Helen Morgan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 70, in clause 47, page 34, line 38, at end insert— “(6A) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a risk assessment on the potential for digital exclusion under the establishment of a single patient record. (6B) In preparing a risk assessment under subsection (6A) the Secretary of State must consult all stakeholders the Secretary of State considers relevant, including patient representation groups. (6C) In preparing a risk assessment under subsection (6A) the Secretary of State must have particular regard for— (a) those without access to a suitable electronic device, (b) those without access to suitable broadband connectivity, (c) those with physical and/or mental disabilities, (d) those belonging to groups considered socially excluded, and (e) those considered lacking digital skills. (6D) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the risk assessment under subsection (6A) before both Houses of Parliament.” This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a risk assessment on the potential for digital exclusion under the establishment of a single patient record.

• 2 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Amendment 70, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a risk assessment on the potential for digital exclusion under the establishment of a single patient record. I declare an interest as the current chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital communities. I hope that we Liberal Democrats have been clear that overall, we are supportive of the single patient record; it is important that every patient can access their own health records. Under the SPR, however there is a risk that people belonging to already vulnerable groups will be digitally excluded from accessing their health information. Research commissioned by Ofcom suggests that 2.8 million people—5% of the UK population—do not have access to the internet at all. Although age is a predictor for a person not having access to the internet at home, especially if they are over 85, more than half of such people are younger than 75. Amendment 70 would ensure that the Secretary of State assesses the potential for digital exclusion with relevant stakeholders, including patient groups, and that the assessment is laid before Parliament. It would also ensure that the Secretary of State takes into consideration the risk of exclusion for those lacking access to a suitable electronic device or suitable broadband connectivity, including people who have disabilities, who belong to socially excluded groups or who lack digital skills.

• 25 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. In general, the Liberal Democrats support clauses 12 and 13. We think that local decision making and community empowerment in the NHS, including on commissioning decisions, is the right thing to be doing. However, I echo some of the concerns of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, particularly on specialist commissioning. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the spinal cord injury all-party parliamentary group. We are concerned that expertise in low-volume, very specialist concerns will be lost if the commissioning is pushed out to multiple ICBs. My understanding is that specialist commissioning sat with NHS England in the first place because of concern that multiple commissioning groups would struggle to deal with low-volume, complex issues. The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists warned earlier this month that the new commissioning structure lacks mental health experts, with only one senior mental health lead across the seven new regional commissioning hubs taking specialised services from NHS England. Equally, the chief executive of the Derby and Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB cluster has said that it does not look like there will be a requirement for senior mental health expertise in reorganising ICBs. Will the Minister reassure us that when the Department designs which specialist services will be pushed back down to ICBs and which will be retained centrally, it will be minded to listen to representations from experts in the sector? There are excellent services located geographically by accident—for example, the orthopaedic hospital in my constituency and the veterans service that goes with it. Both are highly valued, but they need specialist commissioning at national level to be utilised properly and to provide the best outcomes for patients. I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurance on those points.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I re-declare that I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety. We have heard this morning about a tension between needing to be able to report when something has gone wrong that HSSIB has become aware of to ensure that it is dealt with—the example given by Dr Dash earlier was a maternity failing—and the importance of a safe space, so that people can report to HSSIB when something has gone wrong and then HSSIB can make the appropriate recommendations to change the problem within the system that has led to that issue. Can you talk a bit more about that tension? What is the best way to manage that? Dr Benneyworth: First, we do not replace local investigations. If something goes wrong, the local teams are very much responsible for investigating their work. Dr Dash talked about the new processes around PSIRF and the new investigation processes, which we fully support. In fact, our education team have had 40,000 people enrolled over the last three years, free of charge in the NHS, to support them in developing those investigation skills, really supporting that excellence in local investigation. We have a long way to go there, because they are variable in quality. We do not replace that immediate, “There has been an incident and it needs investigation.” We know that, quite often, the things that need to change are not sitting within one provider. We know that the same things are happening in Cornwall and Cumbria and everywhere in between, and that they often need national solutions to change. As a recent example, we published a report a few weeks ago looking at the care of people in mental health crisis in emergency departments. That showed that the legislation around the care of mental health patients is not supporting people in emergency departments to look after these people properly. That is not something that can be changed by a regulator. The CQC going to look at that emergency department will not impact that. It is not something that the individual provider can change, but we can make national recommendations about it to change the national system to enable people on the ground working in health and care to do their job properly. We can make sure that the systems and processes really consider how things work, and really change them so that providers and systems locally can do their job.