Helen Morgan MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 19 Dec 2024 · Hospice Funding · Hansard source

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  I wish you and the whole team a very merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. Last week, I visited Hope House in my constituency, where I met beautiful young Esmay, one of hundreds of children cared for by the hospice every single year. She is nearly three and has a life-threatening heart condition. Esmay’s family do not know what the future holds for her, but they know that Hope House will be there to support them, as it has since before she was born. There are 300,000 people like Esmay treated in hospices every year, and just one third of their funding comes from the NHS. That leaves institutions such as Hope House and nearby Severn hospice reliant on generosity and unable to plan as they wait for confirmation of the funding they will receive from the NHS. That situation has been made more difficult this year because of the increase to national insurance contributions, which Hope House estimates will cost £177,000. Funding is welcome, and I welcome the Minister’s commitment today. Will she explain whether the increase that she has announced today will cover the NIC hike for hospices and the increase in the living wage that was announced at the Budget? Will she also commit to providing future settlements in a timely manner so that hospice managers can budget effectively for the coming year?

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

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  Since being elected, I have been contacted by a number of women who have left their partners or husbands because of domestic abuse, and then had that abuse perpetuated during their dealings with the family court when determining access to their children or the maintenance payments that they receive. Given the obvious concern about the prioritisation of access over child safety, the issues that female constituents have raised with me, and the fact that the family court operates in secrecy, which leaves constituents gagged and bound, unable to do anything about these things, can we have a debate in Government time on how women are treated in family court processes, and how we can do better?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I express my thanks and those of my Lib Dem colleagues to everyone working over the Christmas period to keep people healthy and safe. Preparedness for winter is absolutely critical for our health and care system, and a quick look at what happened last year shows us why. Ambulances across England collectively spent a total of 112 years waiting outside hospitals to hand patients over, and a quarter of a million people waited more than 12 hours to be seen. Every winter we are warned of a winter crisis. Under the Conservatives, crisis became the norm not just in winter but all year round. This year is very concerning so far. A&Es have overflowed through spring, summer and autumn. At my local hospital trust, Shrewsbury and Telford, one in three ambulances have had to wait more than an hour to hand over patients, while patients with devastating cancer diagnoses have had to wait months for crucial scan results. Across England, more than 7 million people are on waiting lists. [ Official Report , 8 January 2025; Vol. 759, c. 8WC.] (Correction) Meanwhile, I am afraid, we have not heard enough from the Government on fixing one of the root causes of this crisis, which is our broken social care system. The scale of the crisis is demonstrated by the challenges facing ambulance services across the country at the moment. October—before the winter—was the third worst month ever for handover delays at West Midlands ambulance service, which covers my constituency. The equivalent of 130 ambulance crews are out of action, waiting every single day. Now these overstretched ambulance services are formally changing their advice to reflect the pressure they are under. At times of peak demand, even category 2 patients—those suffering a heart attack or a stroke—will be asked to make their own way to a hospital. People in North Shropshire have long had to put up with some of the worst ambulance waits in the country, and they have come to harm as a result. It may no longer be the case that they can rely on an ambulance arriving. Action is urgently needed to prevent more preventable deaths this winter. I am sure the Minister shares my alarm that ambulances may not be reaching people facing life-threatening situations. If she does, will she commit today to the Government tackling the handover delays paralysing the ambulance service by accepting Liberal Democrat proposals to make a £1.5 billion fund to provide more staffed beds, and by agreeing to urgent cross-party talks to fix the crisis in social care?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Puberty-suppressing Hormones · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State not only for the content of his statement, but for its tone and his recognition of the importance of such a tone in this place. For too long, children and young people who are struggling with their gender identity have been badly let down by low standards of care, exceptionally long waiting lists and an increasingly toxic public debate. Before GIDS closed, more than 5,000 young people were stuck on the list for an appointment and waited, on average, almost three years for their first appointment. For teenagers going through what is often an incredibly difficult experience, three years must feel like an eternity, so change is desperately needed. The Liberal Democrats have long pushed to ensure that children and young people can access the high-quality healthcare that they deserve. We welcome the NHS move to create multiple new regional centres, but those centres must get up and running as quickly as possible. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps the Government are taking to ensure that happens in every region, and will he give a timetable for that work? Tackling waiting lists and improving access to care must be priorities. I understand why today’s news is causing fear and anxiety for some young trans people and their families, who have been badly let down for so many years—not least those I have met in my constituency, who have highlighted the catastrophic mental health impacts of the situation. It is crucial that these sorts of decisions are made by expert clinicians based on the best possible evidence. Will the Secretary of State publish all the evidence behind his decision, including the results of the consultation, to give those families confidence that this is the right move for them? We welcome the announcement of a clinical trial. We need the NHS to build up the evidence base as quickly as possible, and the Government to provide certainty that they will follow evidence and expert advice on behalf of those children.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Lobular Breast Cancer · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for bringing this really important debate to the Chamber and for her excellent speech, which told the story of her friend Heather and the stories of Katy, Emma, Kirstin and Cressida, who have suffered a pernicious type of disease that we are currently unable to treat effectively 100% of the time. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) for their speeches, which were all excellent. I also thank the hon. Members for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for sharing their own stories, which were very helpful to the discussion. I thank Dr Susan Michaelis for the bare-root rose—when we received it in the MPs’ offices, we were all a bit stumped by what the enormous box might be for—and, more importantly, for her tireless campaigning to secure funding for research into lobular breast cancer. The speeches today have been excellent and detailed, and I wish to avoid repetition. As we have heard, 22 people a day in the UK—mostly women—and 1,000 women globally are diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer. It is the second most common type of breast cancer, so it is really important that we support the Lobular Moon Shot Project. Liberal Democrats will fully support that project, which is run with the Manchester Breast Centre. Some £20 million over five years to better understand the diagnosis and treatment of this disease is not really a significant investment for the Government, but it would have an enormous and meaningful impact for those people—mostly women, but, as I said, there are some men—who are affected by it every single day. Research funding is such an important part of investment in the early detection and treatment of cancer—particularly for lobular breast cancer—which is better for everyone, including the patients who have been diagnosed. Receiving a diagnosis of any type of cancer is a really difficult moment for any individual and their family, but receiving a diagnosis of a cancer for which there is not a clear treatment pathway is even more concerning. It is really important that we try to address the problem that these women face. It is better for them and for the NHS, because, as we all know, early treatment tends to be more successful and quicker. Because of that, it is also better for the taxpayer. It is entirely consistent with the recently announced Government strategy of rewiring the NHS to focus resources on early prevention, detection and treatment to ensure that people are kept healthy, rather than treated when they are sick. As other speakers have pointed out, this disease is the sixth most common cancer in women, and it needs to be treated as a distinct disease. We must ensure that women who face this diagnosis are given the treatment for the disease that they have, not for one that they do not have. It is really important that that is built into the Government’s new cancer strategy, which they have committed to work on. The last Government did not have a 10-year cancer plan, although they did include lobular breast cancer in their women’s health strategy, so I was really pleased to see that in a debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, this Government committed to a national cancer strategy. That is a really important step forward, and we are really pleased that the Government felt able to make that step. I hope that for people who have been diagnosed with lobular breast cancer and, indeed, any other type of cancer that the Government are able to deliver on the strategy as soon as possible. One of my key concerns is the dreadful waiting times for scans and for results from MRI scans, which are the best way of detecting lobular breast cancer, and other types of CT scan. In my constituency of North Shropshire, which is part of the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin integrated care board, we have some of the worst records in the country for scan interpretation. As a result, I have been contacted by constituents who have had devastating outcomes, where scan results have