Danny Beales MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  Time and again this issue is raised in the House, whether at business questions or in questions to Ministers, and we are assured that the situation can and will get better. We are given deadlines and meetings. My constituent Mark’s case was even taken off the tracker, and my office was assured by Capita that the case was solved. Then, last week, we found out that it still had not been resolved and he still did not have the pension he was due. Barbara had to fight six months for her late husband’s pension. She dealt not only with the grief of losing a husband, but with not being able to get the pension that was owed. Frankly, it is disgraceful that we are treating anyone like this, let alone public servants who have served for many years and deserve a peaceful retirement. Instead, they are having to battle the system to get what they are owed. What out of pocket expenses will be covered? People are having to pay extra for legal support and to get extra documents reprinted and sourced, as well as getting by day to day. At what point do we draw a line and say, “Enough is enough,” end this contract, and bring it back in house or give it to another supplier that can actually provide what it is paid for?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy · Hansard source

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  Every year, millions of people travel through Hillingdon, to visit the country or the city of London or go to Heathrow, and stay at hotels near the airport. That creates real costs for local communities—policing, street cleaning and transport impacts—and addressing those threats to the tourist economy requires funding. As such, I support this measure, but can the Minister assure me that those issues that are often locally driven and funded will also get support in a mayoral-led system?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentions the commitment to peace long term, but unfortunately it has never seemed further away than it does today. Peace will involve building bridges between communities in Palestine and Israel, and supporting civil society, which has been under attack, in Gaza and in Israel, unfortunately, by the Government. My hon. Friend’s predecessor and the last Prime Minister committed to the international peace fund, which many of us were advocating for. Can my hon. Friend provide an update on the Government’s position on the peace fund, and their support, I hope, for its continuation and growth? What role does he think it can play in building these bridges?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I would say you have saved the best to last, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you can be the judge of that. My predecessor, when he was in this place, famously campaigned for a new fish and chip shop in Uxbridge. Now that he is the leader of the Conservative council, he seems to be closing the fish and chip shop that does exist in Hillingdon, along with the florist, the pharmacy, the hairdresser and the local convenience store. Local shops, whose landlord is the council, are facing a 100% rent increase, backdated for several years, all while repairs have not been done, sometimes for up to nine years. Does the Leader of the House agree that local businesses are the lifeblood of our communities and should be supported by councils? Can we have time for a debate in this place on the importance of local high streets?

• 9 Sept 2026 · Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for her opening remarks and for the measures in this Bill, which are broadly very welcome for passengers and for many in airport communities such as mine. To share the Secretary of State’s comments, my thoughts are also with those individuals and families who face significant disruption this week through the failure of NATS. It shows just how vital air travel is to people right across this country for business and for leisure, and the impact when it goes wrong. Although it is not directly related to the Bill, there has been lots of discussion in this debate about the incident and about the lessons that we can and should learn. At Heathrow, the major airport in my borough, we have now unfortunately got somewhat used to quite significant incidents. There was recently a grid power outage, which caused significant disruption, and there have been a number of other incidents. We clearly need to look at the resilience of our air travel system and at planning for such incidents, which are increasingly common and can cause significant and harmful disruption to businesses and individuals. I hope that there will be a thorough consideration of the issue, as the Secretary of State said there would be. The sector could learn lessons more broadly than from this instance and better resilience planning could be put into place. The Bill is welcome news for my constituents and the travellers who come through my home borough of Hillingdon. The borough has not just one airport but two: we are home to Heathrow and RAF Northolt, which has a significant and increasing civilian operation involving private flights that come under civil aviation. We are not shy of or ignorant of issues arising from civil aviation—flights, disruption and balancing some of the trade-offs and challenges that come with air travel. My constituency neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who is no longer in his place, has already talked about some of the concerns about potential Heathrow expansion and the third runway; I am sure that the House will rightly turn its attention to those very soon. Those of us who believe in a better but not necessarily bigger Heathrow need to see measures to address the current challenges that Heathrow presents, regardless of expansion. That is why the Bill is particularly welcome. There will be much better consumer protections when things go wrong, as they sometimes inevitably will. The Bill also takes action to tackle some of the wild west behaviours and differences between the approaches of airlines and contractors; that has been mentioned when it comes to hand luggage, but there are also different, hard-to-navigate approaches when it comes to compensation and delay payments. Those who have experienced disruption will often remember having to hunt down air staff at 10 or 11 at night when the desk is closed. They have tried to find anyone who works for the airline concerned to find out what is going on and what compensation they may be able to get—only to get a £5 paper voucher for refreshments, which will buy about half a sandwich in an airport concession. I support comments from Members about looking at best practice and upping and standardising the quality of provision, as well as learning from other sectors such as rail; the automatic “delay repay” system has been mentioned. For my sins, I have recently travelled on Avanti and have had to use that quite frequently. It is a helpful tool, and there is a quick compensation turnaround. Notably, the compensation is a payment for the cash that the customer paid for the travel that they did not get. Unfortunately, far too often the disruption payments from airlines are an invitation to travel on the airline again. A voucher to travel again on easyJet when someone has not been able to travel the first time seems perverse.