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I think I would agree with you, Minister, that no one thinks that abolishing NHS England is, in itself, a bad idea, given the duplication and cost. People do not think that a single patient record is a bad idea; I think that they assume that it already exists, and it could be transformative. There are therefore some really good points of agreement on the Bill. It would, however, be helpful to reflect on where there is not agreement: on abolishing Healthwatch and HSSIB. You make the very good point that they have not been successful in their current incarnation, but it is important to consider whether that is because they do not have teeth, or because the organisations that they are trying to change are defensive. We heard earlier about the culture of fear, and I think that we have probably all had people in our surgeries who can describe being frightened to speak up about their own personal care because they feel that they might be victimised for it. I know of clinicians who are frightened to speak up about their own experience in the organisation in which they work, because they feel that they will be punished for it. In the light of that defensive culture that we know exists in the NHS, and has been highlighted time and again—Mid Staffs; the Shrewsbury and Telford maternity scandal—is the answer not to put the patient voice in the organisations that have a culture problem, but to give those other organisations the teeth they need, or confer a duty on the ICBs or providers to act on recommendations that are given to them, because I think that might be a more helpful way of dealing with this problem? Karin Smyth: I think that gets to the crux of some of this. We will discuss it a lot in Committee, and I am obviously very open to keep discussing it. Thank you for your support on the main provisions. I do not take that for granted because, again, they are still controversial. However, as I think I said earlier, you are right, although it is not true everywhere. I am not blaming individuals, because I think that people have been trying to do a difficult job, particularly in getting us through the pandemic and beyond. But they are defensive. That is why Members of Parliament and others do not get responses to their phone calls or their emails. That is a culture that we have to change, and we need to support people to change. One of the things that we will do is to bring in regulations—that is a manifesto commitment from the Government—but another commitment that we have made outwith the Bill is to develop a leadership college to support in particular clinical and non-clinical managers, who have a very difficult job, in having the right skills for the new world, which patients and the public rightly expect to be more open and more transparent. We have to change this defensive culture. However, even since Francis, the adding of bodies and the adding of recommendations, and with the bad experience that you have done so much around, something different has to happen. Again, what we heard from Jeremy Hunt was that we needed to put more prescription into the system and yet more requirements to do something without actually making that someone’s central function and job. Now, it is a source of disagreement. As I have said, I think that there is a philosophical disagreement about the best way forward. It is not an antagonistic disagreement; there are fundamentally different views about what to do. We will continue to have discussions, because I think that ultimately we all want the same thing: a more open, transparent and supportive culture. By the way, nobody wants to work in a defensive culture, so I think people want that outcome. It is up to us as politicians to support difficult conversations and trade-offs that happen locally. My view has always been that politicians will support difficult conversations and trade-offs—we heard a little bit about reconfigurations earlier—if the system provides good clinical rationale, good data and good evidence, but those bits of it do not always line up. That is what I would like to get to. I absolutely understand and hear what you say—we will hear more about it and discuss it more, and I have read all the amendments about the best way forward. I think that we all want to get to the same place, but what is the best way to do that, given that we all know that this is really not working and cannot continue?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Do you think that the health and wellbeing boards, as envisaged by the Bill, will be the right structure to deliver those relationships, and how do you ensure that they have the right skills? Councillor Wright: I chair a health and wellbeing board, and everyone comes to those; there are really good conversations and really good reviews of what is happening. I think they are in a really good position. What I worry about is how much influence they will have over NHS wider strategy. I was at a King’s Fund day, and someone said something that I thought was so true: the Health Bill and the NHS 10-year plan is the NHS 10-year plan. The NHS will be judged on how it achieves what it is meant to achieve. Although, as local authorities, we want to help with prevention and those wider determinants of health, ultimately the responsibility sits with the NHS. It is about trying to work out how we have better conversations with the NHS, to say, “We have done neighbourhood health for years; this is what we do as local authorities. We look at all these things and we use public health and our adult social care system to create healthy environments. We need you to be on board with us.” I therefore think there is something about the power dynamics regarding health and wellbeing boards and how we address them. But overall, I feel that they are the best way of ensuring community health. The other thing is about geographies. Health and wellbeing boards might not match neighbourhood health geographies, so there are also some challenges in working out how that will work.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A damning report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has estimated that more than 15,800 deaths were associated with long waits in emergency departments in 2025—I think we all agree that figure is an outrage—but the Government still have not published reliable data on long waits and corridor care despite promising to do so by the end of May. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what the Government are trying to hide? Will they adopt Liberal Democrat calls to end corridor care within a year by freeing up beds throughout hospitals and in social care to end the blight of excess deaths in overcrowded accident and emergency departments?

