Charlotte Cane MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am an East Cambridgeshire district councillor—a district council that erroneously boasts of being debt free because it sold its housing stock many years ago, and that criticises the other district council in my constituency, South Cambridgeshire, and indeed Cambridge city, for having major debts, without mentioning that those councils have retained their council houses, built more, and continue to build more. I agree with the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) that we have to address that. Average house prices in my constituency are about 10 times the average salary, and the average rent is over £1,000 a month, so it is not surprising that a lot of emails in my inbox are about social housing need. I have had people in my surgeries in tears because they cannot get a decent home for their family. We must build more council houses; I support that. I would like the Minister to consider rural areas carefully. In such areas, we might be able to accommodate only two or three units, but we really do need them. It is not just a case of building large quantities in the bigger towns; we need a good mix of council housing, including larger houses for larger families, and bungalows for people who are getting older and want to downsize. We also need to make sure that the houses that we have are in really good condition. I really welcome the warm homes social housing fund, which is helping many of my constituents to replace their oil-fired boilers with air source heat pumps, but I wonder if there could be a similar sort of grant to bring those houses up to a good standard. Many of them were built in the ’20s and ’30s, and were then very poorly insulated around the ’70s, which added to the damp problems. Addressing those problems is a huge cost for social housing providers. As we have heard, when those houses become empty, because the providers cannot make the figures stack up—the cost of the repairs versus the future income stream from rent—they sell the houses in the private sector. Some of those houses are in my villages, where we already do not have anything like enough social houses. Providers really need financial help to bring that stock up to a decent standard. People are also worried about shared ownership. They feel trapped into paying very high service charges that they cannot afford, but when they try to sell their property, potential buyers see the charges and pull out of the sale. I am glad that the Government will review that.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

  More

  I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a district councillor on East Cambs district council. The residents of Ely and East Cambridgeshire will be relieved that they are not going to have the wrong unitary imposed on them, but they will be worried about the chaos and uncertainty that we have heard about, and about what happens next and when. What is the remit of the review? How is it going to be run to ensure that local people get their voices heard? And what is the real timetable? “As quickly as possible” and “at pace” are all great, but what is the actual timetable? Also, the Secretary of State appeared to say that May’s elections would be held on the existing district council boundaries unless the unitaries were in place by then. What did she mean by that?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I absolutely agree. The single patient record is so important to make the NHS work efficiently and effectively, and to help it treat patients better. To achieve that, patients have to trust that the data is being well protected, and I am afraid that a lot of the people I talk to, including GPs—who are obviously critical in convincing patients that Palantir is safe—do not trust it. We have to pull out of the contract with Palantir. Will the Minister please consider that, please consider the issues faced by rural areas, and please, please, please get us some NHS dentists in Ely and East Cambridgeshire?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

