Helen Morgan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. In North Shropshire, around 15,000 households, including my own, are reliant on fuels like heating oil or LPG to heat them. These people are also hit hardest by rises at the petrol pumps because they do not have alternative forms of transport. While everybody who is connected to mains electricity and gas benefits from the price cap, those of us who are off-grid have only been offered means-tested support. Will the Government consider introducing a price cap on alternative fuels to ensure that rural and off-grid homes get the support they deserve?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Puberty Blockers Clinical Trial · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for his opening speech, as well as the compassionate and balanced nature with which he introduced the debate. Liberal Democrats have been arguing for many years that improved access to better specialist healthcare services for children and young people struggling with their gender identity is extremely important. These young people have been badly let down by low care standards, extremely long waiting lists and an unacceptably toxic public debate. Up front, I want to be clear that my party’s position is that any treatment and the approval of a trial must always be led by clinical, expert evidence, and not by personal belief, however sincerely that belief is held. For these reasons, we welcomed and continue to welcome the call in the Cass review for a clinical trial. Following the closure of the GIDS clinic, which was rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission, it is clear that change is needed. Under the previous system, more than 5,000 young people were stuck on a waiting list for a single clinic, each waiting an average of three years for just their first appointment. We have consistently campaigned for real action to tackle the shocking waiting times across the NHS, whether for cancer patients or mental health referrals, and the importance of cutting these wait times is equally pressing for gender identity services. We have been pressing for new services with more specialist clinicians who can provide children and young people with the appropriate and high-quality care that they need. Liberal Democrats welcome the NHS’s move to create new regional centres to offer this healthcare to the young people who need it. However, as far as I am aware, only two have opened so far—one in London and one in the north-west. We would like confirmation of when more centres will open. Young people who are stuck on these waiting lists will still have to wait a very long time. At such a distressing point in their lives, the three-year average wait for someone to see a specialist must feel like an eternity—for them and their family. The Government must show true urgency in opening these services to prevent more children being further denied the care that they need. It is right that treatment should first be based on talking therapies. That gives those receiving treatment and their families the time, space and clarity to make informed decisions about their future. However, young people must be able to start talking therapy when they need it as a matter of urgency, not after languishing for years on waiting lists. Following the Cass review, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced the launch of an NHS clinical trial to investigate the impact of puberty blockers, alongside an indefinite ban on puberty blockers as treatment for gender dysphoria or gender incongruence. That trial has now been paused. It is crucial that decisions on treatment are made by expert clinicians and based on the best possible evidence, but we need the NHS to build up that evidence base effectively and safely. In that vein, we are supportive of the Secretary of State’s decision to pause the trial while the concerns raised by the MHRA are thoroughly assessed. I am calling on the Government to publish how the MHRA arrived at its decision to pause the trial, so there can be confidence that the decision was led by clinical evidence. As with any medical treatment, it is crucial that decisions are led by expert clinicians following the evidence on safety and effectiveness. Research should also take into account the personal experiences of those who have previously used these services. This debate should not be an ideological one; it is a debate about the quality of healthcare we provide to people who are in desperate need. All trans and non-binary people should be able to access the high-quality healthcare they deserve. The Liberal Democrats call on the Government to make tackling the unacceptable waiting times a priority. To take the urgent action that is needed, the Government must commit to NHS trials and adult services for trans and non-binary people that will expand the timely provision of appropriate specialist healthcare. The Government must ensure trans people can access high-quality healthcare in the manner we expect for all patients. Medical decisions should be made by patients and doctors together and informed by the best possible evidence. The Government must support research through effective and safe methods using international best practice to improve our evidence on the safety and efficacy of potential treatments. One thing is certain: in a debate where the wellbeing of many young people is at risk, decisions should not be led by ideology. We cannot let a toxic public debate threaten the wellbeing of vulnerable individuals. The Government must prioritise clinical evidence and put the interests of patients at the heart of the decision-making process, as we do in all areas of healthcare.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns · Hansard source