• 7 Sept 2026 · VAT on Medication: Compassionate Access Schemes · Hansard source

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  I begin by welcoming the Government’s decision at the start of the summer to pause the application of VAT on medicines donated for free to patients through compassionate access, early access and related schemes. The health charities, patients and industry bodies that I have worked with are grateful to Ministers for recognising that this issue needs to be addressed, and in particular for the ministerial statement setting out the Government’s intention to introduce a new approach to VAT on free-of-charge donations of medicines. I know that my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and previously my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary, have both worked a great deal on this issue. I thank them for their commitment to find a resolution. Without a permanent solution, however, pharmaceutical companies do not have the legal certainty to fully re-engage with early access programmes. Although, to date, only Bayer has withdrawn from these schemes outright, I have heard from a number of other companies that tell me that the uncertainty is causing them to reconsider, drug by drug, whether they can afford to continue offering free access, for fear of creating open-ended VAT liabilities. Tragically, the people who are paying the price for the delay are patients. I know that the Government recognise the consequences for patient outcomes, which is why they have committed to bringing forward a new approach, either through changes to VAT rules or through a reimbursement scheme. I welcome the fact that the new approach, once introduced, will apply to donations made on or after 23 June 2026. However, a pause is simply not good enough to resolve this issue fully. I called for this debate to ask the Government to reconfirm their commitment to find a permanent solution and to ask them to move forward as quickly as possible in determining that comprehensive solution.

• 7 Sept 2026 · VAT on Medication: Compassionate Access Schemes · Hansard source

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  The Minister is being very generous in giving way, as ever, and I appreciate his response about the limitations of the business brief process. If amending the VAT Act 1994 is the right route, does the Minister know roughly how long that would take to find a resolution? I fully his support his point about Bayer re-engaging. The Government have moved in good faith, and I hope Bayer will, too.