  More

  In my constituency, only 40% of adults have seen a dentist in the past two years, and only 54% of children have seen one in the last year. The impact of that is that 12.5% of children in East Cambridgeshire have tooth decay by the age of five. We are in a dental desert, and it is incredibly difficult to get an NHS dentist appointment. When I talk to the dentists, the most frustrating thing is that it is the contract that prevents them from treating people, not their intentions. The contract is based on units of treatment. For example, dentists tell me that if they do one filling, they just about cover their cost for the unit they get paid for. That unit covers up to three fillings, however, and at three fillings they are making a loss. Even more frustrating is that they get allocated units at the beginning of the year. Once they have used them all, they can get no more; yet they are aware that other local dentists have not used all their units by the end of the year, and they hand them back. Why is there no mechanism whereby those units can be given to dentists who have the capacity to do more work, so that more people can be treated? It is really frustrating to know that my constituents are struggling without a dentist, and that there are dentists in my constituency who are willing to treat them but cannot get funding to do that from the NHS. It is utterly shocking. That is why I support new clause 18 and other amendments that seek to make dentistry more available to people.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate. When Dad died a few years ago, I was able to go with Mum to our local bank branch to deal with all the issues that come from a bereavement. Subsequently, Barclays has closed that branch in Ely and its branch in Newmarket. That means that the residents of Ely and East Cambs no longer have that facility available to them. I am grateful that Barclays has opened a hub in Ely, but it does not provide all the services that a bank used to. I have a lot of farmers in my constituency. They need a bank branch that understands their business, the ebb and flow of their cash flow, and, in a summer like this one, the extra pressures that their businesses are under. We heard from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) that when he came back from Spain he was able to deposit a cheque online. Community groups cannot do that. As they have two signatories, they have to go to a bank or post office to deposit cheques. I heard on Sunday from someone who had gone in to pay some cash from his community group. The post office refused to take the Scottish notes, as many of my Scottish colleagues will have experienced, no doubt—that is a problem as well. As we have heard from everyone, Link just looks at access to cash. That is not the real problem any more; it is about access to that wide range of banking services.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  I agree. As we have heard already, bank scams are a real nightmare for people. If people can go into their local branch and talk to people who know them, they are much better protected against online scams. I am afraid that we have basically advised my mum not to do online banking, and not to click on any links, unless one of us is with her, because there is too much risk. If there were a local branch, things would be so much better. I call on the Minister to seriously consider widening Link’s remit so that it looks at the wider range of banking services and we can keep them in our various constituencies.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

  More

  I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a district councillor on East Cambridgeshire district council. One of the other big problems for this proposed Mid Cambridgeshire unitary is that it will have most of the soil-affected roads in Cambridgeshire, which are really expensive to maintain, and most of the internal drainage boards, which need significant funding to keep our market towns and villages dry so that people can live in them. It will be a very challenging unitary to run financially.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