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  One reason people use their cars instead of the railway is that they cannot access the platform because there are steps and no lift. Does the hon. Member agree that restoring step-free access to stations such Whitchurch in my constituency is critical to making sure that people can benefit from using the railway and do not get in their cars?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is my constituency neighbour, and she is making an excellent speech about how wonderful Shropshire is. Also lovely is Oswestry in my constituency, another medieval town with a great history. I support the call that I think she will make for a direct service to London that runs through the whole of Shropshire, but in my constituency the rail line goes to Gobowen, not Oswestry, and that is really important. I support the call for the service, but does she agree that it is really important that Oswestry is linked to Gobowen, so that people in all our medieval towns can benefit from the railway?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituents live along what would have been a route for construction traffic for High Speed 2, when it was proposed that it would continue up to Crewe. Because my constituents’ daughter has a life-limiting condition, the Select Committee requested that HS2 Ltd buy my constituents’ house, so that their daughter would not be adversely affected by dust and other pollution from the construction traffic. Since then, it is difficult to say that HS2 Ltd has behaved honourably in any way at all. Recently, it has reduced the amount that it is willing to pay my constituents, on the estate agent’s valuation, although that is expressly forbidden under the agreement that my constituents had with HS2 Ltd. I know that I am not the only MP whose constituents have been poorly treated by HS2 Ltd. Will the Leader of the House organise a meeting with me, the other MPs affected, and the relevant Minister, so that we can discuss how to properly hold HS2 Ltd to account on its commitments?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  The roll-out of Project Gigabit in my constituency has been a failure because Freedom Fibre has handed back the contract, with many thousands of properties unconnected, and the replacement contract is likely to take many more years to deliver gigabit access to thousands of my constituents. The all-party parliamentary group on digital communities, which I chair, has suggested some solutions to the problem. Will the Minister come to one of our meetings, and meet us, in order to understand how critical this is for rural communities?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Flooding: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making an excellent speech and has taken a huge number of interventions, for which I thank her. When it comes to development, flood management strategies are not taking into account the run-off that additional development will cause; for example, the upper Severn catchment management scheme is looking at opportunities to store water, but not at risks from additional development. We know that the drainage arrangements that are put in place, such as attenuation ponds, are often not maintained into the future. Does the hon. Member agree that we need a better plan for making sure that when development happens, the run-off does not affect the existing residents?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Rural Roads · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way on that point?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Rural Roads · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making what is generally a good speech about rural funding, so it is a shame that he has made it party political. Does he not understand that the Conservative administration, under whose budget we are still operating, cut highways funding, including the proportion for preventive maintenance, for every year from 2022 to 2025? That will clearly have had a knock-on impact. If we do not maintain the roads, they will be in a much worse state at the end of that period.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Rural Roads · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) is right to point out that the roads in Shropshire are in a terrible state after 16 years of Conservative management, so I am pleased that the Liberal Democrat administration has made fixing roads a key priority since coming into power 10 months ago. The council has created three new repair teams and dealt with 25,000 potholes since May, but during a wet and cold winter, it seemed like whack-a-mole, with new potholes appearing just as others are fixed. In January, 2,113 new potholes were reported, compared with just 1,200 the year before. As Liberal Democrats, we have long called for increased investment in repairing our roads. That is particularly important in Shropshire, where the council manages nearly 3,200 miles of road, but has often received less funding per mile than many other councils. The Government’s additional dedicated roads funding is welcome, but at the same time, they are slashing our overall funding by 10%. That is no good when we need to have a maintenance programme in place, which is what the Liberal Democrats in Shropshire will be prioritising so that potholes do not appear in the first place.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation · Hansard source

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  In rural parts of the country such as North Shropshire, where broadband, mobile signal and public transport are poor, people really depend on their postal service. Constituents have contacted me to say that they have missed court documents and NHS letters—important things that they need in order to get on with their lives. I have visited the sorting office. Beyond the prioritisation of parcels, which posties have told me about, the rounds are too long and working conditions for postal workers are not good enough, so there are issues in recruitment and retention. What can Ofcom do to ensure that Royal Mail puts in place the resources to ensure that letters can be delivered on time in rural places, like North Shropshire?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  One in three households in North Shropshire are dependent on heating oil—I declare an interest, because mine is one of them. Since last week, people have been in contact with me, concerned about the rapid escalation of heating oil costs. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that she recognises that problem and wants to act on it, but can she outline in more detail what kind of remedy she envisages and how soon it might be put in place?

