Chris Hinchliff MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Do Ministers agree that a logical conclusion of the Darzi report is that the national care service that we are committed to creating must be free at the point of use? As Lord Darzi found, as long as the social care system remains means-tested and the NHS is a universally free service, unmet care needs will continue to put unsustainable pressure on our health services.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents · Hansard source

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  I agree that the gaping hole in our benefits system is devastating for families. My hon. Friend once again highlights how incredibly important it is that the Government resolve this as a matter of urgency. Over 80% of surveyed families experienced a significant decline in household finances due to their child’s illness. The core principle underpinning our welfare state is that nobody should have to consider their bank balance when faced with challenges not of their own making. Benefits exist to ensure that when life deals a cruel hand, its cost does not crush those who are already burdened. Instead, we share the responsibility across society, leaving nobody behind. There is no group more deserving of support than families caring for seriously ill children. If, as a society, we fail to address this gap and spread the burden, we betray the very principle on which our welfare state was founded. Hugh’s law offers a straightforward solution to plug this gap, by providing immediate, non-means-tested financial support to parents of children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses. It would provide a grant of £750 a month for up to three months, activated from the day of diagnosis. Eligibility would be limited to children diagnosed with life-threatening or chronic conditions requiring hospital care. Applications would be completed by the healthcare provider, cutting out needless stress for families and meaning no more 40-page forms. There are examples of similar policies across the world, including in Sweden, France and Canada, where the employment insurance family caregiver benefit provides financial support to parents caring for a critically ill or injured child under 18 years old. Benefits are paid for up to 35 weeks, helping families to manage the financial strain while focusing on their child’s care. It is estimated that Hugh’s law would have an annual cost of just £6 million to £7 million and would support around 4,000 families annually. To put that into context, the figure represents just 0.0025% of the Department for Work and Pensions’ 2023-24 budget. Given the unimaginable challenges these families face, caring for a seriously ill child while grappling with emotional strain, financial hardship and uncertainty, it is clear that the cost of such support is minuscule in comparison with the burden they carry. Life does not stop when a child gets sick. In fact, families often face higher day-to-day costs that impact them immediately—not in 90 days’ time, when support might become available. Hugh’s law would offer much needed financial relief, allowing parents to focus on what matters most, being by their child’s side, without the crushing weight of financial anxiety. We have heard about the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children, which go beyond emotional strain to include financial hardship and bureaucratic obstacles. The tireless advocacy of Ceri and Frances, through their It’s Never You charity, has highlighted a gap in our welfare system that we simply cannot ignore. Hugh’s law offers a practical and compassionate solution: immediate support to parents with a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Some 70 MPs signed my letter to the Prime Minister, and I have since written to the Department for Work and Pensions and met the Minister, who advised that the policy could be pursued with the Department for Business and Trade. I have now requested a meeting with the relevant Minister there. My request to the Government and the Minister today is simple: embrace this campaign and take practical steps to make Hugh’s law a reality. I will meet with any Minister necessary to advance this policy, but the Government must do the right thing and work proactively to turn Ceri and Frances’s inspiring campaign into law.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered financial support for parents caring for seriously ill children. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I begin by paying tribute to my constituents Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who are in the Public Gallery today. Their tireless advocacy, following the tragic loss of their six-year-old son Hugh to cancer in 2021, is an inspiration to me, and I know this feeling is shared by colleagues across the House. Ceri, Frances and the charity they set up, It’s Never You, have highlighted the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children. When a child is born, there is a support system in place for parents. Maternity pay provides a safety net for those who must stop work to care for their child, and the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 covers the parents of babies who are admitted to neonatal care within 28 days of birth. However, if a child falls seriously ill outside those periods, parents must navigate burdensome and insufficient systems that were not designed for families facing what is, for most, the very hardest time of their lives. Ceri and Frances experienced this unfairness at first hand during the 100-mile round trips they had to make to be with Hugh during his treatment. Thankfully, they were financially stable, but they witnessed the harsh reality of our benefits system as they saw other parents being forced to sell their homes and give up work to care for their seriously ill children. Of course, these issues are compounded by the cost of living pressures that all families face, even without family emergencies piling on. Approximately 68% of women and 57% of men with mental health problems are parents, which highlights the emotional strain that families across the country already face. Last year, a quarter of parents with children aged 18 and under said they struggled to provide sufficient food for their children, and Shelter estimates that 1.7 million private renters do not have enough savings to pay their rent if they were to become unemployed.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady eloquently highlights the importance of this campaign. I wholeheartedly agree with her. The benefits system available to parents in these situations leaves a gaping hole for the families of seriously ill children, who find themselves with nowhere to turn, grappling with financial ruin, growing debt or the devastating thought of not being able to be at their child’s bedside when they are needed most. The British Journal of Social Work reports that families in medical crises without immediate financial support often face long-term debt, mental health struggles and career disruption, even after treatment ends.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  The origin of Britain’s planning system is as deeply rooted in the legacy of the post-war Labour Government as that of the national health service and the welfare state. Like those great Labour institutions, it has faced relentless underfunding, attacks and dismantling from the Conservatives, who prioritise the rights of wealthy landowners over the entitlement of working people to affordable housing and quality infrastructure. I commend the Government for bringing forward a Bill that offers the opportunity to at last get to grips with the appalling mess made of the planning system by the parties opposite; after all, it was they who allowed more than 14,000 hectares of our best farmland to be lost to development since 2010. The reality is that while we now have substantially more homes per capita than 50 years ago—a surplus that has grown rapidly in recent years—house prices in the UK have risen by 3,878% since 1971. Whatever may be said by their lobbyists, the housing crisis is not a straightforward issue of supply, and it will not be solved by simply putting more powers in the hands of profiteering developers. Waiting for a market solution to this societal emergency would be an exercise in utterly extravagant futility.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Certificate of Common Sponsorship · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the appalling situations faced by migrant labour in the social care system, as highlighted by UNISON, emphasise the need for urgent structural reform of the system, to create a national care service that resolves workforce insecurity, alongside the many other problems arising from our social care crisis?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks? In 2021, Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, who live in my constituency of North East Hertfordshire and are in the Gallery today, tragically lost their son, Hugh, at the age of just six to a rare form of cancer. Now they are courageously campaigning to ensure that every parent who must leave work to look after a sick child in hospital gets the financial support they need from day one. Will the Prime Minister meet them and me to discuss implementing Hugh’s law, and giving their son a legacy that improves the lives of families at the most difficult time imaginable?