Emma Lewell MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 19 Dec 2024 · Harland & Wolff · Hansard source

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  Today’s news is welcome. My right hon. Friend knows how vital the FSS ships are to our Royal Navy. RFA Fort Victoria, our only remaining solid store support ship, is due to be decommissioned in 2028, yet even before this rescue deal, new FSS ships were not due to enter service until 2032. Is there any scope at all to accelerate that and close the capability gap?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, a merry Christmas to you and all staff. I put on record that my mam is a WASPI woman. My right hon. Friend will know full well the strength of feeling regarding this week’s announcement of no compensation for the WASPI women. The ombudsman was clear that Parliament should make the decision on remedy. Parliament has not. Will my right hon. Friend please find time for a debate so that we can do as the ombudsman has asked us to do?

• 16 Dec 2024 · English Devolution · Hansard source

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  Decisions taken in this place are subject to rigorous scrutiny and accountability, but recent history in several areas shows that that is not always the case with local decision making—not all councillors and mayors are paragons of virtue. As we dissolve more powers, can my hon. Friend explain what levels of scrutiny and accountability will be built into his plans?

• 28 Nov 2024 · People Housebound due to Disability: Church Support · Hansard source

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  Churches Together South Tyneside does amazing work through its Happy at Home hub, providing a range of services to the lonely and the isolated. Will my hon. Friend expand a little more on the Church’s wider pastoral duties towards those in the greatest need?

• 28 Nov 2024 · People Housebound due to Disability: Church Support · Hansard source

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  7. What steps the Church is taking to support people that are housebound due to a disability.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituent Jo Pyke is a counsellor at a local cancer charity. She has stage 4 mucosal melanoma. Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, which is only available in the USA, could save her life. Our community is fundraising to get Jo to America, but Jo and many others need that therapy here in the UK. Will the Leader of the House use her good offices to help Jo fight this awful disease?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. Friend’s considerate focus. Children in care have died in unregulated accommodation, but that did not stop the last Conservative Government introducing cruel legislation to make it permissible for councils to place children in care aged 16 and above into such accommodation—tents, caravans, bed and breakfasts and houses in multiple occupation, surrounded by adult strangers and with no continuing care at all. Please will she overturn that legislation?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Independent Armed Forces Commissioner · Hansard source

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  6. What progress he has made on establishing an independent armed forces commissioner.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Independent Armed Forces Commissioner · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for all he is doing to improve the lives of our armed forces communities. He will be aware of the deeply distressing accounts of rape and sexual assault from the Defence Committee’s report on women in the armed forces. Will he please revisit our recommendations and those of the Lyons review, so that those serious cases can be heard in civilian, not service courts?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  16. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to reduce levels of child poverty.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  We know that the previous Government presided over shameful levels of child poverty, including nearly 500,000 children who are eligible for free school meals but who are missing out. Will my hon. Friend, alongside the Education Secretary, urgently look at the proposal by Feeding Britain for auto-enrolment to free school meals as part of the single application process for families claiming UC?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T3. Will the duty of candour in the Hillsborough law apply to the 70-year-long nuclear test veterans scandal?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  When this Government said that our support for Ukraine was absolute, we meant it. My right hon. Friend referred to the recently signed defence export treaty between the UK and Ukraine, which will support Ukraine’s defence industrial base while helping to replenish our own stockpiles. As far as he is able, will he update the House on the treaty’s progress?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  The SDR is welcome and needed. The previous Conservative Government left our armed forces personnel, capabilities and funding depleted. Can the Secretary of State— [ Interruption. ] Hang fire. Can the Secretary of State assure me that the experts conducting our review will have an ongoing focus on our sovereign defence industrial base, and ensure that regions such as the north-east are pivotal in that?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Local Bus Services · Hansard source

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  17. What steps she is taking to help improve local bus services.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Local Bus Services · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend knows that when the previous Government axed over 1,000 bus routes, local communities were completely ignored. As she rebuilds our bus network, can she assure me that the better buses Bill will make provision to fully include local voices, not just the voices of those in elected positions?

• 25 Jul 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Many of us enjoyed watching the Euros in our local pubs, whose licensing hours were only just extended before this House rose for the general election. My private Member’s Bill would have ensured that extensions for events of national importance would no longer be dependent on Parliament sitting. That Bill passed through this place with zero objections, but failed to make the wash-up. I know that my right hon. Friend likes sport and a good pint, so will she make time for my Bill to become law?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. For decades, my constituent Jack Taylor has been continuously ignored by previous Governments. He and other nuclear veterans have been denied access to their medical records and compensation. The Prime Minister has rightly said that these national heroes deserve full accountability and justice. Will he therefore consider supporting a special tribunal with statutory powers on this 70-year-long scandal?