  More

  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am an East Cambridgeshire district councillor. There will clearly be a great deal of uncertainty across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Has the Secretary of State considered additional funding for the electoral staff who are planning for elections in May, which the Secretary of State says he intends will go ahead, when they do not know the boundary of the council, let alone the ward boundaries or the number of councillors? Will he also explain what process he has in place to liaise and consult with local people over the next few months to make a proper decision on what will happen in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this debate. I have several waste management sites in my constituency. At most of them, we just get the odd problem now and again, and we can deal with it by talking to them, but one causes particular problems. Grunty Fen sits in the heart of the countryside and is accessed from narrow fen roads. In normal operation, the residents of the nearest village, Witchford, suffer large volumes of heavy lorries and litter blowing from those lorries. The fen roads used by the lorries sit on peat soils, which expand when it is wet and contract when it is dry. The combination of the changing subsoil and the regular heavy lorries corrugates those roads vertically and horizontally, breaks the road edges away, and creates ever-growing potholes. The roads are virtually unusable by ordinary cars, let alone cyclists. The residents feel that they have no say in the timing and volume of the traffic, nor do they see extra funding for road maintenance. That would all be bad enough, but there have recently been several fires at the site. One such fire in April burned for about 17 hours, generated significant black smoke that spread over Witchford, and required an extensive fire and rescue response. The Environment Agency recently published the findings of its inspection. It found that the emissions from the fire breached one of the permit conditions. It also found that the fire risk assessment, emergency management plan and cell 11 environmental action plan failed to adequately identify and control the risks associated with fires. The operator, East Waste Ltd, has to rectify those issues, or the Environment Agency says it will take enforcement action. Meanwhile, the residents who have suffered from the fires—especially those with pre-existing respiratory illnesses such as asthma—fear further fires. They would like to see the site closed, at least temporarily, until all the changes are in place. As part of the plans for the new unitary authorities, the Government must ensure that councils have adequate powers and funding to monitor waste sites, and the Environment Agency needs the powers and the funding to enforce their proper management. Will the Minister confirm that there are plans to make sure that the Environment Agency does indeed have those powers and the capacity, and that it will use them?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate the Government on recognising the state of Palestine. That recognition was long overdue, but a state needs territory, and its citizens need safety and security. The state of Palestine and its citizens do not have either. Gaza has been devastated by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military action, which has widely been called out as genocide. Many of Gaza’s residents have been killed or injured, and the survivors have lost family and friends, homes, health services, businesses and jobs. Meanwhile, in East Jerusalem and on the west bank, so-called settlers, who are better described as terrorists, are threatening, injuring and even killing people to take Palestinian land. The Israeli Government take no action to prevent this; indeed, they openly encourage the settlements. Members of the Israeli Security Cabinet have even stated that their goal is to make a sovereign Palestine unviable. We have to prevent that, because a two-state solution is the only way to achieve peace in that part of the world. The Government have confirmed that the settlements are illegal, so now they have to go further. Like many Members here today, I have had reams and reams of emails about this issue, and my constituents have called on me to ask the Government to take more action. As well as using diplomacy, which I am sure we are doing, we must make the settlements economically unviable, so I call on the Minister to ban all trade in goods and services with these illegal Israeli settlements.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Future of British Horseracing · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing this debate. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, where I detail hospitality received from the Jockey Club last July. I am also a member of the APPG on racing and bloodstock. Much of the home of horseracing is in my constituency of Ely and East Cambridgeshire. The July racecourse, Newmarket equine hospital, many of the studs and yards, including the National Stud, and Newmarket’s famous rearing stallion statue are all in my constituency. Horseracing provides jobs and great days out, and it cares for much of our beautiful landscape, yet it feels under attack from many angles. As we have heard, horseracing depends on the income from the betting levy. I am grateful that the Government listened to calls to double gambling duty on remote betting, rather than harmonising all gambling tax rates, but I am worried, like others, that plans to extend affordability checks could damage horseracing. I recognise the dangers and problems that gambling can cause, including the psychological distress and the financial and social difficulties. Government attempts to reduce that damage are worthy, but they will be counterproductive if they continue to drive people to unregulated sites. I understand that the Gambling Commission has announced that it will introduce financial risk assessments, with a phased implementation. I ask the Minister to monitor that closely and ensure that those assessments do not cause unintended harms. In my constituency, I have a small bioenergy plant that is under threat of closure due to the removal of Government subsidies. Its sister plant in Thetford takes the bedding waste from local stables to produce energy and organic fertiliser. That plant is also under threat. Gaining a small income from waste bedding instead of having to pay for its disposal is important for the industry. I ask the Minister to talk with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to help them understand the significance of these small bioenergy plants to horseracing and other rural industries. Planning policy, as we have heard, also needs to respect the horseracing industry. Breeding, training and racing horses needs a lot of land. The Newmarket area has wonderful soils and clear water from chalk streams, which grow the excellent grass that in turn develops thoroughbred horses. We must not allow the genuine need for new housing and green energy to damage the water and grassland, or to restrict the land available for the horseracing industry. The Sunnica solar farm has been approved, despite the concerns expressed by the horseracing industry, among others. It is vital that we mitigate any damage. In particular, we must have strong regulation and enforcement to ensure that any fire in the battery energy storage units can be managed without damage to the surrounding area, people, horses, wildlife and our precious watercourses. Applications for further solar farms must take account of the needs of the horseracing industry, particularly the studs where breeding mares need a calm environment. We also have a speculative application in the area for something called Forest City. That is causing a worrying amount of concern and stress for people, because it would completely destroy the environment of the area and really damage the horseracing industry. Unless it puts in a planning application, answers all questions and has that planning application decided, it can continue to cause stress and angst in the area with its well-funded plans that have no detail behind them. To end on a positive note, I was honoured to attend the National Stud graduation ceremony last week. We celebrated with the 29 graduates, all of whom have jobs to go to following their qualification. They are people from all areas of our economy and from all backgrounds. Of course, some of them have always been interested in horses, but some did not know they were interested until they heard about the scheme and got involved. We had a taxi driver and someone who had been cooking burgers. They have all qualified with this prestigious qualification and, as I say, they all have jobs to go to. These people are the future of horseracing. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the graduates and thanking the staff at the National Stud for running an excellent training programme?