been delivered to them, only for them to find out that they have been on the wrong type of treatment in the meantime, sometimes for many months. We need to avoid that happening in the future. The leadership team has shown that it can address the problem, and I am pleased to report that it is beginning to do so in Shropshire. I hope that the cancer strategy will identify where there are shortages of radiologists and of the machinery needed to carry out those scans and to ensure that we hit the 62-day waiting-time target for people who need to start urgent cancer treatment. Part of the capital expenditure plan announced by the Government is critical to that, and I look forward to hearing the details from the Minister. The Liberal Democrats also want the Government to pass a cancer survival research Act that requires the Government to co-ordinate and ensure funding for less survivable and less common types of cancer, and for types of cancer that are not currently treated as distinct or treated appropriately. We want the time it takes for new treatments to reach patients to be halved, which would mean expanding the capacity of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. That would ensure that patients with cancers that do not respond to current standard treatments can access new treatments much more quickly as they come online. I echo the request of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood and the other hon. Members who have spoken so powerfully today. The Lobular Moon Shot Project would change the lives of 8,500 women in the UK every year. In developing the national cancer strategy, I hope the Minister will consider some of the proposals that we have put forward collectively today, which are aimed at improving detection, treatment and survival rates for people with invasive lobular cancer and all other types of cancer.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Storm Darragh · Hansard source

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  This morning, 2,500 people in my constituency were still without power. That is down from 8,000 yesterday morning, and I am grateful to all the engineers who have worked so hard to get those people back online. Water booster pumps also lost power on Sunday, so those in a large area of the constituency experienced low water pressure. In the sizeable town of Wem, there were large areas with no water at all, despite there having been only a yellow weather warning. It seems that that the resilience of the utility companies is not where it needs to be to respond to an event of this nature. Can the Minister reassure me about what she is doing with those companies to ensure that we are more resilient in future, given that these events will be increasingly frequent as the impact of climate change worsens?

• 9 Dec 2024 · SEND Pupils: Support · Hansard source

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  17. What steps her Department is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

• 9 Dec 2024 · SEND Pupils: Support · Hansard source

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  Children with special educational needs and disabilities in Shropshire are relatively poorly funded compared with those in the rest of the country. Top-up funding for those with the highest level of needs is just £7,000, meaning that the schools that support them cannot even afford a full-time teaching assistant to help them progress. Can the Minister describe what she is doing to ensure that funding is fairly distributed across the country, so that children with special educational needs can get the help they need wherever they live?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Planning Committees: Reform · Hansard source

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  As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities, and the MP for a constituency that suffers from surface water flooding as well as river flooding, I am concerned that the proposals will divert decision making away from those with the greatest local knowledge. When a flooding area is drained, the water has to go somewhere else, and where it goes is critical to the people living in the surrounding area. Can the Minister reassure me that the proposals will not dilute the importance of local knowledge in making critical decisions about draining and flooding when we build?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that the single biggest reason that people fail to access work in rural areas is public transport? The figures that she has given are not just numbers; it benefits somebody’s whole way of life if they can access work because they can catch the bus there.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Economic Growth in Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  20. What fiscal steps she is taking to increase economic growth in rural areas.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Economic Growth in Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  Rural North Shropshire is home to some great independent businesses that we are looking forward to celebrating on Small Business Saturday this week, but they are held back by the business rates system, which benefits big online retailers and holds back investment not only on the high street but in the countryside. Will the Minister consider a much more radical reform of business rates which takes account of land values, encourages businesses to invest and puts high street retailers on a level playing field with online giants?

