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Christine Jardine MP: speeches 2025

213 published records · newest first.

Speeches

  • 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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    This is a very personal one for me, because much of my motivation for supporting the Bill comes from having watched a member of my family die of motor neurone disease. Although perhaps it would have been preferable if motor neurone disease and other degenerative diseases could have been included, I accept that we do not want to go down the slippery slope. However, there is a difference between extending the Bill to degenerative diseases such as motor neurone disease and extending it to other conditions. Perhaps we could consider supporting that, because I would not want anyone to go through what I witnessed, without the choice to end it without going through more pain.

  • 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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    rose—

  • 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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    Will the hon. Lady give way?

  • 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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    Will the hon. Lady give way?

  • 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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    I appreciate the hon. Lady giving way, given the time constraints. Does she acknowledge the concern that many of us have about not telling patients all the options, particularly young people who are now so social-media literate? Their automatic reaction is to Google everything; in fact, we all do it. The danger is that, if they are not told all the options and given the guidance that is available, they will go to Google and see yet more of the dangerous suicide attempts that we see at the moment.

  • 15 May 2025 · Gavi and the Global Fund · Hansard source
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    We are going to struggle to get everybody in, so can Members please keep any interventions brief?

  • 15 May 2025 · Gavi and the Global Fund · Hansard source
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    Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. Unfortunately, because of its popularity, I will have to impose a time limit of three minutes from the beginning. I intend to go to the Front Benchers at 2.38 pm.

  • 15 May 2025 · Gavi and the Global Fund · Hansard source
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    Apologies, but I will have to reduce the time limit to two minutes.

  • 15 May 2025 · Accountability for Daesh Crimes · Hansard source
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    We begin with the Select Committee statement. Tom Gordon will speak on the publication of the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ second report of the Session “Accountability for Daesh crimes” for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Tom Gordon to respond to these in turn. Questions should be brief, and Members may only ask one question each. I remind Members that they should bob if they wished to be called to ask a question.

  • 15 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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    I am sure that we would all agree that the wellbeing of our universities is vital to the economic wellbeing of this country. As the Member for Edinburgh West, I know that the wellbeing of our four universities in Edinburgh is vital not just to the economy, but to the livelihoods of many of my constituents. International students, in turn, are vital to the wellbeing of those universities. Universities Scotland says that, under the immigration measures proposed this week by the Government, the levy could cost universities in Scotland £85 million a year. There is a great deal of concern about this, so will the Leader of the House arrange for me to have a meeting with the relevant Minister to see how we can address this issue and perhaps reassure our university sector?

  • 13 May 2025 · Consular Assistance: Statutory Right · Hansard source
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    6. Whether his Department plans to introduce a statutory right to consular assistance.

  • 13 May 2025 · Consular Assistance: Statutory Right · Hansard source
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    Every year, an estimated 5,000 British citizens are arrested abroad, many of them under false pretences. Many are used as hostages and denied access to legal representation, and their families are left without information, not knowing what has happened to them. High-profile cases at the moment include those of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Egypt and of Jagtar Singh Johal in India. None of these people has an automatic right to support, as is the case with other countries such as the United States, so can the Minister give us more details about exactly what the consular assistance will be and whether it will be automatic for everyone?

  • 12 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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    A number of constituents of mine in Edinburgh West—former police officers, and former and current NHS staff—have come to me with concerns about the way the McCloud judgment on public sector pensions is being implemented, and worries that they will be negatively impacted at great cost. How will the Government ensure that there is no negative impact?

  • 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source
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    The Home Secretary spoke about attracting the best and the brightest to this country. One area in which our universities do that is the medical profession. During the covid crisis and the rebuilding after it, a lot of the people on the frontline were immigrants. When she looks at the resettlement and reassurance of existing migrants, will she consider indefinite leave to remain for those who worked through that crisis?

  • 8 May 2025 · St George’s Day and English Affairs · Hansard source
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    I appreciate that the hon. Member is speaking about St George’s day and English affairs, but I would just take issue with his use of the phrase “break up” to describe the effect of devolution on our country. We devolved some of the power closer to the people so that they felt more represented. That was not an attempt to break up the country. I say as a member of the party which, along with the Labour party, was instrumental in achieving devolution that it was to hold the country together while allowing people to feel closer to where decisions are made.