• 7 Sept 2026 · VAT on Medication: Compassionate Access Schemes · Hansard source

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  I agree that we do need to find a permanent and comprehensive solution. Hopefully we can air those issues fully today. Fundamentally, the principle underlying this issue is very straightforward: if a pharmaceutical company is willing to provide a lifesaving medicine to a patient free of charge because that patient has a serious or life-threatening condition and has exhausted the available standard treatment options, the tax system should not make access to those lifesaving drugs more difficult. That reflects the points raised by the hon. Member and my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge). Pharmaceutical companies already operate these schemes at a loss. For example, over the last four years, AstraZeneca alone has given more than 2,500 patients access to innovative, lifesaving medicines free of charge, costing millions of pounds. This is clearly not a commercial transaction. It is a moral, compassionately motivated decision and programme, and in my view that means it should be supported, championed and facilitated by Government, not blocked, disincentivised, or made administratively more burdensome—but unfortunately that is exactly what has been happening since HMRC started charging VAT on those donations. This is not just a line on a tax return, impacting on the bottom line; the impact is also having real-world consequences on patient groups. The consequences of this delay are gut-wrenching and deeply frustrating for clinicians, patients and their families. Every day, every week and every month that we wait for a permanent solution to move forward, more severely ill patients are denied access to drugs that could save or extend their lives, at no cost to the NHS. It is also important to note that patients with rarer cancers are disproportionately affected by this issue, as they generally have fewer treatment options. In August, I was contacted by Emma and her husband Ian. Ian and Emma are currently watching this debate online from Ian’s hospital room at University College hospital, as they could not be here in person. Ian has an advanced, rare and aggressive bile duct cancer. Following his latest chemotherapy, his consultant Professor Bridgewater recommended regorafenib as Ian’s next treatment. Regorafenib was previously supplied free of charge by Bayer through a compassionate use programme. However, since Bayer became liable for VAT on the medicines it was donating, it withdrew from the programme, meaning that Ian lost free access to this potentially life-extending treatment. Ian and Emma are now urgently trying to find the money to pay privately for Ian’s treatment, and the cost is thousands of pounds per month. It goes without saying that many families cannot afford to pay thousands of pounds, each and every month, for treatment. Working with Sarcoma UK, I have also heard from Dr Robin Young, a consultant medical oncologist at Weston Park cancer centre. He reported that a 62-year-old patient with metastatic leiomyosarcoma, whose disease had progressed through all the standard chemotherapy options, was also denied this drug in January 2026 because of Bayer’s withdrawal. That patient subsequently self-funded an alternative treatment at a cost of £3,500 for one month, before deciding that he could not afford to continue with that treatment. These are heartbreaking decisions for patients and their families. I have also heard from Dr Alex Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at the Christie NHS foundation trust, who has reported that two patients with advanced osteosarcoma were refused access to the drug earlier this year, with Bayer citing the VAT position. Tragically, one of those patients has since died. She was just 20 years old. I hope these stories make clear the urgency of resolving this issue as soon as possible. This would not only enable Bayer to re-engage, but ensure that existing participants could continue to access their drugs through the programme and enable potential new drugs to enter early access and compassionate access schemes in the future. On paper, this might be a niche and complex part of tax policy, but in real life it is a desperately ill patient, it is a family and it is a clinician having to explain why a medicine that had previously been made available can no longer be provided. I shall turn now to the position of the pharmaceutical industry. Patients, clinicians and the Minister will be pleased to hear that the pharma companies are keen and willing to re-engage with compassionate, early access and other similar schemes once a suitable solution has been finalised with Government. However, I have heard concerns from the industry about the pace and scope of negotiations since the Government announced the pause. The first issue is about the breadth of the definition of the products that will be exempted from VAT liabilities. The definition used to determine any VAT exemption should include the full range of schemes that pharma companies engage in to provide these medicines free of charge. These include: compassionate use, where a clinician requests a specific medicine as a last resort once other options are exhausted, usually off-licence; early use, for new patients immediately after a trial; post-trial provision, for patients who responded well during a trial and need to continue; and bridging prescriptions, for patients where a drug has been approved but is not yet funded on the NHS. However, I have been told that the definition initially suggested by HMRC during negotiations has been too narrow to cover all those uses. I encourage the Minister to look again at this, given that compassionate use of off-licence drugs accounts for a substantial proportion of the patients who benefit from donations to the programme. I understand that the Government may be now moving to a better position on this point, and I would welcome confirmation of that from the Minister. The second issue I have heard is