• 27 Nov 2024 · World AIDS Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Mark, and indeed to represent the Liberal Democrats for World AIDS Day. I thank the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for his excellent introduction to this topic and for securing the debate. There have been so many brilliant contributions. I want to leave plenty of time for the other Front Benchers to speak, so I will not go through them all, but I am very impressed that in such a short time we have covered so much ground, and so eloquently. I particularly want to pick up on the speech by the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), who powerfully told us the story of John Eaddie, and thank him for that contribution. AIDS is one of the globe’s biggest killers, as we all know, despite being entirely preventable and treatable. In 2023, nearly 40 million people across the globe were living with HIV, 1.3 million of whom became newly infected within that year. Given that it is entirely preventable and treatable, we can aspire to bring that number right down to zero. In the United Kingdom the fight has been serious and ongoing since the 1980s, and yet since 2021 the numbers diagnosed have been increasing, while the numbers tested have been decreasing. We absolutely have to ensure that that is turned around rapidly. Testing is still 4% lower than pre-covid levels, and that has been driven by a drop among heterosexual men, where the testing rates are 22% lower than pre-covid. The most recent UK-wide estimates have about 5,000 people as undiagnosed and not aware that they are living with HIV. Again, that shows that the importance of testing—I entirely support the call for opt-out testing—is paramount to bring such people into the healthcare that they need and deserve, and to prevent the disease spreading. Internationally, good progress has been made, but the picture is still extremely concerning. I want to pick up on the inequality in that picture. Every week, globally, 4,000 adolescent girls—young women aged between 15 and 24 years—become infected with HIV; in 2023, 3,100 of those infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty and displacement drive those higher rates of infection, and there is a worrying link between conflict, sexual violence and HIV. That is something we need to address. I want to be brief, so to summarise the policy ask, the Liberal Democrats are keen to ensure universal access to HIV prevention, such as PrEP, and treatment. I have mentioned the importance of opt-out testing. We still need to work to eliminate the stigma and the discrimination linked to HIV, especially the racist element highlighted so carefully earlier. We press on the Government the importance of restoring the public health grant, which the Conservatives have cut by a fifth since 2015, to deliver better access to sexual health services. On helping globally, it is important that we restore, or at least set out the path to restoring, the 0.7% of gross domestic product for international aid, to enable issues such as AIDS to be prioritised in accordance with our requirements. With that, I will leave time for the other Front Benchers.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  I can confirm that it has been a very long time since anyone has asked me for ID to make a purchase—a moment that is even further into the past than the last time I bought a packet of cigarettes. That experience will inform some of my comments today. I support this legislation, but it will be a free vote for my Liberal Democrat colleagues, and I will use my speech to explain why. First of all, the Bill is split into two sets of measures: one to deal with smoking and one to deal with vaping. We are 100% supportive of the set of measures dealing with vaping, which is in line with our party policy that was passed at our 2023 conference. I think everyone in this House is united in agreeing that the targeting of nicotine products at young people and children through bright colours and attractive flavours is a shameful practice. Measures need to be taken to prevent that. I am the mum of a teenager—lucky me—and he reports that some of his friends are unable to concentrate through a 40-minute lesson, because they have been exposed to such high levels of nicotine in the vaping products that they use that they are even more addicted to nicotine than someone who might have taken up smoking many years ago when I was young. We welcome the changes to prevent the targeting of vaping at children, and the recent ban on disposable vapes. We also acknowledge that vaping is an important part of smoking cessation, and legal vaping needs to continue into the future. The introduction of a phased smoking ban is problematic, and not because Liberal Democrats want to see people smoke themselves into an early grave—far from it—but because it raises issues of practicality and civil liberties, which I will run through on behalf of my colleagues. The first question is, practically, how will this work? My son was born in January 2009. He will be one of the first people to benefit from a smokefree generation, and I sincerely hope that he never takes up smoking, but if his friends who are just a few weeks older choose to take up smoking, they will be able to continue to do that for the rest of their lives. Under this Bill, those future adults will be able to buy tobacco products for themselves but it will be illegal for them to pass them on to others a few weeks younger, such as my son. Problematic enforcement causes some concern and leads us to question why there was not an alternative way, perhaps by setting a very high minimum age to buy cigarettes, so that most people get through the flourish of rebellious youth and do not take up smoking in the first place. The concerns about practicality are legitimate. The Bill also raises the spectre of an ID card, because those people who choose to start smoking will potentially be forced to carry an ID card or some other form of ID with them for the rest of their lives. That is a concern for the Liberal Democrats, who are strongly opposed to requiring people to carry ID around