  • 8 May 2025 · Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment · Hansard source
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    I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). This is a debate that I wish we were not at. I wish there was no need for us to have this debate, but sadly there is. This is an issue that I have come to know more about personally in the last few months, after a young constituent came to me. Archie is a 22-year-old elite athlete from Edinburgh, training for the Commonwealth games and the Olympic trials. He was diagnosed with an inoperable and terminal IDH-mutant low-grade glioma—a rare form of brain tumour that disproportionately affects younger people. As I say, he is 22 years old. However, there should be good news, because there is a new highly promising drug—so promising, I am told, that the trials were stopped midway through, and those on the placebo were given the drug, because it was proving so successful in inhibiting the growth of the tumour. It was developed in Edinburgh and is available to eligible patients through a named patient programme, through which it is being administered free of charge, but not everywhere—only, in Scotland, in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Tayside areas. However, Archie has not been given access to the drug because of the routine blood-testing and the cost to NHS Lothian. I and his MSP have written to NHS Scotland and the Lothian health board, and I have written to the drug company, to ask how we can make the drug available. It seems the cruellest of things that a drug is available, having been partly developed in Archie’s own city, but he cannot have it. I know that the NHS is devolved, but drug policy is not. It seems unfair that we live with a situation in which lifesaving treatments are decided by postcode. People are passed from pillar to post only to be told that they cannot or will not have treatments that are available, and that the only options are radiotherapy, chemotherapy and the other interventions that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden described, which could be replaced. One word covers a lot of the excuses that we have been given: affordability—as if we are dealing with anything other than a human being whose situation is no fault of their own. I understand the pressures on finances, on resources and on the NHS—we all do—but that cannot mean a limit to our ambition in what we can do for those who are suffering. We are all here because we believe that we can make a difference. I certainly did not come here with the intention of sitting back and accepting that I could not help when it comes to health or that we would talk about saving money when we should talk about saving lives. I count myself lucky to have met so many dedicated and strong people since I was invited into Archie’s home to talk with him and his family about the challenges they face and how we could help them. One of those people is Dawn from the Astro Brain Tumour Fund, whose son Shay was diagnosed with a grade 2 IDH-mutant astrocytoma. He said: “Chemotherapy and radiotherapy. That’s what the future holds for me. After battling through an awake brain surgery, months of rehabilitation, waking up every day battling this disease in my own head, putting a smile on my face for those around me, just to have to go through another year of turmoil and appointments, only to be left with potential long-term cognitive issues and even further away from the 24-year-old I knew on 9 April 2021. That is not a cure.” It is no longer good enough to say that treatment is too difficult or expensive. Families are crowdfunding for treatment and looking abroad. This is not the NHS that Bevan envisaged; it is not the NHS that any of us wants. We are letting people down if we do not do as the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden suggested by testing such drugs on everyone and making them available everywhere. When such a drug comes up and can save people’s lives, surely we should ensure that it is available throughout the country, without geographical limits.

  • 8 May 2025 · Trade Negotiations · Hansard source
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    I thank the Minister for his statement. There has been a great deal of reassurance for the car industry and agriculture, but there has been no mention of the Scotch whisky industry or the drink and food industry in general. In Edinburgh, as in much of Scotland, that is a huge concern. Should we expect details next week, or are there assurances he can give us now?

  • 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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    The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Data can be susceptible and its breach is a breach of privacy. Does he agree that one danger in new clause 21, about the data on individuals’ sex at birth, is that it risks breaching someone’s privacy if they have kept that fact private and that data becomes public knowledge through the means being discussed?

  • 7 May 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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    Three years after Baroness Kennedy’s groundbreaking review on tackling misogyny in law, late on Friday, the SNP said that it would scrap its planned Bill to tackle widespread misogyny and hatred against women. Plans to tackle misogynistic harassment, the stirring up of hatred, and sending threatening or abusive communications to women, and an aggravated offence of misogyny—all scrapped in favour of a watered-down amendment to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. Women across the United Kingdom need action, and reassurance that politicians will root out the attitudes that lead to hatred against women in public life. If the SNP will not do it, will this Government act to give women the support that they need?

  • 1 May 2025 · Energy Prices: Energy-intensive Industries · Hansard source
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    My constituents in Edinburgh West, like many others across Scotland and the UK, depend on energy-intensive industries for their livelihoods: defence, whisky and Grangemouth. How can the Minister reassure people who are already suffering because of high domestic energy prices that the situation will not be made worse by losing jobs in those industries?

  • 1 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source
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    A constituent wrote to me recently about problems with the financial ombudsman. He waited months for it even to begin the investigation, and despite receiving an apology for the delay, when he then had a subsequent related complaint, it again took weeks before he got any reply, and that was to say, “Sorry, we can’t begin to investigate the complaint.” He is not the only constituent who has written to me about delays in the operation of the financial ombudsman, which is leaving people facing severe financial hardship. Could the Leader of the House arrange a meeting between me and the Minister to discuss how we can support the financial ombudsman and improve this situation?

  • 30 Apr 2025 · Energy Grid Resilience · Hansard source
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    I welcome what the Minister has outlined and his reassurances about resilience, particularly to a cyber-attack. However, there is also the danger that if we hand over the on/off switch for vital energy supplies to a foreign country, they can be switched off without our control. What mitigations are the Government considering for projects like the vast wind farm in the North sea for which the Chinese company Mingyang wants to provide the hardware?

  • 29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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    I hear what the Secretary of State is saying, but Scotland’s declining oil and gas industries have lost 40% of their jobs in the past decade, and today Grangemouth has warned that it may have to pause important projects involving a switch to greener and more sustainable forms of energy because of what it describes as soaring energy bills and the pressures of income tax. We know that Grangemouth needs investment, but it also needs more than the Government are doing at the moment. What intervention are they planning to protect jobs and the communities that could be hollowed out if Grangemouth is not saved?

  • 29 Apr 2025 · Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation · Hansard source
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    13. What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.

  • 28 Apr 2025 · Scientific and Regulatory Procedures: Use of Dogs · Hansard source
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    I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I call John Milne.

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