of a parent every day— [ Interruption . ]

• 26 Feb 2026 · Bereaved Children: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. In the UK, around 120 children are bereaved of a parent every day. By age 16, approximately one in 20 young people in the UK will have experienced the death of a parent. I became the chair of the Widowed and Young organisation and met loads of kids and their parents through that work, many of whom I am still friends with today. I saw the impact on scores of children who had lost their mum or dad. Thousands more in the UK have lost a sibling, which is also a profound grief for children, which is little understood. I saw these children grow up and adjust to their lost; the progress they made and then the setbacks; the challenges with attachment, loss, fear and abandonment; the issues with friendships and relationships; struggles with school; dangerous coping mechanisms and risk-taking in teenage years; mental health challenges; anger; intense emotions and anxiety. Just for the sake of my daughters, that is not all related to them. While children are navigating all of that, the challenge of becoming a single parent at exactly the same moment that you are bereaved cannot be overstated, and that is compounded exponentially when the bereavement is sudden and unexpected. The day my husband died, my children came home from nursery and needed me to be the same reliable, loving, stable mum they knew—up at 7 the next day needing their breakfast, and so it went on. There is not much time to navigate your own grief in all of that. On top of that is the loss of income. The challenge of holding down a job, bringing in a wage, while being a grieving single parent to grieving children is immense, as are the unaffordable costs of childcare that enable you to go to work at all. But in a way, I was lucky, because I was bereaved before 2017 and I received the widowed parent’s allowance—a payment that was funded by the national insurance contributions that my husband Nick had made during 20 years of full-time work, contributions designed to pay into a system that is meant to pay out when needed. He will never receive a state pension. What difference did the widowed parent’s allowance make? It made all the difference. It allowed me to work part time. It allowed me to be present for my children, to help keep them stable while the world around them felt unsafe and scary. It made a part-time income go further. It helped pay for childcare and a few out-of-school activities so my children could live the same life as their peers. It also helped pay for the holiday clubs that they had no choice but to go to so that I could go to work —and they did not always want to.