that HMRC is considering attaching two conditions to any VAT exemption: first, that the patient must be treated on the NHS rather than by a private clinician; and secondly, that medicines must be supplied directly by the company to the NHS. I am sceptical of the merits of both those points. First, patients should not potentially lose access to a lifesaving free treatment, which is at the cost of industry, just because the clinician recommending the treatment is a private doctor. On the second point, I would be grateful if the Minister would explain how such an arrangement would work on a practical level. We know that the NHS can refer to private clinics and that clinicians can, particularly for specialist issues, work regularly between NHS practices and private clinics. The fundamental question must surely be whether the medicine is clinically needed and whether it is free at the point of use for the patient. The third issue raised by pharma pertains to the question of historical liabilities. My understanding is that many pharma companies have already paid VAT for historical liabilities, and it is important to say that we do not expect that they will be able to recover that in full. However, given the upcoming changes, it would be helpful if the Government provided some clarity on the legal position on historical liabilities before the pause. I urge that settlements should be negotiated constructively and with understanding based on the nature of these liabilities. Closely related to the issue of historical liabilities is that of co-ordination between Departments on this issue. AstraZeneca has told me that, despite ongoing negotiations with HMRC and the pause announced in July, it is currently being pursued by His Majesty’s Treasury for accounts by the end of September, which it has been indicated should include VAT liability on compassionate access—a position AstraZeneca is not confident is consistent with what it is hearing from HMRC. Business needs certainty to prepare accounts. I encourage the Minister to ensure that HMRC and the Treasury are working from the same hymn sheet. On the method and pace of resolution, my understanding is that the Government are looking at creating an exemption for the compassionate donation of medicines through a legislative change to the Value Added Tax Act 1994. However, have the Government considered issuing a business brief from HMRC to clarify the new position, given that this could be a faster and more effective route? I would be grateful for the Minister’s perspective on that. As well as the patient benefits, there is also a key strategic opportunity for us as a country to be a global industry leader in life sciences research. Many other countries have complex schemes in place, and sometimes charge VAT or the equivalent on such things. However, I understand that although liabilities technically exist in the Netherlands, they are not enforced in practice. If the UK were to fully resolve this issue and put it beyond doubt, this would be a genuine point of competitive advantage in attracting life sciences investment, research and clinical trials to this country, at a time when our overall competitiveness in the sector is under pressure from other directions and policies. It would also encourage the participation of innovative new drugs and potential wider patient applications of them, driving forward potential research opportunities and improving healthcare practice. To sum up, my questions to the Minister are as follows. First, can he confirm that a permanent solution will define eligible products as widely as possible, to include the full range of schemes that are currently used? Will he reconsider the proposal to restrict eligibility to NHS-treated patients only? Secondly, the Government have said that they will act as soon as possible, but for a patient with a life-threatening disease, that phrase can feel like a very long time. Will the Minister set out a clearer timetable about actions and next steps, and when the consultation with industry is likely to conclude? Will the Government decide to bring forward a reimbursement mechanism? Can the Minister explain why a business brief route has not been preferred, or whether one can be explored? When is detailed guidance likely to be published and operational? Finally, what is being done to repair the relationships with industry, which have been damaged as a result of this policy? Where a company such as Bayer has withdrawn, I hope that it will be strongly encouraged to re-engage as soon as possible, so that the patients we have heard about today can gain access quickly. Will the Treasury work with the Department of Health and Social Care to engage industry and be in direct communication with clinicians to help to identify which patient groups have been most affected, so they can be notified as soon as possible that the treatments may become available again? This is, on paper, a narrow, technical issue of tax policy—not always the thing that makes the front pages of newspapers or the most engaging social media videos—but in practice, a clear and quick resolution to this issue is a life-and-death issue for many thousands of people. It is the difference between a patient like Ian fighting to save thousands of pounds a month—just to be able to focus on his health and his loved ones— or not. It is the difference between a clinician having to explain why a medicine that was available last year is not available now, and being able to provide that innovative and lifesaving drug to them and many more patients besides. It is the difference between a pharmaceutical company that wants to do the right thing, providing drugs to patients for free or at a low cost, and it withdrawing its drugs completely because the costs become significant. Once again, I strongly welcome the ministerial statement and the pause from June. I thank the Minister and his predecessor considerably for their work to date, which has made a difference. I know that he is committed to engagement on this issue and to finding a way forward.