with them, for various issues of privacy and personal liberty. There is also an ideological point about discriminating between two people because of their age. We are generally opposed to that as a society, but the Bill does that. The concerns about retailers suffering abuse are also legitimate. They are already suffering from a wave of shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. Some of the abuse directed at them comes from the enforcement of age legislation for things such as alcohol and existing tobacco legislation. We need to be cognisant of the decimation of community policing under the previous Government. We need to be sure that those retailers are fully protected. The Bill creates an extra risk for them. Finally on the risks, there is a concern for the licensing authorities, which presumably will be local councils, although we do not have the detail on that yet. Lots of local councils are unable to carry out much more than their statutory duties currently, so I would appreciate confirmation that licensing will be fully funded for them, so that they are not put in charge of enforcing something that will be impossible. I want to touch on what for me is quite an important area: the creation of a black market. Criminal gangs exploit young people in North Shropshire by getting them hooked on cannabis. It is an extremely difficult problem. Young people get into debt to those criminal gangs and are hooked into criminality for life. They see things people should never see and are extremely damaged by that exploitation. I share the concern that progressively banning tobacco products will increase the scope for the black market and the risk to children. For all those reasons, as some Members may be aware, I abstained on the vote last time the legislation was brought through the House. It would be a legitimate question to ask me why I have changed my mind. I met somebody called Linda Chambers, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Hull, who came along to an event organised by Action on Smoking and Health to encourage Members to support the Bill. Linda was devastated when she lost her husband of 50 years to cardiovascular disease. As with a number of other speakers at the event who also spoke very powerfully about their experiences, her loved one had tried on several occasions to give up smoking but had been unsuccessful. The speakers at the event explained that the nicotine addiction had taken away the personal choice of their loved ones to live the lives they wanted to live. They were not exercising their personal choice any more. For a liberal, that is a very powerful argument. Personal choice is so important, and addiction really does take that away. As the asthmatic daughter of two smokers who have repeatedly tried and struggled to give up over the years, Members might perhaps have expected me to understand that argument a little bit earlier. Typically, as the daughter of two smokers, I took up smoking myself. I did not smoke very much and did not smoke for very long, but I still occasionally have the odd craving for reasons I cannot explain, especially when I am in a traffic jam. But it is not funny, is it? Tobacco is uniquely harmful and uniquely addictive, and that is why I support the measures we are taking to address that. Another really important, persuasive and powerful argument I heard in the previous Parliament was when Dame Andrea Leadsom, the responsible Minister at the time, and Chris Whitty took the time to provide a briefing to the Liberal Democrats. One point they highlighted was health inequality. A point that struck me—at the time, I was the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss—was that 21.1% of pregnant women in the most deprived areas of the country are likely to smoke while pregnant, whereas in the least deprived parts of the country only 5.6% are likely to be a smoker. That huge difference correlates to a horrifying differential in the rate of stillbirth. Women who smoke while pregnant are more likely to have a stillbirth, and stillbirth rates in the most deprived areas of the country are 50% higher than in the least deprived areas. If we are serious about tackling health inequality rather than just paying it lip service, we have to take additional measures to tackle those inequalities. For all the reasons I have outlined, I will support the Bill. However, I retain a few concerns, and I would be grateful if the Minister could address them in his wind up. The powers in the Bill effectively allow the Secretary of State to make any public place or workplace a no-smoking area. That is very far reaching. I would prefer to introduce measures in Committee that would require him to come back to Parliament before extending the areas affected. That would protect the hospitality industry, which, as hon. Members have pointed out, is struggling, particularly in rural areas. I will also point out the obvious, which is that anybody who is currently over 16 could potentially be a smoker for life. There are many, many people who took up smoking and who want to give up but are unable to. We must reverse the cuts to the public health budget and the smoking cessation budget to enable those people to benefit from stopping smoking. The Conservatives have slashed the public health budget since 2015. We would like the Secretary of State to use the money provided for health in the Budget to address that problem. A quarter of cancer deaths are caused by smoking and 75,000 GP appointments every month are for smoking-related illness. Many women who smoke during pregnancy will continue to smoke for up to another decade. Despite my concerns, I will support the Bill to ensure that people like Linda do not have to lose their loved ones to an addiction they were unable to end. I urge the Secretary of State to look at measures to deal with the practical considerations we have outlined and to support the current generation of smokers to quit if they want to.