Chris Coghlan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Nov 2025 · Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation · Hansard source

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  I fully agree with the USO, but in some postcodes in my constituency 20% of first-class mail is delivered late. In Buckland, there is no mail service at all when the postlady is on holiday. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must work with Royal Mail to improve service?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Gaza and Hamas · Hansard source

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  We all hope desperately for a just peace in Gaza. I served alongside the Minister as a diplomat in the middle east and as a soldier. Given that, I particularly welcome the proposed international security force, but it is essential that such a force includes troops from Arab countries and possibly from western countries too, in order to reassure the Israelis, and that it is there for the long term and ready to take casualties. Will the Minister update the House on what progress there has been on the composition and the mandate of the potential force?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on the importance of having a right of referendum. I have had Chagossian constituents contact me with their outrage about the compounding of injustice in the new treaty. How realistic does my hon. Friend think it is to find people eligible to vote in a potential referendum, given the length of time that has passed since they were moved from Diego Garcia?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member just said that foreign policy should not be made by referendum. Does he disagree, then, with article 1(2) of the UN charter—that the right to self-determination is a core principle in international relations and that we should therefore have a referendum for Chagos?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  At a time when the cost of living is so high, does my hon. Friend agree that the cost of maintaining and operating the Diego Garcia military base and military operations must be evaluated by the House against the expenditure of public funds made under the treaty each financial year?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s progress on the frozen Russian assets, but it is disappointing that, as yet, they are allocated only to recovery and not military capability, because Russia is spending $40 billion more than Ukraine and her Western allies on the war in Ukraine. The courage of Ukrainian forces has brought Russia to a standstill, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that if those frozen assets were used today to close and exceed that military spending gap, Ukraine would have a path not just to stop Russia but to win?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Education Committee · Hansard source

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  There is a 12-year-old child in Dorking who is autistic and has had two suicide attempts, the most recent within the past four weeks. They do not have an EHCP. As the Chair acknowledges in the report, there are serious concerns about local authority governance. I have received 120 family testimonies from Surrey and 650 from across the country of lawbreaking, unethical and harmful behaviour by local authorities related to SEND. How can parents have confidence that lives such as that child’s will be saved unless and until local authorities are held accountable under the law and there is swift and decisive intervention if they abuse their powers?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Baby Loss · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Members for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) and the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) for calling this important debate. I have seen at first hand the commitment of the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash to these issues, and I applaud his dedication. On Thursday I sat down with my constituents Jamie and Ellie Thompson. They lost their son Billy on Easter Sunday 2024, just 15 days short of his fifth birthday. It was diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, one of the rarest cancers and one of the worst. It attacks only children, it attacks the brain, and it is untreatable. Billy was the brightest, most cheerful little boy. He loved superheroes and he loved rugby, just like his dad. His mum said that everyone who met him fell in love. One day he was playing at the beach with his sister Maddie and his parents, and he was not his usual self. Five months later, he was gone. Jamie and Ellie told me how their beautiful boy became angry, anxious and in agony. They spoke of their terrible struggle to look happy in front of him, before breaking down in the room next door. One day Billy said, “Mummy, I can’t see,” as he slowly lost his eyesight and the use of his limbs. Sadly, mistakes in palliative care meant that his last days were brutal too. Today, his family are trying to make sense of it all. Jamie took out his anger on playing a season of hard rugby; Ellie threw herself into her local community projects in Billy’s memory. They both suffer from flashbacks, but thankfully Maddie is now eight and seems to be OK. Time and again, I have seen people take tragedy in their own lives to turn it to positive change for others. Jamie and Ellie have started a charity, Billy’s Battalion. They are fundraising to support five promising trials of DIPG treatment at Great Ormond Street hospital, and I ask the Secretary of State to see whether there is anything that the Government can do to support it. This is what Jamie and Ellie are doing to honour Billy’s memory, and it is people like them who inspire me the most.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. In Dorking the other day, a mum called Jenny came to see me about her daughters, Isabelle and Sienna. They are severely learning disabled, epileptic, blind, non-verbal and tube fed. Isabelle and Sienna have difficult lives, but they thrive when they are together. Jenny had to take Surrey county council to tribunal four times to fight for their rights—not only to get their needs met, but simply to get them together in the same school. Although she ultimately won her fight, that cost Jenny her life savings and her marriage. I said to her that if she were my mum, I would be incredibly grateful. I hope she is proud of what she is doing, because she should be. It is not only profoundly disabled children who are mistreated by local authorities. I have today published almost 500 family testimonies of unlawful, harmful and unethical behaviour on SEND by 92 local authorities across the entire country. I will continue to collect these testimonies and I will be taking this further. These local authorities are led by every major political party, including my own, so this is not a party political issue. Rather, it suggests that there is something systemically wrong with local authority governance in this country—a failure of accountability to locally elected councillors. My own local authority, Surrey, hid for over 14 months the fact that it had the highest level of complaints on SEND in the country. We know that local authorities are financially overwhelmed on SEND, but too often their response to the suffering of children such as Isabelle and Sienna is to be desensitised and to breed a culture of denial and dishonesty—a brutalised system. If we reduce SEND rights and throw children away to local authorities we cannot trust, we throw away their lives. The answer is early intervention.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree, because by the age of three a child has 1,000 trillion brain connections, but that declines to 500 trillion by adolescence. That is why the earlier the intervention, the more effective the outcome and the lower the total cost. That is even before we consider the cost of a parent who has to leave work to look after a child unable to cope at school, or an adult who ends up in social services instead of a job. The Government must resist the siren calls of local authorities to reduce SEND rights. There are too many people in despair right now, but if the Government focus on early intervention for our children, they can set out a path for hope.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  In hearing from the Foreign Secretary that 132,000 children are at risk of dying from hunger, one can only feel utter revulsion. I recognise what the Government have done, but in their public diplomacy with President Trump, their strategy appears to be to pander to him. Again, I understand why the Government have chosen to do that, but how concerned is the Foreign Secretary that their legacy in the middle east will be the same as that of the previous Labour Government: to be a poodle to an out-of-control American President amid horror?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  First, I commend the Defence Secretary and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin for their commitment to a just peace in Ukraine. However, I agree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) that the most reluctant member of this coalition of the willing appears to be President Trump. Does the Defence Secretary agree that it is particularly disappointing that he is unable to give an update on seizing the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets? There is slow progress on that, but it is perhaps our strongest potential lever in exerting pressure on Russia to deliver a just peace.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  I am proud that this country helps refugees, and I am intensely proud that I spent years building a charity working with Rwandan refugees from the genocide, but in Horley there have been two serious criminal incidents in the past three months relating to the Four Points hotel. My constituents have legitimate safety concerns, although the police have acted promptly, so what steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that the Four Points hotel is closed as an asylum hotel as soon as possible?

