Emily Darlington MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Health Science and Innovation · Hansard source

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  As the Minister will know, Gavi and the Global Fund not only provide a global vaccine programmes and programmes on saving lives from malaria and HIV, but provide us with biosecurity and jobs in the UK, not least over 500 research and development jobs and funding for the institute of tropical medicine. What assessment has he made of whether the UK is to reduce our efforts in that regard?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I welcome the sanctions announced today by the Minister, which have been taken in conjunction with our allies, and his commitment to a Palestinian state. However, people in Gaza are starving. I want to update the Minister on one such person: Dr Radi, the elderly and frail father of my constituent Mo Radi. A few weeks ago, Dr Radi sought shelter in Al-Awda hospital with over 100 medical staff and patients, as he is a former practising doctor there. No food was allowed in, and the IDF destroyed the main water tanks. The hospital was bombed, and when Dr Radi left the hospital, he was stripped and humiliated by the IDF. He is now hungry, ill and alone, as the rest of his family in Gaza have been killed. What are we doing to protect the most vulnerable from dying? We need to increase aid and evacuations, and to end the killing in Gaza.

• 15 May 2025 · Gavi and the Global Fund · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered funding for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Jardine. I want to start with a quote from Gavi’s inaugural board chair, Nelson Mandela, over 20 years ago: “Life or death for a young child too often depends on whether he”— or she— “is born in a country where vaccines are available”. It is the injustice that he spoke of that the organisations we will talk about today—Gavi, the Global Fund and others—have fought against since Gavi was established in 2000. The fight has led to more than 1 billion children being vaccinated, and more than 18 million avoidable deaths prevented in low-income countries. This is also a Labour and UK story. We had a consensus, but it was Tony Blair’s championing of Gavi at its launch in 2000, and Gordon Brown’s leading role in the creation of the international finance facility for immunisation, that helped to fund Gavi’s work at the start, and the organisation continues to turn to our Government —a Labour Government—for global leadership. Through these organisations, we have cut the combined death rate from AIDS-related illnesses, tuberculosis and malaria by an incredible 61%, saving 65 million lives. Childhood mortality in under-fives has been reduced by over 50%, and vaccine-preventable deaths by over 70%, in the places where Gavi operates, and the coverage of key treatment and prevention interventions for HIV, TB and malaria has increased significantly in countries where the Global Fund invests. We saw TB treatment coverage increase from 45% in 2010 to 70% in 2022. In 2010 the percentage of the population with access to long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria was only 30%; in 2023 it reached 57%. In 2010 only 22% of people living with HIV were on antiretroviral therapy; in 2023 it reached 78%. That is the UK’s legacy. We hosted the first replenishment for Gavi in 2011, we hosted the last one in 2020, and we will co-host the Global Fund replenishment this year alongside South Africa. This is not just about helping other countries; it is about the UK’s own soft power and security and the resilience of the NHS. Let us talk a bit more about the UK’s contribution, because it is not just the Government’s contribution, but the contribution of amazing life sciences companies here in the UK. The UK Vaccine Network helped to develop life-saving vaccines such as the RTS,S malaria vaccine and the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine, which have both been procured and rolled out by Gavi worldwide. Between 2016 and 2022 we invested £134 million to develop new vaccines for epidemic-prone diseases. An additional £103.5 million was committed in 2023 to support affordable vaccine development. Three billion doses of the covid vaccine have been supplied globally, which is estimated to have saved over 6 million lives in the first year of roll-out.

• 14 May 2025 · Gaza: UK Assessment · Hansard source

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  In the scenes and pictures that we are seeing, many of our constituents are looking for family members. One such family member is Dr Radi, who is stuck in north Gaza and is very ill and frail, and whose son and daughter-in-law are important NHS doctors in my constituency. What are we doing to ensure that there is a way for people who need care and are stuck in Gaza to come out, and to be cared for by family members here?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for introducing the debate. We will be talking a lot about Milton Keynes, because if you wait for a speech about its hospital, you get two at once. For me, the story about Milton Keynes hospital is really personal, as it involves my family and my in-laws. Unfortunately, I lost both my in-laws in the years leading up to my being elected to this place. What I would like to say about the care my family, my in-laws and my children have had is that the team at Milton Keynes hospital—the staff from the chief executive to the consultants, the doctors, the nurses and the porters—are all so professional. I am sure everyone in this House would want to join me in thanking them for their absolute persistence in the work they have had to do just to keep the NHS going over the last 14 years. I worked closely with the hospital in my constituency for many years as deputy leader of Milton Keynes council, and the council had to step in when the Government did not. It was with funding from the council that we were able to build the new cancer centre and the new radiotherapy unit that will open very soon. It is because of the close working relationship with the council that the hospital has some of the lowest bed blocking waits in the country. With our teams integrated into the hospital, we make sure that the people who are able to go home go home with a care package as soon as possible, because it is our belief in Milton Keynes, and it was my belief as deputy leader, that people want to be in their homes. Despite all that work, Milton Keynes hospital has had some of the longest waiting lists in the country. That is partly due to the 14 years of underfunding of Milton Keynes. When there are over 30,000 people waiting for non-urgent elective operations, with 1,762 of them having been waiting for more than a year, these do not feel like non-urgent cases, because those people are not allowed to live a proper life, to play with their grandchildren or to go back to work as fast as they should. There is both a social cost and an economic cost. I am pleased to say that, with the investment by this Government to reduce waiting times, we have seen waiting times go down, but they are still too long. Unlike a lot of other hospitals we will talk about today, much of the issue for Milton Keynes is that it serves the fastest growing area in our region. In fact, it is growing at double the rate of anywhere else in the greater south-east. That means that our population is set to double to 410,000 people by 2050. On average, 11 people move to Milton Keynes every single day. That is not new in Milton Keynes, because we have been developing communities, homes and businesses for quite some time under the leadership of the Labour council. What has failed time and again in Milton Keynes is the investment that we need in our local hospitals, but this Government and these Milton Keynes MPs will actually deliver what was promised over and over again but never delivered by the Conservative party.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the shadow Home Secretary recognise that the number of reported crimes involving sexual violence went up by 300% under his Government? When he talks about police numbers, would he also like to mention how many police officers left because of conditions in their police force and because of mental health and physical health issues?