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  I remind Members that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities. Large areas of North Shropshire are often under water, either from river flooding or from prolonged rainfall. This weekend has been no exception, with villagers cut off for long periods of time and vast swathes of farmland flooded. This year, there are farmers who have been unable to plant crops in the current harvest, which has just been collected, and who will not be able to do so next year—they are in a desperate state. When the Secretary of State reviews the flooding formula and the funding, will he consider how farmers will be compensated for storing vast quantities of water upstream, regardless of whether they like it or not?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q14. Last week I was contacted by a constituent whose husband has stage 4 bowel cancer. He had a routine scan in June but did not receive the results until early November, and unfortunately during that period he received unsuitable chemotherapy and his cancer has progressed. Given that Shropshire has the worst record in the country for CT and MRI scan results, may I ask the Deputy Prime Minister the same question that my constituent has asked me? When will the Government address this problem?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives’ disastrous legacy on dentistry means that more than 4.4 million children have not seen a dentist in the past year. In Shropshire, dentists continue to hand back their contracts, including one in Wem in recent weeks. Will the Minister outline his plan to reverse that terrible decline and ensure that the issue is addressed in rural areas where there are dental deserts?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Health and Care Staffing Costs: Employer NI Contributions · Hansard source

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  Hospices provide essential care for people at the most difficult point of their life, and they are usually only partially funded by the NHS. Hospice UK says that real-terms funding has fallen by £47 million since 2022, and hospices are struggling with this hike in national insurance contributions. Hope House children’s hospice in North Shropshire estimates that it will cost £178,000. Will the Secretary of State commit to either exempting hospices from the NICs increase or ensure that they are funded to cover those additional costs?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  Shropshire is one of the worst-served counties in England for public transport, having lost 63% of its bus miles since 2015, compared with a national average of about 19%. A person in Market Drayton who wants to get to the closest hospital in Telford, which is a 20-minute car journey, is looking at a five-hour round trip on the bus. We have only one service operating between Oswestry and Chester on Sundays. I am afraid that I was therefore quite disappointed by Shropshire’s £2.5 million revenue allocation in this round of funding. Will the Secretary of State meet me to learn about the huge transport challenges we face in Shropshire, and to see if we can do better?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  Oswestry in my constituency is the second largest town in Shropshire and serves a vast rural area stretching into mid-Wales and across north Shropshire. It is digitally excluded because it often does not have adequate mobile signal or broadband services, so the full range of Crown post office services are absolutely essential there. Will the Minister assure me that the full range of Crown post office services will remain in Oswestry, and that the Post Office will take into account the importance of retaining vital services in rural areas, which are being deserted by commercial organisations such as banks?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Disabled People: Discrimination · Hansard source

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  Nowhere are disabled people more discriminated against than on Britain’s railways. The previous Government had an Access for All scheme that would allow disabled people to get to platforms that were otherwise inaccessible. This has been put on hold by the new Government. Can the Minister tell me what discussions he has had with his colleagues in the Department for Transport and when we might see stations such as Whitchurch made accessible to people who cannot manage steps?

• 12 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Many homes in my constituency are off grid, which means that their owners have to fill up the tank at the beginning of winter to keep warm. The pensioners who have lost the winter fuel payment are struggling with that up-front amount. Will the Minister review the level at which the winter fuel payment is removed, because the most vulnerable are struggling?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Members who made their maiden speeches earlier. I thought they were all excellent, although I obviously take issue with anyone who does not think that North Shropshire is the best place to be an MP. North Shropshire is very rural and is inhabited by some of the best people you will ever meet. I like to spend my Saturdays and Friday afternoons knocking on their doors and asking them what they think. What they think is that they were taken for granted by the previous Government for many, many years, but I fear they are concerned the new Government are about to repeat that trick. I strongly urge them not to. Farming is the backbone of the economy in places like North Shropshire. Whether farming arable land or dairy herds, people have had an incredibly challenging time, not just because of the phasing out of the basic payment scheme and the botched transition to the sustainable farming incentive, but because farmers with breeding herds trying to export to Europe have been badly let down by the botched Brexit deal. There is no timetable on the horizon for a phytosanitary agreement to resolve that issue; I urge the Government to act at pace to resolve it for farmers who need to export abroad. The changes to the inheritance tax threshold have been very badly communicated to farmers. According to the Government’s figures, 288 farms in North Shropshire will be affected. Many