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; it speaks to the point that rural areas have been looked past by the current Government and the previous Government. They have been neglected for many, many years, and if we are to unleash the potential of those rural areas, we need the political will to invest in them. Shropshire has lost more bus service miles than pretty much anywhere else in the country, but in the funding round in early 2025, Shropshire had the 53rd lowest of 73 allocations, despite being one of the worst-served counties in the country. Local businesses and the local jobcentre tell me that not being able to get staff to their businesses is the biggest problem they face. They struggle to recruit skilled labour and to get people to them because there is very poor public transport. If a person in Shropshire cannot afford to run a car, they are pretty much stranded where they are. If that person is a young person looking for their first job or looking to learn the skills needed to work, they will probably struggle to get work because of the lack of public transport. Trains are a real problem too. Accessibility at Whitchurch station has been overlooked, as has the connection between Oswestry and Gobowen. Those trains could be transformational for our area. I welcome the Government’s review of in-person banking services that was announced last week. There is only one town with a bank in my constituency. We need to ensure that everybody can access the services they need. A business owner should not be required to drive many miles simply to change a signatory. I have had a lot of feedback from businesses in my constituency saying that banking services are critical. Council funding is really important, and councils are critical for economic development. Shropshire does not have Pride in Place funding. It has lost the local growth funding, and it has not been given shared prosperity funding now that it has been phased out. That really impacts our ability to attract people into tourism and to regenerate the area. I would also say that education funding is part of that picture, because skills are essential. In areas where there are low outcomes for children, having very low input into their schools is problematic. Finally, I want to talk about farming. The family farm tax has held back over 1,068 farms in Shropshire. Milk prices are a real problem. Many of our dairy farmers are producing at lower than cost, and fertiliser and diesel prices are soaring because of the war in Iran, causing a huge crisis of confidence in the farming industry. I look forward to hearing how the Government are going to generate confidence in our farming industry so that our rural economies can thrive.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Endometriosis Services · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) for securing this debate—the opportunity to raise the importance of this debilitating condition with the Minister today is extremely welcome. I welcome her to her place; I must say that the contributions today have all been excellent, and she has been given a significant to-do list, which I am sure she is equal to. Endometriosis is estimated to affect 10% of women. It is a condition that brings chronic pain and worsening physical health and can pose a threat to fertility. It devastates lives and leaves many women excluded from education and employment. Thanks to the tireless campaigning of groups such as Endometriosis UK, and of the women in the Public Gallery today—whom I welcome—many of us are increasingly aware of the condition. Despite those efforts, however, the average diagnosis time has steadily increased since 2020. As we have heard, it now takes an astounding nine years and four months on average for women just to get a diagnosis. That is unacceptable. That shocking amount of time to get recognition of the condition is indicative of the wider issue of institutional misogyny and the dismissal of women’s pain. On average, endometriosis patients also wait three and a half years from first noticing symptoms before seeking medical help, largely due to the normalisation of severe period pain. Awareness of endometriosis among the public and healthcare professionals is still too low. Some 82% of patients have reported being told by their healthcare practitioners, prior to diagnosis, that they were making a fuss, or that their symptoms were normal. That is a recurring theme in women’s health. When I was involved in the all-party parliamentary group on birth trauma in the previous Parliament, we