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to all the amazing speeches we have heard from Labour Members. It can be seen from how many of us are still here, hours into the debate—in contrast to the Opposition—how seriously the Government and the Labour party take law and order. I absolutely agree with all those speeches, but because of time I will focus on violence against women and girls. Women in Milton Keynes are scared of going out, scared of going to the police and scared of going home, which is still the most dangerous place for a woman. Violence against women and girls slowly became consequence-free under the previous Government. Under the Conservatives, only 2% to 4% of reported rapes ever made it to trial. Convictions for domestic abuse halved under the Conservatives, and femicides, of which there have been 95, including two in my own constituency over Christmas, have continued to happen and not been taken seriously enough. I am really proud of the Bill’s and the Government’s commitment to protect women and girls and halve violence against women and girls. I pay tribute to the Milton Keynes portion of Thames Valley police, who have been central to ensuring that Milton Keynes becomes the first white ribbon city, despite the Conservative police and crime commissioner, I want to talk about stalking and how important our measures are on that. If I had had time, I would have shared my own story of how I was stalked. My stalking happened in person, but more and more of it is happening online. I am interested in hearing from the Minister about how the Bill will help to tackle that. Spiking unfortunately continues to rise. Just two weeks ago, a young woman in my constituency approached me after being spiked at a Slug and Lettuce on her 20th birthday —she ended up in hospital. We have talked a lot about measures to protect women from being spiked, but what are we doing to tackle the availability of the drugs used in spiking? Finally, I want to talk about being online. Hon. Members on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will have heard the weak and disappointing answers from representatives of the major social media firms which are using the umbrella of “freedom of speech” to allow threats to women in online spaces to continue. They are also using that to spread pretty radical pornography. I want to understand how the Bill will fit with the cross-Government plans to tackle violence against women and girls. In my last few seconds, I will highlight two laws that are still on the statute book that I would like the Bill to repeal: the Abortion Act 1861, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi); and the Vagrancy Act 1824. Both of them target the most vulnerable in our society and should be repealed.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Child Arrangements: Presumption of Parental Involvement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing such an important debate and for making such a powerful speech. Does she agree that the visitation presumption, custody presumption and all these sorts of things that happen in family law courts are a continuing perpetration of the domestic abuse that the women and mothers were fleeing in the first place? I will keep this case anonymous, but in my constituency I was meant to meet a woman on Saturday. The handling of the handover of the children on Friday had been so abusive and painful for her that she had to cancel her appointment with me because she was in hospital with heart palpitations. Can my hon. Friend address how we can ensure in the future that the presumption in the court service takes into account that this is continuing domestic abuse for both the mother and the children?

• 20 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme Review · Hansard source

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  First, I say happy birthday to the Secretary of State for tomorrow. I cannot think of a better birthday present than to give the people of Milton Keynes a new women’s and children’s hospital. We are a growing city, and nowhere is it more needed in terms of population per bed. Will he reassure my constituents that the money has been found and allocated, because they feel they were taken for mugs after the scheme was announced by the previous Government and the previous MPs more than four times, but was never funded and never delivered?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Government’s Five Missions · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Government on trying to use the missions to stop the siloed working between Departments in order to achieve the change that the country needs. On the housing mission, it is important that we link in the Treasury and the Departments for Health and Social Care, for Transport, for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for Energy Security and Net Zero, to ensure that we build the 1.5 million homes that we need. In Milton Keynes, we have seen how house building can create opportunities, but public support is lost when the necessary vital public services and infra- structure do not come alongside new houses. How is the Cabinet Office bringing together all those Departments so that we can achieve our housing mission?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  As someone who has started and run a business, I should like to know the hon. Gentleman’s opinion of the views of the former Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), that the minimum wage is a burden, that statutory maternity pay is excessive, and that equal pay protection in respect of race and disability is akin to segregation policies in South Africa—or does he want to distance his party from her comments?

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  To return to a subject close to the Secretary of State’s heart, does he agree that people’s actual experience is how we will measure whether the NHS has been improved? One of my children’s grandparents, who was diagnosed under a Labour Government, had 12 great years of cutting-edge treatments and 12 years with their grandchildren. Their grandfather, who was diagnosed under a Conservative Government, had 12 weeks.