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) on securing this debate. Ely and East Cambridgeshire is a very rural area, and in many of my villages the pub is the only place left for local people to gather, meet and socialise. According to the Campaign for Real Ale, we have lost or are at risk of losing 609 pubs since January this year, and 60 of those are definitely lost forever because they have been demolished or converted. My village of Reach nearly lost its pub back in 1999. The villagers bought it, and it is now run as a fully commercial business on a long lease, with the freehold belonging to the parish council. It sits at one end of Devil’s Dyke, so it has been renamed the Dyke’s End. It remains a very successful and popular pub. I regularly meet my publican network and the local CAMRA group, and they tell me about what pubs do to support community events and social interaction, combat loneliness and help with mental health, as well as providing young people with their first job and training them in communication and hospitality skills. But they are really struggling financially. National insurance, business rates and energy costs come up over and over again, which is why the Lib Dems are calling for a 5% cut on VAT for pubs, action to reduce their energy costs and the replacement of business rates. All of our communities and publicans deserve better support, but I would like to highlight two in my constituency. The Carpenters Arms in Soham was voted CAMRA’s rural pub of the year in 2024. It has an amazing array of real ales, a beautiful garden out the back and community events. It is a real part of that market town in my constituency. More recently, the Black Horse in Rampton has been voted CAMRA’s East Anglia cider pub of the year 2026. It has a whole wall full of different ciders. Hon. Members would have to visit regularly to try them all. One of them is Foxhay cider, which is made in Rampton using local apples, so the pub supports small local businesses as well. As we have heard, these small, rural pubs are also supporting the wonderful micro and small breweries, which need people who can take small amounts and get through it quickly before it goes off, as it has a shorter life than commercial beers. Our pubs really are the hubs of our communities, but if we continue to over-tax them, we will continue to lose them, with all the impact that will have on our local communities. Will the Minister commit to asking the Government to reduce those taxes and allow our pubs to thrive?

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome investment in NHS dentistry, but it is all just playing around at the edges unless and until we change that contract, because it is the contract that is at fault. I understand the Minister said that he would consult on that in the summer. We are already part way through June. Can we please have a date for the consultation, and a commitment to implement changes to the contract so that it is more attractive and we can get dentists back into the NHS? Can we also have a commitment to when we will have a workforce plan for dentistry, so that one in four NHS dentist roles in my area are no longer vacant?

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

  More

  Almost half of children in Cambridgeshire have not seen a dentist in the last 12 months. That will have many impacts that we can only imagine, but one of them is that one in every eight children in East Cambridgeshire have tooth decay by the time they are five. That should be utterly unacceptable to us all. In short, Ely and East Cambridgeshire is an NHS dental desert. We have heard Labour Members make valiant attempts to blame almost anybody else for this situation, but it was a Labour Government who introduced the new dentist contract in 2006, despite lots of people warning that it would lead to dentists leaving the NHS. Indeed, that is exactly what we have seen: they have left in droves. In Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, we have a vacancy rate for NHS general dentists of 24%—almost one in four. Even more frustratingly, I have heard from dentists locally who are willing and able to take on more NHS patients, and have contacted the ICB and asked for the funding to do so, but have been refused that funding. I have constituents who cannot get an NHS dentist appointment, and I have dentists who are willing to give them an NHS dentist appointment, but nobody seems willing to give them the money so that that can happen.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Police Service of Northern Ireland Training College · Hansard source

