Greg Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Education and Skills Reform · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State referred to the Government’s SEND reforms as having been “built in partnership with parents”. I can assure her that many parents of SEND children in Mid Buckinghamshire are deeply concerned about the shape of those reforms and their one-size-fits-all nature. Before she brings forward any legislation or response to the consultation, can I urge her to look very carefully at what all campaigners on this subject are saying? As she is new in post, will she look again at the Government’s axing of a new SEND school for Buckinghamshire, and build it?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Sudden Cardiac Death: Young People · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I agree with him on that point and I will come on to screening in one or two moments. Families should not be left to act as their own caseworkers in the aftermath of grief. We need to review how genetic findings are communicated to all relatives, and how families can be properly supported in doing that work; we should not simply be told, as NHS England and the British Society for Genetic Medicine have both said so far, that a service specification is under review with no date attached. The coroner also asked whether there is adequate sudden cardiac arrest training for coaches and referees at organised football matches. If young people are taking part in organised sport, those supervising them must know how to respond when something goes wrong. I welcome the fact that the Football Association is exploring improvements and that Adam’s parents have engaged constructively with that work, but this should not depend on a grieving family campaigning after a tragedy. It should be standard for every club, not just the accredited ones. I am also concerned that the English Institute of Sport, Sport England and the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK—all recipients of this prevention of future deaths report, and all in receipt of public or national lottery funding—did not respond to it at all. Public funding should carry a basic obligation to engage when a coroner writes to them about a child’s death. Finally, I come on to the point made by the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) about screening, and here there is a specific, checkable gap. Cardiac Risk in the Young estimates that 12 apparently fit and healthy young people die of undiagnosed cardiac conditions every week in this country, with no prior symptoms in about 80% of cases. These are not abstract numbers; they are lost sons and daughters. The UK National Screening Committee is currently consulting on the evidence, and the Government should be guided by that work. However, I have checked directly what that evidence map actually contains, and I want the House to hear this clearly. Its literature searches were conducted on 10 April 2025. On 24 February 2026, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology published the largest and most relevant UK study ever conducted on this exact question. With outcomes from over 104,000 young people screened by Cardiac Risk in the Young over a 10-year period, led by City St George’s, University of London, it had real-world data on what actually happened to people after a positive result, which is precisely the evidence the 2019 review said was missing. That study did not exist when the map’s searches were run, and I have confirmed directly against the published document that it is not in it. If anyone reaches tonight for the map’s citation of an unrelated 2022 cricket screening paper by a different MacLachlan study, I want it on the record now that that is not the same study. So my question is direct: will the Government confirm that the evidence map has not considered the February 2026 JACC study, and commit tonight to its being formally included in the deliberations of the committee when it meets in November, rather than filed away for a further three-year wait, as the map’s own conclusion currently recommends? If the committee does not recommend population-wide screening, will the Minister commit to implementing the FIFA 2025 consensus statement, which recommends screening young footballers aged 12 to 18 as best practice? This is football’s home country and football is our national sport. We should be asking whether we do enough to protect the young people who play it.