• 26 Feb 2026 · Eating Disorders Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate and for her dogged campaigning, her tireless work as chair of the APPG on eating disorders and her excellent opening speech. I welcome Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and the important role that it plays in drawing attention to one of the deadliest and most harrowing conditions. I recognise and draw attention to the eating disorder charity Beat, which offers invaluable support for those with eating disorders, and the carers and healthcare professionals who provide support that, in many cases, can be lifesaving. Anyone with personal experience of eating disorders will know just how devastating they can be. They rob young people of the formative years of their life, put immense strain on families and carers, and have long-lasting physical and psychological impacts. I was shocked to learn that hospital admissions for eating disorders have doubled in the last decade. A development as stark as that demands robust action and investment. At the same time, over half of the country’s integrated care boards have cut children’s eating disorder services. Children and young people cannot be allowed to slip through the net because of underfunded services. The National Audit of Eating Disorders found huge disparities in the levels of support available for children compared with adults who have eating disorders. Adult community teams face an 89% higher demand than teams that support children and young people, with adults waiting twice as long for assessment and over 10 times as long for treatment. For a condition that progresses devastatingly quickly, early intervention is crucial. The Liberal Democrats welcome NHS England’s recent guidance on improving the design of eating disorder services and community-based support, but that support cannot fulfil its potential without investment and a meaningful strategy to tackle the problem. I add the calls of my party to those from the Members who have made excellent speeches in today’s debate. In Shropshire, I was pleased to see recent improvements in waiting times for children and young people awaiting treatment for eating disorders, with 96% of patients seen within four weeks. That has come from a fairly low standard, so it is a huge improvement, and I congratulate everybody involved. However, a quarter of children and young people referred to mental health services as a whole did not receive contact within the four-week waiting standard, and 19% were not seen within 18 weeks. Those waiting times are unacceptable. Urgent mental health problems are exactly that: urgent. Time is of the essence when tackling an eating disorder, and delays in assessment and treatment carry serious dangers. I know from constituents who have gone through the process of trying to access treatment for their children just how difficult it can be to get support on time, because services are underfunded, waiting lists are long and resources are stretched. I have heard from parents of daughters whose condition was not deemed serious enough for them to be referred to an eating disorder clinic, despite their having a dangerously low weight and BMI—they were told, essentially, that she needed to be thinner. I do not need to explain just how problematic it is to imply that someone’s condition must get significantly worse before they can be seen. One mother’s tale of struggling to get support for her daughter is too harrowing to report in this debate, but her cry for help speaks volumes: “Please help us…I am scared and desperate.” When patients do access treatment, gain some weight and are discharged, many are not given the continued mental health support they need to prevent relapses of the condition. That cannot go on. We must not underestimate the impact of eating disorders on entire families. Patients require around-the-clock care in many cases to ensure that they receive the support and nutrition they urgently need. One self-employed single mother who wrote to me about the delays and failures she had encountered when seeking support for her daughters had to forgo her income to care for them. We need far better support for unpaid family carers struggling to support their loved ones with eating disorders, and we must ensure they have the training and advice they need to be able to provide the help that is so urgent. The Government’s primary course of action for easing this burden should be to provide patients with the support they need, when they need it. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for proper investment in community mental health services, prevention and specialist support for eating disorders. We are campaigning to establish mental health hubs for young people in every community and to have a dedicated mental health professional in every primary and secondary school and regular mental health check-ups for the most vulnerable. Our Opposition day debate on Tuesday called for action to ensure that cinema-style age classification ratings are applied to social media sites to prevent children from being subjected to the worrying proliferation of harmful content promoting eating disorders, which, as we have heard, can be so pernicious and damaging. I urge other parties in this place to put aside the politics of that and to support our calls—as many children’s charities do—to ensure that an appropriate safeguarding regime is put in place for children’s use of social media. The Government must improve early access to mental health services so that cases can be caught early, before they become critical. Can the Minister commit to preserving the mental health investment standard and reinstating targets for the treatment of mental health issues, especially for young people, so that we can do that? The stories we hear from families and patients of their experiences of eating disorders are heartbreaking. We must treat these conditions with the urgency they deserve.