  More

  I agree that it is vital that everyone supports the PSNI and encourages people from across Northern Ireland to engage with it positively. One would hope that a good, modern training centre would help to present it as a good organisation to join. To develop the site at Kinnegar, investment is needed. Patten recommended a new college 26 years ago, and although the Government accepted that recommendation, the PSNI is still waiting for one. Behind the college’s infrastructure problems sits a deeper funding failure: in real terms, the PSNI has 40% fewer resources than at devolution in 2010. Officer numbers stand at approximately 6,250—the lowest since the service was established—against the Patten recommendation of 7,500, as we have heard. Since 2014, the PSNI has incurred £167 million in legacy costs, with a further £24 million anticipated this year, drawn from the same budget that funds the college and recruitment. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has recommended a dedicated, ringfenced funding stream for legacy obligations, separate from the operational policing budget that the Chief Constable has been asking for. I have three questions for the Minister. The first is on counter-terrorism funding. ASF has been broadened to cover the same threat categories as the Home Office counter-terrorism grant, yet that grant reaches £1.2 billion in 2026-27 while ASF stands at £37.8 million. The Government may point to the Barnett formula, but Barnett allocates on population, not on threat. Even combined, Barnett and ASF do not account for a force in which every officer carries a firearm and 3,200 specialist security deployments took place in a single year. Will the Minister confirm whether ASF is allocated based on need or on population share? If it is the latter, do the Government accept that, even combined, Barnett and ASF fall short for a force with no equivalent anywhere else in the United Kingdom? Secondly, on legacy, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will drive legacy costs higher still, and those costs continue to be met from the same budget that funds the college and recruitment. Do the Government accept the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee’s recommendation for a dedicated, ringfenced funding system to meet those costs separately? Thirdly, on the college itself, Kinnegar has been purchased, but its development depends on investment funding that has not yet been committed. Will the Government make a specific capital commitment to deliver a new police college for a service with training requirements that have no parallel anywhere else in the United Kingdom?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Police Service of Northern Ireland Training College · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) on securing this important debate. Before I turn to the substance of the debate, I acknowledge the deeply troubling incident in north Belfast last night, in which a man was seriously injured in a knife attack on Kinnaird Avenue. My thoughts are with the victim and his family, the members of the public who attempted to stop the attack and the PSNI officers who responded. Those officers are precisely who this debate is about, and we should all be asking whether they have the support, resources and facilities that they deserve. As we have heard, 25 years ago the Belfast agreement promised a new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland. Out of that promise came the Patten commission, which led to the establishment of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It is worth noting, as many Members have, that policing in Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, with day-to-day funding allocated by Stormont’s Department of Justice. This Parliament does not set the PSNI’s budget, but the UK Government are not disinterested observers. Responsibility for national security rests with Westminster: additional security funding and paramilitary crime taskforce funding are channelled from here, and Treasury decisions—including the refusal to meet Stormont’s reserve claim for the £119 million cost of the 2023 data breach—carry direct consequences. The police college at Garnerville sits at the centre of all this, training every officer who joins the PSNI, and it exports that expertise to forces in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, as well as internationally. Every PSNI officer carries a personal protection firearm, including when they are off-duty—something that applies nowhere else in UK policing, fortunately. The standing authority under Patten recommendation 65 has not been withdrawn because the threat has not gone away. The terrorism threat level was reduced from severe to substantial in March 2024, having been raised to severe following the attempted murder of Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell in Omagh in February 2023. The PSNI recently told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that there is no operational difference between the two threat levels: the posture, vigilance and resource commitment remain the same. No other policing workforce in the United Kingdom has to weigh the personal security implications for them and their families when simply deciding whether to join the police force. The latest student officer recruitment figures, released in February this year, underline the scale of the challenge. The 2026 recruitment campaign received more than 4,100 applications, but that was down from more than 4,800 last year. Of those, nearly 27% identified as Catholic, against almost 29% the year before. The current intake runs at 51 student officers per month through Garnerville, barely keeping pace with the number of police leaving at the other end. Each of those officers completes the 22-week programme at a site that Patten identified as inadequate back in 1999. The PSNI told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the continuing terrorist threat, legacy perceptions and resource pressures are active barriers to recruitment from all communities. No training college can resolve those barriers alone, but a modern, accessible facility would at least stop them compounding. It matters that Patten recommendation 131 remains undelivered. The Desertcreat project—a proposed shared police, fire and prison training facility in County Tyrone—was abandoned after costing more than £12 million without a building completed. As we have heard, the PSNI has since purchased the Kinnegar army base in Holywood, which it acquired from the Ministry of Defence for £4.9 million.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Equality Act 2010: Code of Practice · Hansard source