• 7 Jul 2025 · SEND Provision: London Borough of Barking and Dagenham · Hansard source

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  I hear the heartbreaking stories from Barking and Dagenham about the huge demand for SEND provision and the difficulty in meeting it. In Surrey, we have similarly heartbreaking cases of children with autism who cannot move out of mainstream school because the capacity is not there. As a result, one of my constituents is getting bullied terribly and the council has refused to fund his place in a specialist school. But that story is not unique in Surrey or in Barking and Dagenham. Despite that, the county council leader, Tim Oliver, claimed that the vast majority of SEND families in Surrey are happy with their support. That is despite the council suppressing a survey of 1,000 parents for six months—

• 7 Jul 2025 · SEND Provision: London Borough of Barking and Dagenham · Hansard source

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  In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 1,800 SEND children in Surrey were out of school for more than a third of the time. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that promised schools are delivered? I think in particular of the Betchwood Vale academy SEND school in my constituency.

• 7 Jul 2025 · SEND Provision: London Borough of Barking and Dagenham · Hansard source

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  I was moved by the speech just made by the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) and heartened to hear about the effectiveness of SEND provision in Barking and Dagenham. It is so important that we have effective examples of that in the country—particularly at the moment, when the Government are considering their national SEND provision. It was encouraging for me to hear that. From my experience in my constituency, a vital part of what we have to do is tackling the culture of dishonesty that certainly exists in my local authority—I do not know about elsewhere. That culture is a key barrier to effectively addressing SEND provision. The issue could not be more serious. Constituents of mine—suicidal children with autism—are repeatedly denied the support that is their right. Desperate parents come to me, their MP, trying to beg the council to do its duty. The level of dishonesty is hard to exaggerate. Surrey has the highest level of complaints to tribunals in the country. It covered that up for over 14 months from its own internal council scrutiny committees. The county council leader then denied that in a formal written response to the Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament in Surrey. The council’s next trick, as reported by ITV, was to reclassify complaints as “inquiries”, to try to manipulate its complaints volumes. It then denied that there was a problem at all and said that the problem was, in fact, that Surrey parents are “too articulate”. Most recently, the county council leader said in the annual general meeting that “the vast majority” of Surrey SEND parents have a good experience of SEND. That was despite them suppressing for six months a survey of 1,000 SEND parents in which only 16% said that they trusted the county council on SEND and only 21% said that they trusted case officers to act in the best interests of their child. It is a matter of extreme concern for me that the Government are putting so much faith in local authorities on SEND reform when, certainly in my case, they are so manifestly dishonest. I am particularly worried about Surrey, because the county council leader is chairman of the County Councils Network and so has major influence over SEND reform across the country. I am also worried about the fact that local authorities are saying that the way to solve the SEND crisis is to water down parents’ right to apply for an EHCP. There are many things wrong with the SEND system, but that is the one thing parents do have confidence in. It may take far too long to get an EHCP, but at least they have their legal rights and can go to tribunal. I desperately hope that the Government are not going to water down their commitments and that they will respond to the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for an investigation into Surrey county council. Only then will my constituents be able to get the justice that they deserve and the opportunities that they desperately need.