Cat Smith MP: speeches 2025

52 published records · newest first.

Speeches

16 Dec 2025 · Quarries: Planning Policy · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point—it does have an economic impact on the area. Preesall is located in a beautiful corner of Lancashire, with the Wyre estuary on one side and Morecambe bay on the other. Who will want to visit this beauty corner of Lancashire if the landscape is littered with quarries? It will have an impact on our tourism offer. All in all, this issue is concerning to my local residents, and I want to put those concerns on record today. I thank the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa); I know he has been pursuing this debate for a long time. When I supported his application to the Backbench Business Committee, I was unsure where my local application would end up. While I hope this is the end of it for my constituents, the reality is that we do not know. Current planning applications for quarries are not fit for purpose.
16 Dec 2025 · Quarries: Planning Policy · Hansard source
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Thank you for squeezing me in, Dr Murrison. In the limited time that I have, I want to put on record that the experiences of my constituents in Preesall are echoed by communities right across the country, as we have heard in the debate. Preesall saw a proposal for a quarry to extract sand and gravel. Thankfully, we are in a similar situation to that of the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), as the quarry application has been turned down, but we are now waiting to see whether the developer will appeal. The community feels that it has all the necessary arguments on HGV movements on narrow country lanes and health data from the Over Wyre Medical Centre on the proportion of residents with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, who could be adversely affected. The proposed quarry site is within a kilometre of a primary school, and there is another school just 2 km away. We know that when children’s lungs are developing, they are more vulnerable to the kind of things that will be floating around in the atmosphere, with the potential health implications. The health issues combine with having HGVs on narrow country roads and the implications of unstable ground and an area historically associated with localised flooding.
26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source
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Follow that, I suppose! I cannot promise the same level of entertaining enthusiasm as the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) as I rise to speak on today’s Budget. I want to start by talking about the cost of living, which is my constituents’ major concern. When I have been speaking to them ahead of this Budget, it is the thing they have most wanted me to raise. I therefore welcome the really good measures that cut the cost of living, including the £150 off energy bills, the freezing of NHS prescription charges, and, for the first time in 30 years, the freeze on rail fares alongside the cap on bus fares, which will make a huge difference to people’s commutes. I welcome the fact that the national minimum wage and the national living wage will rise, giving full-time workers a gross annual earnings increase of £900. One of my biggest asks of this Budget was the alleviation of the two-child limit. Basically, I became involved in politics because I want to eradicate child poverty, so the measures in the Budget to lift these children out of poverty are hugely welcome. The decisions by the last Government, which pushed more than half a million children into poverty, were a disgrace. I am pleased that this Labour Government are reversing that damage.
26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to put on record my thanks to North Lancashire Citizens Advice. We frequently end up referring constituents to Citizens Advice, and I thank its volunteers for all their work to support my constituents and those of my hon. Friend. I do not buy into the idea that those who are in need of state support are in any way irresponsible or on the take. The real scandal in our country is the number of parents who are in work and in poverty. I do not believe it is ever morally right to punish a child for the decisions and choices of their parents, because that was the reality of the two-child benefit cap and its subsequent rape clause, which was abhorrent. I am pleased that in my constituency of Lancaster and Wyre, the ending of the cap is expected to benefit around 1,550 children, who will be lifted out of poverty because of the measures in this Budget. That, alongside the expansion of breakfast clubs, such as the one at Grosvenor Park primary school, will go a long way towards transforming the life chances of children in my constituency. One very small part of the Budget that is close to my heart is playgrounds. So far in this debate no one has mentioned the £18 million for playgrounds, but that money is incredibly important. The public space that we give to our children shows them how much we value them. If we value our youngest citizens, we should invest in playgrounds. I very much hope that Lancaster city council will receive some of this money. If it does, I will certainly be putting in a good pitch for the Ridge estate’s playground, which is in desperate need of refurbishment. I have also been contacted ahead of the Budget by pensioners in my constituency who are understandably, like everybody, concerned about rising bills. I hope that they welcome today’s announcement of the 4.8% increase in the state pension.