  More

  I too have been contacted by a great many trans people, and their families and friends, who have expressed genuine fear about the implications of this guidance. We have heard about the practicalities. I have heard from someone who has cancelled a hip operation because they are not sure that they will be treated with dignity when they go into hospital. I hear from people who are changing their patterns of work, travel and leisure because they cannot be certain that they can use toilets unchallenged, and therefore face an extra risk of violence. However, what comes through very strongly from all of them is the challenge that this presents to their identity. Many of them have lived for decades in their gender, and now they are thinking about potentially having to say to their colleagues at work—people who think of them as being of that gender, because it is all they have ever known them as— “Actually, I was born in a different gender, so can you tell me how I can use the toilets, how I can use the changing room?” This is just unacceptable.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Equality Act 2010: Code of Practice · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister consider changing the law so that the Equality Act lives up to its name?

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

  More

  One of the things that shocked me most when I was elected was how much we are failing children with special educational needs. We all get those emails in our inbox, and they are heartrending. When we meet those parents, we can see the stress and the strain etched in their faces, and we can only imagine what it is like for the child to be in a school where they feel that they are not understood and they are not supported. How we are treating these people at the moment is shocking. I really welcome the fact that the Government are trying to do something to change that situation and to make it better. I worry, though, that we need to make sure that there are the resources to deliver what those families deserve. Obviously that means money, but it also means the educational psychologists and the other expertise that we need, and proper training for all school staff so they know how to deal with the various needs of the children in their school. I also worry that parents cannot and must not lose the ability to take action to fight for their children’s rights.

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

  More

  I agree; we must not set things up in competition. I would like to ask the Minister three questions. First, what is she going to do to make sure that every school in every area has the specialist resources it needs to deliver for its children? How is she going to make sure that rural areas such as mine in Ely and East Cambridgeshire have access to those resources for all schools and all children? It takes longer and therefore it costs more to get those across the area. What is she going to put in place to make sure that parents retain the right to fight for and enforce their children’s rights?

• 4 Mar 2026 · Healthcare in Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) on securing this important debate. The delivery of quality rural healthcare has been neglected for too long. After years of chronic underfunding, and a pandemic from which many areas have not fully recovered, health outcomes in rural areas are on a dangerous downturn. In my own constituency, local populations are growing fast, while GPs and hospitals struggle under the strain. Dental provision in Cambridgeshire is particularly poor, with more than 2,300 people for every single dentist providing NHS services. The picture is particularly bad among children; recent data showed that at least 45% of children have not seen a dentist in the past two years. That is simply not good enough. We know how important it is for children in particular to see a dentist: good oral hygiene has a strong link to heart health, as infections and inflammation can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It is vital that all children have ready access to a dentist to prevent such debilitating conditions and to introduce important hygiene practices. Delivering rural healthcare is not simply about hiring GPs, dentists and other healthcare professionals; it is about delivering access, with reliable transport and connectivity infrastructure that is integrated with local healthcare. In rural areas like mine, many rely on cars for travel, but many older and vulnerable residents are left to manage with public transport, which is too often unreliable and does not always take them where they need to go. A constituent might be referred to a GP in a neighbouring village that is only a short distance away, but entirely inaccessible by foot and served by perhaps only a few buses a day, or in some cases no buses at all. The Government and local ICBs must start using such real-terms information when assessing access to healthcare, to avoid rural communities being left even further behind. I am encouraged that new technologies allow at-home testing and monitoring, which can prevent the need for regular access to GPs and hospitals, but many of my constituents face connectivity barriers as a result of poor broadband and poor mobile reception. Does the Minister agree that the Government must bring forward a strategy to end the neglect of rural healthcare, with new services for left-behind areas and a comprehensive approach to rural connectivity?