heard appalling testimony from women who had suffered serious injury giving birth only to be told, when they went to their GP afterwards, “What do you expect? You have just had a baby.” Many of them were in fact seriously injured. That institutionalised acceptance that women should suffer is something we need to address. I hope the Government are going to take that seriously—I am sure they are. The nationwide tales are echoed by cases that I have heard from my own constituents. Lucy first got in touch with me in 2024, having already experienced years of debilitating pain that was dismissed and left undiagnosed. It was eventually confirmed to be endometriosis, but she struggled to get appropriate support on the NHS. She has told me of the grave impact that the pain has had on her quality of life, including missing out on education. Following an exhausting journey of many healthcare appointments, she is still suffering and is instead learning to manage the pain herself—yet, inspiringly, although she still lives with debilitating problems, she has now returned to the university studies that were broken off six years ago due to the pain. I want to mention the different but related condition of polycystic ovary syndrome. Another constituent, Bethany, was left waiting months for an appointment after being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome at 18. Following scores of appointment cancellations and administrative errors, Bethany decided to take action herself, setting up the Cysters Circle, a group that regularly meets around the constituency to support women and girls with conditions such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. I commend the hard work and fortitude of women such as Bethany and Lucy in campaigning for awareness of these conditions and providing the space where women can support each other—but they have to do so because of the barriers and woeful lack of support they experienced from the healthcare system. We must do more to raise awareness of these conditions and transform the quality of women’s healthcare across the country. The failure of endometriosis diagnoses in primary care settings is adding even more pressure to our hospitals and forcing women to suffer for longer than necessary. Women often have to present multiple times to NHS services before getting the help they need. Prior to diagnosis, more than half of women are forced to go to A&E due to their symptoms. As well as investing in tackling NHS waiting times for gynaecological services, we urge the Government to implement public health messaging, awareness campaigns and greater training for primary healthcare professionals. They should work with regulators and professional bodies to strengthen expectations on endometriosis education and awareness. Existing NICE guidelines must be fully implemented to establish clear, standardised referral pathways when women arrive at their GP appointment. The experience of women trying to access endometriosis services reflects how our NHS suffered under the Conservatives, leading to some appalling outcomes in women’s health. Most maternity units are not deemed sufficiently safe; thousands of women have suffered a miscarriage without referral to the appropriate NHS services; waits for breast, ovarian and other genealogical cancers are unacceptably high; and, as we have seen with endometriosis, millions of women continue to suffer in appalling pain as they languish on waiting lists. It is alarming that, in the face of those issues, the Government have discarded the target of having a women’s health hub in every part of the country. That decision undermines the effectiveness of the women’s health strategy. I hope the Minister will recommit to implementing those health hubs. Women’s health services are often too fragmented and difficult to access; removing the requirement for those hubs could lead to closures that would hurt access for women in need of care, and shows the wrong priorities. The Liberal Democrats would give everyone the right to see a GP within seven days, including access to a named GP for patients with long-term conditions to ensure continuity of care. That would ensure that women suffering from long-term gynaecological conditions were listened to and got the support that they need. The normalisation of women’s pain must stop. We must ensure that our health system fully supports those suffering with long-term gynaecological conditions so that women such as Lucy and Bethany, and the women in the Public Gallery today, are not left to battle through pain alone.