of the farmers have been in touch with me, and they are extremely concerned, because they need more support not higher tax. If those farmers are wrong, I think the Government need to accept that their communication with them needs to be a great deal better, because at present they are very concerned. I urge the Government not to adopt a high-handed tone but to listen to and engage with them. Farmers are also concerned because of flooding. They have had an extremely challenging time, with 18 months of continuous wet weather. Many in my constituency who lost a whole field or a larger area last year are still unable to re-till following an appalling October, but in Shropshire we have not been eligible for either the farming recovery fund or the frequently flooded allowance, although many of my constituents are underwater, reliably, every single year. I therefore urge the Government, when they look at flood defence spending, to consider those who are being clobbered by the weather year in, year out but have so far been ineligible to receive the support that they need to recover. I also urge the Government to think about how the sustainable farming incentive might be used to encourage farmers to hold water upstream. An hon. Member—I apologise for forgetting which one—mentioned reservoirs; I urge the Government to consider building that issue into their plans, so that water can be managed effectively for the farmers who have had such an appalling time over the last 18 months. Healthcare is problematic in rural areas. Because ours are not big university hospitals, it is difficult to attract staff to come and work in them—they are not necessarily looking at a glittering career investigating all sorts of exciting conditions—which means our health services are much worse than those elsewhere in the country. When I was elected, the problem of ambulance waiting times was the top issue that people raised on the doorstep, and it remains awful. October was the third worst month on record for handover delays at West Midlands ambulance service. Last week one of my constituents had to wait 24 hours in pain on a plastic chair before being diagnosed with heart difficulties. Every month over 2,000 patients spend more than 12 hours in the A&E departments of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. We must address the important issue of the recruitment and retention of health staff in rural areas. Obviously, the Budget has raised the question of how healthcare providers will handle the increased NICs. That is probably an issue for a separate debate, but I urge those in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to liaise with their colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and discuss how we can get staff into rural areas and ensure that people have the same outcomes as those in the rest of the country, because at present they are being poorly served. People need to have access to healthcare, as well as education and work opportunities, but transport is a huge problem, and that is killing off the high street. According to the jobcentre in Oswestry, the single biggest issue is the inability of workers to get back into work because public transport is so poor that they cannot access a place of work. Shropshire has lost 63% of its bus miles since 2015, while the national average is 19%. That will give Members some idea of how difficult it is for us. In the Budget, the Government did not mention public transport investment in rural areas. I strongly urge the Minister to address that with his colleagues and, in particular, to consider really good schemes such as the Oswestry-Gobowen railway line, and the desperate public transport desert that is Market Drayton. I have very little time, so I will just say this. The Government must make sure that the shared rural network is delivered and is effective, but if it is not, they must ensure that people can roam between networks. Local councils must be fairly funded so that the cost of delivering services over a vast area is reflected in the funding settlements that they receive. When it comes to healthcare, transport and digital services, rural areas are struggling, and we must have—

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  Fair funding for rural authorities, and indeed all local authorities, is something I have talked about many times in this House, and I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. We saw £600 million allocated to social care in the Budget and an increase in the national living wage, both of which are obviously welcome, but the huge pressure on private providers as a result of the national insurance contributions increase will be really problematic, unless councils are funded to pay those additional costs. It is not clear that the funding announced in the Budget will even touch the sides of the crisis in local government funding or in social care. We all know that this is a thorny problem, and that funding social care is extremely expensive and difficult; that is why cross-party talks are so urgent. I urge the Secretary of State to instigate those as soon as possible, so that we can work towards a permanent fix for social care. Liberal Democrats believe that free personal care on the Scotland model would be the best way of achieving that, and the Institute for Public Policy Research says that we could save £3.3 billion by 2031 by implementing that model. That would be a good investment, because it would save taxpayer money and it would keep people in their homes—where they want to be—with dignity. The debate today covers other public services, and I want to touch on a couple; education is an important one, and we welcome the investment in it, but I want to talk a bit about SEND budgets and local authorities. Schools are under enormous pressure to provide SEND measures for the children they look after, and local authorities are under huge pressure to provide transport and specialist places. The £1 billion for local government will be insufficient to deal with social care, the SEND crisis and SEND transport. As the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) mentioned, Shropshire