• 26 Feb 2026 · Eating Disorders Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  The Minister is probably about to draw his remarks to a close, but can I press him again on the mental health investment standard, which should ensure that the proportion of NHS spending on mental health goes up every year? In the last year for which we have numbers, it had gone up as a proportion of ICB spend, but had fallen as a proportion of overall NHS spend. Can the Minister commit that the Department will not be abandoning that standard, and that we will see mental health spending go up each year?

• 26 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The western side of my constituency is blighted by the dangerous A483, which runs from Welshpool in Wales through to Oswestry in my constituency. The residents of Llanymynech, Pant and Llynclys are particularly badly affected by safety issues. Everyone knows that the right solution is a bypass, but National Highways has come up with a solution to make the Llynclys crossroads much safer and to improve safety through Pant and Llanymynech, so that schoolchildren are not risking their lives every day by crossing the road to catch the bus. Can the Leader of the House tell me when we might see the road investment strategy 3 announced—when that statement might come before MPs—so that constituents in the western part of my constituency can start to feel hope that, for the first time in 40 years, somebody is doing something about the death trap that is the A483?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Post Office Green Paper · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s announcement today that they are going to maintain 11,500 branches, but in my constituency, outreach services that were only available maybe for an hour or two each week anyway in Cockshutt, Clee, Weston Rhyn, Knockin, West Felton and Ruyton XI Towns have all been lost because of the retirement of a single postmistress in Trefonen. The current criteria have not protected those services, and the distance criteria are not incredibly helpful when there is no public transport that can be relied on, and for a business it is an incredible waste of time to have to get in the car and drive three or maybe six miles to another post office to post something. What can the Minister say to my constituents who are faced with long journeys to get to post offices? What likelihood is there of a post office reopening in their area, and how will that help them deal with these access problems of public transport and efficiency when they are running their businesses?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Access to NHS Dental Services · Hansard source

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  Everyone in this House knows that NHS dentistry was allowed to fall apart under the Conservatives, resulting in DIY tooth extractions, people being forced to go to A&E because they are in pain, and children suffering in every corner of the country. Last year, 38,000 children in Shropshire did not see a dentist. In Surrey, that number was 100,000 and in Sussex it was 133,000. That is a disgrace. The Government promised an extra 700,000 urgent appointments to fight this crisis, but that promise looks set to have been broken in the previous year. Will the Minister today highlight in black and white how many extra urgent appointments were actually delivered last year, rather than simply commissioned?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  As I have listened to this excellent debate, it has struck me that our establishment depends on the people at its heart being nice, trusted, good sorts who will not step out of line, and we do not have mechanisms in place to challenge when that turns out not to be the case. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important to have an office of the whistleblower, and to have other statutory bodies that put a code in place regarding our behaviour in this place and in wider public life, because such bodies will mean that we will not just rely on people being “good blokes”?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a really important point.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be one of those victims—one of those survivors—and to see repeatedly over the years the establishment closing ranks around those who knew Epstein and telling us that everything is okay. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that this whole process must be extremely painful for everyone involved, so the victims should be foremost in everything we do.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend puts it better than I could; she is entirely right. We have seen complicity by people at the heart of the British establishment—we are in the right place to hold them to account—and the international establishment. Either they turned a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein’s acts, or they were possibly implicated in them—we do not know for sure yet. But those who turned a blind eye must have known what was going on. It is not normal for an older businessman to be surrounded by young teenagers all the time and to receive massages from them—as we know, there were all sorts of other terrible acts. People thought that was somehow normal, acceptable or even admirable. We heard Donald Trump say that some of those girls were “on the younger side”, as if that were something to be applauded. It is appalling. Those people must have known, and if they chose not to look, they are part of the problem. The decades-long cover-up must have compounded the trauma suffered by those women, who were children at the time. We must put the victims first and allow the police investigations to go ahead, but we need to look at the wider elements of the scandal too.