• 12 Feb 2026 · Rural Mobile Connectivity · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important debate. I agree with much of what she said in her speech, and much of what other hon. Members have said. My hon. Friend’s constituency shares many similarities with mine: they are a comparable size, have a comparable population, contain much farmland and have scattering of medium-sized settlements. In my case, those settlements include the city of Ely, which is home to over 20,000 residents. According to Ofcom’s coverage map, the entire city is covered by all mobile network operators, with at least “good outdoor” coverage. Given such confidence, I invite Ofcom inspectors to Ely, where I will challenge them to catch even a single bar of mobile signal in the city centre. They will be sorely disappointed. Instead, the Government could look at data gathered by a number of different independent sources that reports remarkably poor mobile service in areas of my constituency that Ofcom claims are covered. Alternatively, the Government could simply listen to local people. They would hear from local business owners in Ely market square who cannot get a signal for their card machines; residents, such as my constituent Alan, who has tried to install a smart energy meter in his home on four occasions, each unsuccessful because of insufficient mobile signal, which is not only irritating but means he cannot get the cheapest fuel options that are available only to people who have working smart meters; or the new restaurant in the middle of the city centre that cannot take orders because it cannot get internet or mobile signal. Rather fittingly in a debate about mobile connectivity, the major failure in the Government’s approach thus far appears to be a total lack of communication and connection with the lived experiences of citizens on the ground. The Government claim that mobile coverage has reached 96% of the country, but thousands of my constituents in Ely and East Cambridgeshire—and, I am willing to bet, in almost every other rural constituency—would beg to differ. Given the way that the Government are assessing coverage, serious doubts are raised over the sincerity of their connectivity goals overall, including the roll-out of the shared rural network. Although that is due to be complete by this time next year, the Government seem to have minimal capacity to direct investment and new infrastructure to reach their goals, relying instead, as we have heard, on the mobile network operators, who put commercial interests above the interests of our constituents.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Rural Mobile Connectivity · Hansard source

  More

  I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Our constituents do not want compensation or apologies: they want a mobile signal that they can rely on. How can they have confidence that their digital connectivity will improve if Ofcom does not engage with a reliable reporting system to direct investment in response to on-the-ground need? Conversely, there is bit of my constituency that allegedly has no connectivity, but every time I go there I have no problem getting a mobile signal, so ironically there are some places where the signal is better than Ofcom thinks. In an era when public services are increasingly moving online, rural and digitally excluded populations risk becoming increasingly isolated. Good mobile connectivity must be considered a basic necessity and not an object for compromise. It is especially essential for accessing emergency services, defibrillators and on-call healthcare, a major concern for the many farmers in my constituency who experience lower-than-average health outcomes and work in more accident-prone environments, yet have very limited connectivity. I think the Government would agree with me that we should move towards greater access to healthcare in the community, foster social connection and ensure safely policed neighbourhoods. However, key to each of those is guaranteeing the rights of all, including those in rural areas, to swift and ready access to mobile signal. More than that, it also means a reliable process of reporting and mapping the real-terms coverage and capacity of mobile networks. Fundamentally, improving rural mobile connectivity must start with genuine two-way communication. Will the Minister now agree to overhaul Ofcom’s coverage maps so that they are tied to real-time data, and to revise the coverage goals of the shared rural network accordingly so that my constituents, and the many others we have heard about, can finally get an assurance that a reliable connection is on its way—and soon?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Point of Order: Rectification Procedure · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to apologise to the House for failing to declare an interest when tabling three written parliamentary questions to the Treasury and one written parliamentary question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. When I tabled those questions, I inadvertently failed to declare a relevant interest: the receipt of hospitality from the Jockey Club. That was in breach of the rules and I apologise to the House for this error.