• 13 Jan 2026 · A&E Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  I always am, Mr Speaker; thank you very much. Recently, I have heard from Candice, who was interrupted while changing her stoma bag behind a curtain on the emergency ward; Lynne, who waited 17 hours for an ambulance after breaking several ribs; and Sandra, who has bladder cancer and spent 31 hours on a plastic chair in the “fit to sit” area. They all want to share their stories so others do not have to suffer like they did, in pain for hours and hours. Will the Secretary of State commit to ending the waits and back the Liberal Democrat call, welcomed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine this morning, for a guarantee that no patient will have to wait for more than 12 hours in A&E?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief · Hansard source

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  The psychological impact of the past 14 months has been profound in rural places like North Shropshire. At every primary school visit that I have made in the past 14 months, I have been asked by children as young as seven or eight to confirm that I oppose the family farm tax, because it is having a devastating impact on their families at home. The uncertainty has also had a devastating impact on related businesses, such as agricultural machinery suppliers. It will continue to have an impact by making business owners deliberately keep their businesses small so that they do not have to pay inheritance tax, because they cannot sell off part of their farms as they will no longer be viable. Why are the Government continuing with this daft policy of restricting growth in rural areas?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I share my hon. Friend’s frustration. Perhaps the most glaring and alarming omission of all in this Budget is that the words “adult social care” do not appear. The sector is already stretched to breaking point and is now suffering from the Government’s 2024 hike in employer national insurance contributions, which is unfunded for most businesses operating in that sector. The pressure is clearly reflected in the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ 2025 spring survey, which found that three quarters of directors have only “partial or no confidence that their budgets are sufficient to meet their legal duties for prevention and wellbeing.” That is not only terrible for disabled and vulnerable people; it is a disaster for the NHS. One in seven hospital beds are taken by someone who should be discharged but for whom there is no appropriate social care package. The situation could not be more pressing. We need the cross-party talks to move far more quickly. As we have heard, there has been only one meeting, back in September, and there are no current plans for further engagement. I ask Ministers to ask the Prime Minister to lead those talks and to treat them with the seriousness and urgency that they deserve. We also need a solution to provide the social care beds needed to stop a devastating winter crisis; 2028 is too late for that. In addition to spiralling NIC costs, there is increasing demand and huge staff shortages in the sector. With an immigration policy that is clearly designed to disincentivise overseas workers in this area, there is no clear plan to ensure how those vacancies will be filled. In formulating their 10-year workforce plan, the Liberal Democrats urge the Government to introduce a funded and higher minimum wage for carers, and a new royal college of care workers to improve training and career progression and to give carers the recognition that they deserve. When social care is not available, family carers must step in to fill the need. A fairer deal for family carers, such as guaranteeing more respite care and introducing paid carer’s leave, would enable many to continue caring for longer at home. We want to see more support for young carers in school by introducing a young carers pupil premium. These are simple but potentially transformational steps in supporting the millions of carers without whom our health service would collapse. Winter is quickly closing in, and there are signs that the annual winter crisis could be even worse this year, having already become a year-round permacrisis. The Budget should have funded an emergency package to prevent A&Es collapsing this winter. Liberal Democrats have called for 1,000 extra hospital beds, emergency social care places to free up places in hospitals, a recruitment and retention drive to increase the number of out-of-hours GPs, and a qualified clinician in every A&E waiting room to protect patients who are at risk but stuck on trollies. Without those measures, there is a significant risk of another winter of harrowing scenes of corridor care and ambulances queuing outside hospitals, which should have no place in our society. Let us take a step back and ask what this Budget really means for the NHS. The topic of today’s debate is investment and renewal, but this Budget means cost pressures are left unaddressed and reforms that are confused and disorientating. Inflation is forecast to run higher than the budget set by the Department of Health and Social Care back in March 2025 for the spending review. As a result, average real-terms growth in departmental budgets has shrunk by 0.1% since then. The OBR notes that spending on branded medicines alone is expected to rise by 25%—an extra £3.3 billion—between 2025-26 and 2028-29. For context, that is equivalent to the budget for maternity care in England. Yesterday’s recent agreement confirms that it will be at least that sum, and possibly as much as another £6 billion a year, which is an eye-watering amount. Industrial action could add a further £1.2 billion by 2028-29. It is hard to see what would be left to repair our GP services, expand social care or take any of the other measures needed to lift the NHS off the floor. On top of that, we have no clarity on the impact of the reorganisation of NHS England and ICBs. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has warned that the Department has removed “a key piece of machinery without articulating a clear plan for what comes next” and compared the reforms with those of HS2. The 10-year plan sets out a vision that Liberal Democrats share, but it is missing any clear explanation of how it will be funded within the spending review settlement. Nowhere, across 170 pages, is there a credible costing or delivery plan. Five months on, we still have no idea whether the Government can deliver the essential reforms that they have promised. Unless the Government adopt a genuine “spend to save” approach, investing now to prevent greater costs and worse outcomes later, we are at risk of seeing only managed decline, mounting pressure and the continued loss of faith in the health service. Rather than Labour’s unfair tax rises, we have set out a number of fair ways to fund our public services properly. Most importantly, this Government are refusing properly to fix our broken relationship with Europe. We are calling for a new EU-UK customs union, which could raise more than £25 billion a year. The Government would have plenty of time to put the deal in place by 2030, raising billions in extra tax revenue in a fair way after 2030. We have also called for a targeted windfall tax on the big banks, which would raise £30 billion in total by 2030. Let me take this opportunity to say to the Government that if we are to rescue the NHS, they must tackle the crisis at its front door and at its back door. That means investing in public health and early access to community services, including GPs, pharmacists and dentists, so that fewer people need to go to hospital in the first place. It also means fixing the crisis in social care to stop so many people being stuck in hospital beds. Only these measures can bring down waiting lists, improve the quality of care and help people live longer, healthier lives. The NHS needs transformational change; the Government must wake up from their complacency, or it will be patients who pay the price.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Health Inequalities · Hansard source

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  The impact of health inequalities on women’s health are starkest when it comes to maternity care, with many NHS trusts requiring improvement. Black and Asian women, and those from the most deprived communities, are far more likely to suffer the worst outcomes or even lose their babies. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives have vocally opposed the removal of the ringfence from the service delivery fund, saying that funding provided to drive change following the Ockenden review has disappeared at the stroke of a pen. Will the Secretary of State commit himself to reinstating that ringfence, and to ensuring that all the immediate and essential actions arising from that review of the failings at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust are taken as soon as possible?

• 23 Oct 2025 · NHS Workforce Levels: Impact on Cancer Patients · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this important debate highlighting the issue of staff shortages and the impact on cancer patients and the outcomes that they achieve. Cancer should be a top priority for any Government, and the UK—with its historically thriving life sciences sector—could and should be a global leader in cancer research and outcomes. Sadly, at the moment, that is not necessarily the case. The last Conservative Government broke their promise on a 10-year cancer plan that would have made a real difference to patients. We must put an end to the tragedy of people losing their lives because cancer treatment takes too long to start. No one should be unable to receive treatment because there is not enough equipment or sufficient staff to properly support them. It is a scandal that so many people live in treatment deserts and are forced to take incredibly long journeys for treatment, often after weeks of waiting for that treatment to begin. In that context, the introduction of a national cancer strategy is incredibly welcome. It should help to boost cancer survival rates. I am very proud that my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham—who, as we have heard, is a widely respected cancer campaigner—has helped to secure a commitment from the Government to introduce such a plan. It is really important that when this plan comes, it is meaningful. The Government should take bold action: ensuring that every patient starts treatment for cancer within 62 days of their urgent referral, recruiting the cancer specialists we need, and replacing ancient machines and delivering new ones. The situation on the ground at the moment is not very good. My constituents in North Shropshire have had to deal with some of the worst backlogs and performance in England for years. One told me that they waited almost a year before their treatment began—that is simply not okay. Look at the target of treatment starting within 62 days of urgent referral: Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust only achieved 68.8% for the month of August this year, compared with a target of 85%. That, however, is a significant improvement on its previous situation, with performance against that target