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for that reminder. I have been astounded by the brilliance of the British media and the journalists who have sifted through thousands and thousands of documents from the Epstein files and, within a really short period, have uncovered a scandal that has rocked the British establishment to its heart, and that has got everybody in this place acting to try to uncover the appalling rot at the heart of the Epstein circle. Yet other jurisdictions have been sitting on those thousands of documents, potentially for decades, and have apparently had no curiosity whatever. That in itself speaks volumes. The Polish Government have launched an investigation into Epstein’s links with Russia. His links with Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor must be causing enormous concern in the light of that development. It is therefore right that we seek transparency about the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to this role. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said, this is not about one mistake that led to an individual being in an inappropriate position; it is about the fact that the entire establishment failed to exercise curiosity and undertake due diligence. People put aside what accountants call professional scepticism and carried on with the appointment regardless because an entitled person needed a role. I am pleased that the Government have agreed to comply with the requests in the Humble Address by publishing the documents. That is really important, because the public need transparency. They need to understand quickly what happened and, crucially, what can be done in the future to prevent such an appointment from being made again. Their trust needs to be restored, including in this place. We need to show that we care enough to hold powerful people to account and ensure that we are always improving public life, not slipping backwards. The Humble Address seeks answers about how a man with such a questionable reputation came to be appointed to represent the British state, but this debate has highlighted the impenetrable networks of privilege that for decades protected a paedophile and those who surrounded him, possibly for their own gain, and who totally disregarded the victims of his crimes and the wider public, to whom they were apparently indifferent. When the Government came to power, they promised to clean up British politics, and they have a real opportunity to demonstrate that they are serious about that mission. I hope that they take the opportunity and do the job properly.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  The scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is reminiscent of other, similar scandals—perhaps not on the same scale, but certainly of a similar magnitude in terms of their impact on the victims. The one that comes to mind is the Jimmy Savile scandal, where people who knew what was going on did not feel able to speak up and break that conspiracy of silence, so victims did not feel able to come forward either. Does my hon. Friend agree that by embracing this opportunity to change the way we do things in Parliament, we can create a culture where people do feel empowered to come forward and break that conspiracy of silence, and where people who have observed things that they knew they should have reported do not feel constrained in their ability to report them, to ensure these terrible scandals do not happen in the future?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I am one of a handful of Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs who were elected in the wake of a political scandal. In my case, in December 2021, it was a financial scandal followed by a cover-up by the then Conservative Government, who tried to get one of their own off the hook. In the midst of my by-election, there were revelations about partygate. It emerged that the then Prime Minister had concluded that a number of the rules that people in this country were subject to did not apply to him. I can remember very clearly knocking on doors during that by-election. I felt my constituents’ anger about the fact that a small group of elite people had concluded that rules that applied to us did not apply to the people at the top of society. I think they would describe that as entitlement. This debate is important because we must restore the trust of the people who voted for me and others elected in by-elections in the wake of scandals. We need to tell the wider British public that we have learned the lessons from the political scandals, cover-ups and entitlement, and we are taking action to restore their trust in what this House is up to and what the wider establishment is allowed to get away with. It is important to hold the powerful to account. Since then, a number of other scandals have further destroyed trust in politics, including the VIP lane for covid contracts, the treachery of Nathan Gill and the appointment of Peter Mandelson. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was intimately involved with Jeffrey Epstein. We have learned in recent weeks that it is probable that their relationship was deeper and continued for much longer than we first thought. That association with one of the most despicable paedophiles in history, at the heart of the British establishment, is absolutely poisonous. The victims and survivors of Epstein’s crimes must have been retraumatised many times over the years by the complicity of those closely associated with him, who did nothing to bring his crimes to public awareness and hold him to account.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Health and Social Care: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Last year in Shropshire, which is a fairly typical rural area, 158,000 patients waited more than a month for a GP appointment. That is not surprising, given that, like many other rural areas, we have 50 fewer qualified GPs than we did a decade ago. Meanwhile, already busy GPs are trying to develop integrated neighbourhood teams, but they report that they have not received any dedicated Government funding, and still do not have the model neighbourhood framework. Will the Secretary of State act to ensure that GPs have the resources and guidance that they need to develop those neighbourhood health teams, and ensure that everyone can access an appointment within seven days, or 24 hours if it is urgent, particularly in rural areas, where provision is poor?