council is spending about 80% of its budget on social care, so without adequate measures for social care, it seems unlikely that this Budget will address all the problems that local authorities need to deal with. We are therefore concerned about the decision to put VAT on private school fees. Schools such as Oswestry school in my constituency take a relatively large number of pupils who have failed to thrive in a larger setting. They have special educational needs but no education, health and care plan, and they might even have refused school altogether. There is a risk that those children, whose parents are saving hard to put them into that alternative place, will end up back in the state sector, where their needs are not met. They might refuse to go to school, and the school would struggle to cope with those additional children. The capital expenditure is welcome, and I hope that the demountable buildings at the Corbet school in Baschurch will benefit from that announcement, but I urge the Government to reconsider some of those measures. On transport, it was disappointing to see the bus fare cap increased, although in Shropshire it will not make any difference, because it is almost impossible to catch a bus anywhere. We would really like to see some of the detail behind the public transport plans announced by the Chancellor, particularly the bus service improvement plan that Shropshire council has put forward, and railway schemes such as the Oswestry to Berwyn line. Finally—it may be stretching it to call this a point about public services—I believe that farmers provide an essential public service in feeding us, looking after the countryside and protecting the rural environment, and it is disappointing to see that there is confusion between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Treasury about how many farms will be affected. My sense from talking to local farmers in Shropshire is that the DEFRA numbers are more accurate.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome the shadow Secretary of State to his place. He responded to my first Adjournment debate on a Thursday before Easter, and I was very grateful, but he will be disappointed to hear that we have not seen the improvements in ambulance response times that we would have liked to see in Shropshire. Last week’s Budget brought £22 billion of investment for the NHS. By anybody’s standards, that is a big number, so the Liberal Democrats welcome the investment. The NHS was left in a dire state by the Conservatives, and it is clear that something radical must be done. What is the Conservatives’ legacy? Well, we all know: crumbling hospitals, 7 million people on NHS waiting lists for secondary operations, our constituents struggling to access a GP when they need one, dental deserts such as the one in North Shropshire, appalling ambulance waiting times with horrifying outcomes, and a tsunami of a mental health crisis waiting to overwhelm us. It is clear that investment is needed, which is why the Liberal Democrats put the NHS at the front of our election manifesto and our campaigning since. It is very important that the £22 billion is spent wisely to keep people healthy and to save money in the future, so I look forward to hearing how the Budget will affect the public health grant and mental health services in particular. Those are two really important areas where we can invest to save taxpayers’ money, and to get better health outcomes for people and avoid their suffering in the future. It is also really important that the £22 billion of investment is not undermined by a decision made by the same Government on the very same day. It is hard to believe that the decision to increase employer’s national insurance contributions and to lower the threshold—at a cost of £566 per person—was properly thought through before the Budget was delivered last Wednesday. That decision is going to hit GP practices, hospices, social care providers and the charities that provide so much additional care outside the formal NHS structure. A local GP got in touch with me over the weekend to say that the decision will “serve to directly undermine access and patient care at a time when practices are already under strain due to years of neglect.” Another said it will “kill the family doctor”. Why will it kill the family doctor? Because GP practices are not eligible for employment allowance. They cannot put up their prices, and their only option is to cut staff and services, which would be a disaster. The Conservative Government proved that if we cut the number of GPs, we end up with a really big problem in the NHS—one that we are fighting now. Labour’s plan to increase the number of GPs, which is welcome, is surely in jeopardy because of the increase to employer’s NICs. The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to exempt GPs from the NIC hike or ensure that they are funded to cover it. Otherwise, no one is going to see their GP within seven days—a right that the Liberal Democrats think people should have. I want to touch on social care, which feels a bit like the elephant in the room and is likely to be significantly affected by the change in thresholds and rates of employer’s national insurance contributions. We all know that the sector is in crisis, and the Budget took note of this but did not really go far enough to address it. I think we can all agree that we cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care. We know that there are thousands of patients in hospital who are medically fit to be discharged and who would recover better in their own bed at home, but who are stuck in a hospital because the social care packages are not available to allow them to return home. That bed blocking, which is a horrible term, causes patients to be unable to flow through a hospital when they are admitted. It causes the queues of 12, 13 or 14 ambulances that we see outside hospitals in Shropshire on a regular basis, and it means that those ambulances do not arrive when somebody is in a life-threatening position in their community. Social care is so important in dealing with this urgent problem.