Charlie Maynard MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for speaking on behalf of the petitioners, and I thank the petitioners, who are in the Public Gallery today, for all the work they have done. A particular shout out goes to Sarah—I am thinking of Jess. The issue is not rare. In my constituency alone, Claire in Appleton lost her husband, William, while Stevie in Appleton lost her dad Bubba a month ago tomorrow. In Farmoor, Cumnor and Besselsleigh, three people are fighting for their lives, including my sister, Georgie. Her courage and determination has been fantastic. I want to focus on a few things. First, I want to advocate for flash frozen tissue nationally, on a mandatory basis. The genetic code in those tumours is the key to solving that cancer and fighting it. At the moment, we are taking a lot of those tumours out and putting them in the bin. That is killing people. If we had a mandatory focus on that at scale, it would be more possible economically, in addition to our moral duty to keep everybody alive for much longer. We should try to push towards that, so that we have whole-genome sequencing of those tumours. That is key to making the UK a leader, and it would drive a lot of research funds into the UK. I ask the Minister to consider that. I have another request for the Minister. There is no single accountable lead for brain cancer now. Thanks to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), the Rare Cancers Act 2026 introduced a lead, which is equivalent to 0.1 full-time employee. The national cancer plan has put £5,000 towards a lead. Getting a rare cancer lead who is full time and fully accountable would be a great help.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  On the fully accountable lead, there are two positions: one has £5,000 in funding and one is 0.1 of a full-time employee. Will the Minister commit to one person who is fully funded and fully accountable, please?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Performance · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg, and I thank the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) for securing this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for highlighting all the impacts on their constituents, in the form of missed medical appointments, financial appointments or legal appointments. Exactly the same is true in my Witney constituency. Obviously, I speak for the whole Chamber; we are all getting correspondence about this issue in our mailbox, because it is causing so much trouble. The other thing that has come out so strongly in this debate is the stress, the distrust and the unfairness that the posties themselves have to live with. That situation causes a huge amount of unhappiness, but there seems to be no end to it in sight, which is a real problem. The turnover rate of new Royal Mail employees is extremely high and the work practices are harsh. Yet we rely on our local posties, and almost without exception they take their responsibilities extremely seriously. I will give a particular shout out to my postie, Tony, who on Christmas eve worked way beyond his scheduled hours. He should not have had to do that and should have been paid for it. However, he is representative of everybody working for Royal Mail around the country, and that situation does not just happen on Christmas eve; it happens week in, week out. The work practices are just getting tougher and tougher. That comes out in the latest quarterly report, which makes for miserable reading. For example, delivery targets were not met in a single postcode across the first three quarters of 2025-26. In Oxfordshire, just 67.2% of first-class mail arrived, against the target of 93%. In October 2025, Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million, saying that it urgently needed an improvement plan. However, five months later Royal Mail is still saying that it cannot publish that plan until talks with the postal workers union—the CWU—conclude. All the while, our constituents and our posties are left paying more and suffering more for an inadequate and wholly unreliable service.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. The situation I described is obviously cruel, and this moving of the goalposts will make it miles crueller. To the point made by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I really hope that the Minister is reading the room, because the country is up in arms about the proposed change, and we should not allow it to be made. I ask him to reconsider.

• 21 Jan 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will let it pass from here. Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  My apologies, Ms Ghani.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend. [ Interruption. ] Would you like to intervene?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend— [ Interruption. ] People might be joking about it, but our reputation as a country matters. That is why people invest in our country, and that is why traditionally our debt prices have been low. When we self-sabotage, we pay for it not just for a few weeks or months but for years, and we are paying for it now.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. We want to back— [ Interruption. ] It was unquestionably a disaster for our ratings—I will happily give the right hon. Gentleman that—and I do not want the Government to break their promises. That is absolutely right and correct.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  I have already said this, and will say it again: I absolutely—and I speak on behalf of my colleagues—expect the Chancellor to stand by her promises.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent .

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  If hon. or right hon. Members would like to intervene, will they please do so?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member acknowledge that debt has risen from £0.5 trillion to £2.9 trillion from 2005 to 2026, forecast to March? That is nearly six times as much, and the great majority of that happened under the Conservatives’ watch. Yes, we can talk about covid, but covid is a very small portion of that—about £0.7 trillion—so what about the rest of it? Is anyone going to take any responsibility for that?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Alcohol Duty: UK Wine Sector · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Financial Transparency: Overseas Territories · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Qatar: Israeli Strike · Hansard source

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  And sea?