26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source
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I am absolutely delighted for my hon. Friend’s mother. Will he please pass on my best regards? It is not just the state pension increase, but the decision to restore the winter fuel allowance, that ensures that pensioners get the support they need. Will our Treasury Front-Bench team look at other measures to support low-income pensioners in particular, such as a national social tariff for water or enhancing the warm home discount scheme? I represent many farmers, and I was listening carefully to the announcements today. I really do welcome the agricultural property relief now allowing 100% of that rate relief to be transferable between spouses. I am keen to continue working with Treasury Ministers to ensure that we can protect local family farms, because I feel that the thresholds are not quite in the right place yet. While I welcome today’s announcements, I am sure that many other rural MPs will also continue the dialogue with Ministers on this issue. I ask the Government to commit themselves to looking into the CenTax proposals, which would return the burden to those with the broadest shoulders—the large passive investors and the non-farming landowners, rather than our small family farms in Lancaster and Wyre. That is very much in line with our Labour values. I was very pleased to hear the announcements about infected blood, but as an MP who has been very active in respect of another medical scandal—as I know you have, Madam Deputy Speaker—I urge the Government not to forget those who have been harmed by sodium valproate. It is nearly two years since the Patient Safety Commissioner presented her report on redress, and the families are continuing to wait. It would be remiss of me not to mention them today, and I hope that in the next Budget we can hear some welcome news for those who have campaigned for justice for many decades, while supporting their disabled children. This scandal dates to the 1970s, and I hope it will be this Government who can put things right. I must now declare my interest as someone who is quite partial to a milkshake—although I do acknowledge that they are packed full of sugar, so I am fine with the extension of the sugar tax to my much-loved milkshakes. However, I want to ask a question about a drink that kills tens of thousands of people every year. In 2023 there were 22,644 alcohol-related deaths in England alone; the rates are going up year on year, and have been spiking since covid. The Government could, of course, tax the industry in a way that would enable the money to be put back into supporting those with addiction and reducing alcohol harms—not just the health harms, but the societal impacts as well. According to research findings published in the last few months by the Alcohol Health Alliance, the Government could generate £3.4 billion over five years by introducing an alcohol duty escalator—a mechanism that would automatically raise the price of non-draught alcohol by 2% above inflation every year. That would also help to narrow the price gap between pubs and other hospitality venues and the supermarkets, where more alcohol is now being bought. Given the widespread evidence that supermarket-bought alcohol is the primary cause of alcohol harms, narrowing the price gap could also reduce those. I realise that the Government have had to put our public finances on a more sustainable footing owing to the global uncertainty and the irresponsible decisions made by the last Government, but I have had had many emails from and conversations with my constituents about the issue of wealth taxes. The measures that they have been advocating include a wealth tax of 2% on assets amounting to more than £10 million, reforms of existing taxes such as capital gains tax, and closing the tax gap by properly funding and resourcing HMRC to enable it to tackle tax abuse. I want to allow time for other speakers, so I will just say this in conclusion. I became active in politics because I wanted to fight poverty in my community and in my country. I am really pleased to be able to support this Budget, because lifting the two-child cap and the subsequent rape clause will make a huge difference to my constituents, and to all our constituents. This is a Budget that is anti-poverty and pro-children, and that is surely something we can all get behind.
25 Nov 2025 · Hughes Report · Hansard source
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I welcome the new Minister to his post. I have been campaigning on this issue for 10 years, and I have a stack of letters and answers to written parliamentary questions that say things like “in due course” and “the Government are considering”. On behalf of a group of people who have been gaslit by the medical profession, will the Minister step up and be the Minister who ensures that these families, who are victims of the sodium valproate scandal, actually see the redress that they absolutely deserve? Will he make sure that they get a meeting with him at the earliest opportunity?
25 Nov 2025 · Hughes Report · Hansard source
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11. If he will set out a timeline for responding to the Hughes report, published on 7 February 2024.
24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McVey, and to be able to speak in this e-petition debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) on her opening of today’s debate. As the former Chair of the Petitions Committee, I know that the e-petition system engages so many of our constituents and gives us the opportunity to talk about the issues that matter to them. With nearly 200,000 people having signed this e-petition, it is clearly a very good example of the Petitions Committee acting at its best and giving us the opportunity to talk about the things that matter to our constituents. This petition was signed by 278 of my constituents, but in the last two years I have had contact from well over 1,000 of my constituents on this issue, and that says to me that it engages, energises and impassions them. They see on their TV screens the suffering in Gaza and they want us, as parliamentarians, to do something about it. I place on the record my thanks to the many constituents who do not just contact me as their Member of Parliament about this issue, but regularly go out and fundraise. My constituents have raised money for various humanitarian charities through fundraising activities, concerts and regular collections right across Lancaster and Wyre, and many of them will be following this evening’s debate. In fact, I was so inspired by them and by the scenes, and the accounts that we get from aid workers, on the ground in Gaza that I signed up to run the Great Scottish Run in October of this year, and I raised £5,174 for Medical Aid for Palestinians. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Thank you. Shortly after completing that run—I place on the record my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I had the opportunity, with the all-party parliamentary group on Christianity in the Holy Land, of which I am a vice chair, to visit the Holy Land and meet Christian organisations. I will keep my remarks short, because I broadly agree with so much of what has already been said about access to humanitarian aid. I want to talk specifically about something that has not yet been touched on as much, which is the way in which the Christian community in Gaza has been impacted by events. The Holy Family church in Gaza was struck in July of this year. That killed three people who were sheltering there and injured 10 more. Following that attack, Patriarch Theophilos III and Cardinal Pizzaballa visited the churches in solidarity with the communities on the ground. On the all-party group delegation visit earlier this autumn, we had the opportunity to meet church leaders in Jerusalem. We heard from them about the relationships they are trying to maintain with the Christian churches in Gaza, and how that is so challenging because of the ongoing war. All three of the Christian sites—the Holy Family church, St Porphyrius and the al-Ahli hospital—have been damaged multiple times since the start of the year. We know that around 600 Christians continue to shelter in the two churches. While there has been an uptick in humanitarian support since the ceasefire came into effect in October this year, it is still small, and the community continues to suffer and to have difficulty accessing the absolute basics, as colleagues have touched on. Very briefly, I call upon the Minister and the Government to hold relevant actors to account to ensure that the current ceasefire is bolstered, supported and maintained, and that an adequate flow of aid reaches local people in Gaza. I implore all parties to explore opportunities to offer economic support for rebuilding church-run hospitals, schools and charities, and to secure access to Gaza for the heads of churches. As I mentioned earlier, that has not always been easy for them. We must ensure that all Governments engage constructively with the churches as a partner in the interfaith dialogue that was put forward in point 18 of Trump’s peace plan. Although the Christian community is a minority community, it still has an important and significant role in the ongoing and long-standing peace in the region. Finally, I ask the Minister what pressure he is putting on Israel to allow journalists into Gaza, because without journalists on the ground it is very difficult to know the full extent of what is going on. They are, of course, the eyes of the world, and we need free, unimpeded reporting about what is happening in Gaza. With that, I draw my remarks to a close and thank all those who have signed the e-petition and given us the opportunity to put on record our concerns about the situation in Gaza. [Dawn Butler in the Chair ]
18 Nov 2025 · Vale View Day Centre, Lancaster · Hansard source
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I rise to present a petition about the Vale View day centre in Lancaster, which Lancashire county council is consulting on closing. I have met clients and their families, who all tell me what a fantastic job the manager, Emma, and her amazing team do. They offer clients an amazing experience, wholesome activities and exciting days out. The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to make representations to Lancashire County Council to protect users of adult social care in Lancashire, and encourage the Council not to close Vale View Day Centre.”
15 Oct 2025 · Jhoots Pharmacy · Hansard source
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Jhoots pharmacy moved into the village of Knott End in 2023, and it was not long before constituents were getting in touch with me to explain that they could not access their prescriptions because pharmacies were closed and unreliable. We do have the very good Over Wyre medical centre, which has dispensing rights, but it is restrained by the one-mile rule, which means that it cannot dispense prescriptions within one mile of a pharmacy, whether that is open or closed. I feel like we are in a Catch-22 situation. What help can the Minister give my constituents to ensure that those who are within one mile of the Jhoots pharmacy that is never open can access their prescriptions from the dispensing Over Wyre medical centre?
14 Oct 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source
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As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on Christianity in the holy land, I was fortunate enough to be on a delegation in Jerusalem and the west bank last week, and it was clear to our delegation from speaking to Palestinian Christians that they are delivering hospitals and schools for Palestinian communities. Given that education and healthcare are a key part of long-term peace, what conversations are the Government having with the Christian community in Israel and Palestine to ensure that they are part of the conversation as well?
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I will take another.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I very much agree.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I agree with my hon. Friend; I will address that point later in my speech.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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Absolutely. Those clinical guidelines need to change, and I will address that later in my speech.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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The lack of services across the UK is part of my speech; I look forward to discussing it.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of support for people with postural tachycardia syndrome. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Sir Desmond. I am grateful for this opportunity to look at a health issue that is often overlooked, misunderstood and under-resourced within our national health service: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or PoTS for short. It is not a rare disease, yet for too long people living with PoTS have fallen through the cracks of a system that was never designed to recognise or support them. My notes are based on the heartbreaking reality faced by my constituents and the tens of thousands of people across the UK who have PoTS. I must declare, Sir Desmond, that I have had a diagnosis of PoTS since 2012, so some of what I will say is taken from my own experience as well.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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The hon. and learned Gentleman has picked up on a theme later in my speech, which I hope he will enjoy.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I recognise that a lot of hon. Members are here for this debate, more than I have ever seen for a 30-minute debate before. Hopefully, next time I make an application, I might be granted a bit more time. I am happy to take early interventions from colleagues, if anyone wants to make them.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I will address that issue in my speech too.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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There is a particular crisis in London, which I will address later in my speech and which my hon. Friend might be very interested in.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I very much agree.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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I very much agree.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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Absolutely; that is a very good point. When someone is not believed by medical professionals for so long, it can affect their mental health—I recognise that.
14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source
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Absolutely—I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I very much agree with him.

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