improving by more than 15.4% over the past year. That progress is welcome, obviously. I am optimistic that it will be sustained and I commend and thank the tireless work of staff across the trust in driving those improvements. Staffing levels, especially for radiologists doing diagnostic scans, have been a large part of the problem in Shrewsbury and Telford. Outsourcing the interpretation of those scans has led to a dramatic improvement in the speed at which the results come back and demonstrates the importance of having enough skilled staff and the speedy diagnostics that can help with early treatment commencing. That issue is particularly severe in rural areas. I hope that the workforce plan, which will go with the cancer strategy, will address that. BMJ Group research found that every four-week delay to starting cancer treatment is associated with a 10% decrease in cancer survival. Constituents such as mine, who have had horrendous waits for treatment, are bearing the lethal brunt of delays. NHS workforce statistics show that between June 2020 and June 2025, the number of full-time-equivalent cancer specialists has risen: by 32% for clinical oncologists, 48% for medical oncologists and 27% for the clinical radiology workforce. Clearly, those statistics are welcome. However, analysis from the Royal College of Radiologists argues that the increase in workforce capacity has not kept pace with the ever-growing demand for cancer services, which is inevitable in an ageing population with poor health. In 2024, the Royal College of Radiologists estimated that the clinical oncology workforce was about 15% smaller than required to meet demand, and projected that that shortfall would rise to 19% by 2029. It also reported that, among the 50 cancer centres surveyed in England in 2024, 76% of heads expressed concerns about patient safety due to workforce shortages. We also cannot ignore the reality of working conditions in our NHS and their impacts on staff retention. The previous Conservative Government left our NHS under unbearable strain, with professionals working under intense pressure in crumbling hospitals and often without the resources they needed, rather than in safe clinical settings. That does not help the retention of a highly skilled and experienced workforce. There are also woeful shortages of specialist training places, meaning that we do not have the cancer specialists we need. At the same time, there is rising doctor unemployment despite growing need for their services. It is a damning indictment of the Conservatives’ mismanagement and failure to plan the workforce. A workforce plan for the NHS—including a workforce plan to support the cancer strategy—is imperative, and must address the issues of retention and career progression for doctors, nurses and other skilled staff across all specialisms. While routine NHS workforce statistics are not available for nurses working in cancer specialities, a nursing fill-rate dataset obtained by FactCheck for “Channel 4 News” showed that a third of acute trusts in England were missing at least 10% of their planned nurses across haematology and oncology wards, based on monthly average data between January 2023 and November 2024. That is why the Liberal Democrats are pressing for more cancer nurses—so that every patient has a dedicated specialist nurse supporting them throughout their treatment—and for expanded community nursing. We have also been campaigning for the UK to lead the world in cancer research through new funding and the waiving of burdensome fees and bureaucracy for international researchers. We would set up a dedicated fellowship scheme for US cancer scientists, who have seen their funding gutted by President Trump. Without, for example, sufficient radiographers, specialist nurses and diagnostic equipment, even the most promising screening initiatives introduced here risk being delayed or underutilised. The Government need to commit to the funding of early screening programmes, and to training and retaining the workforce required to deliver them. A comprehensive, well-supported roll-out would allow thousands of people at risk to be diagnosed at a much earlier stage, when treatment is far more effective and survival rates are significantly higher. The national cancer plan provides a huge opportunity for the Government to turn cancer care around in this country and deliver world-class care for every community. I look forward to seeing them deliver that plan, and ensure that it is deliverable through an associated workforce plan, at the soonest opportunity.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A serious fire at St Martin’s school in my constituency has left most of its secondary children without face-to-face education for nearly four weeks now. Will the Minister meet me to determine how we can ensure that the buildings are brought back into use as quickly as possible, and how the children can be brought back up to speed, so that they are not disadvantaged?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Bathing Waters: Pollution · Hansard source

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  Run-off from chicken manure is a particular problem in the bathing waters and rivers in Shropshire. I have visited both Harper Adams University and LOHAS Fertiliser in my constituency, which have great new technologies to deal with chicken manure, stabilise it and moving that great fertiliser to other parts of the country where it causes fewer problems. However, they cannot scale up, so what steps is the Minister taking to enable the new technologies that could deal with some of these problems to be scaled up and used across the country?