Helen Morgan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  I send my heartfelt sympathies and those of my party to all the families who have been so cruelly harmed. I thank Lady Justice Thirlwall for her inquiry and the Secretary of State for early sight of the report. Lady Justice Thirlwall’s final report is a dispiriting and, at times, shocking account of repeated mistakes and failures by organisations and individuals. The conviction of Lucy Letby for these murders and attempted murders sets this investigation apart from others, but while the situation is incredibly distressing, it is also distressingly familiar—a failure to investigate abnormal levels of death or harm; a failure to act on concerns raised and whistleblowing; a failure to follow established protocols for investigating deaths; and a management instinct to cover up failure, and to put the reputation of the hospital above the safety of the babies in it. The importance of stronger whistleblowing mechanisms could not be clearer. There should be a duty of candour for management, as well as medical staff. Will the Government accept my amendments to the Health Bill, requiring boards to call in investigators when they receive reports of malpractice, and giving coroners and medical examiners stronger powers to whistleblow? The review makes it explicit that there must be an external body, such as HSSIB, to investigate trusts. Will the Government now drop the measures in the Health Bill that risk patient safety? Surely the Secretary of State will accept the amendments that we and others have put forward to prevent the abolition of HSSIB, protect Healthwatch and put patient safety first, including through the restoration of the National Guardian’s Office. I am beyond angry that once again we are discussing the recommendations for action following an NHS scandal. It is like groundhog day—we are stuck in an endless cycle of expressing horror and doing nothing, with the reports and recommendations from multiple scandals gathering dust on a shelf in the Department of Health and Social Care. The Thirlwall inquiry cites a “lack of political will” as one of the causes of this cycle. We have a new Secretary of State. Will she promise us that she will be the one to find the will to end this? The families who have suffered such unimaginable loss deserve nothing less.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Vascular Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Minister that services should be locally commissioned, particularly where there is a high prevalence of a certain type of disease or condition, because it allows for the shaping of those services to local circumstances. There is evidence, is there not, that local commissioning has not given us a consistent level of service across the country. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that that does not become more entrenched as we empower ICBs even more through the Health Bill?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Vascular Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I welcome the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), to their places. Most of all, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate. He outlined the issues comprehensively in his opening speech, as we would expect. According to the Circulation Foundation, vascular disease is as common as cancer and heart disease, accounting for 40% of deaths in the UK. That represents a huge disease burden on individuals and the NHS, yet we rarely discuss it in Parliament. It is a leading cause of preventable disability, with associated complications being worsened by the fragmented care available to patients. Living with vascular disease means living with chronic pain, reduced mobility and often an isolating loss of independence. Many patients are left with a sense of powerlessness, which has a huge impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Sadly, we are all too familiar with the issues in the vascular sector: inconsistent standards and access to care; the dreaded postcode lottery in services; pathways and referral routes that disproportionately impact deprived communities; and under-investment in prevention. It seems to be yet another area of the NHS where, as we have been arguing this week on the Health Bill, too much time and money is spent responding to failure rather than improving the quality of services for patients and preventing and delaying deterioration in the first place. We must do better for people with vascular disease and for their families. Having dealt with the harrowing case of a constituent, I know that a lack of care and the medical risks and implications of vascular disease can spiral out of control, leading, in the worst cases, to the premature death of a family member. It is incredibly upsetting when that happens. I cannot begin to imagine how devastating that experience must be. A report from the all-party parliamentary group on vascular and venous disease highlighted the avoidable harm that gaps in vascular care can cause to patients. It confirmed that gaps in vascular care are resulting in avoidable harm, highlighting: “Delayed diagnosis, inconsistent referral pathways and variable access to specialist care” for people with peripheral artery disease, venous disease and diabetes-related foot complications. It said that those problems are resulting in “thousands of avoidable lower-limb amputations each year.” Discussions with the primary care network in my North Shropshire constituency have revealed that our county has one of the highest rates of lower-limb amputations because of these gaps in care. I cannot imagine the trauma caused to those who have lost a limb, knowing that it might have been avoided. It is time we aspired to ensuring a consistent level of care across the country. I have been contacted by companies in the pharmaceutical sector that have highlighted the disconnect between acknowledgment and action. PAD is named as a “neglected” CVD risk factor, but it lacks the priority status, funding mechanisms and performance standards given to other conditions. They have also highlighted that the need for new surgical and interventional techniques is acknowledged but not operationalised with delivery timelines or resource allocation, and that there are no metrics for PAD. The absence of PAD standards or metrics in the main performance monitoring tables means that progress cannot be tracked and local ICBs cannot be held to account if they are falling behind. The modern service framework is obviously a welcome step forward, but the Government should also take a look at the all-party parliamentary group’s calls for a national foot attack pathway, a community foot protection service, national maximum waiting times for patients, the reform of commissioning to reward outcomes and the acceleration of proven innovation, which must be rolled out more widely. Beyond that, the care that the NHS provides at its front door must be strengthened so that symptoms are caught and treated early. The APPG’s report highlights how prevention-led, community-first care is needed to transform the vascular sector, diagnose conditions earlier and relieve pressure on acute services. Liberal Democrats want everyone with vascular disease to have a named GP to ensure continuity of care, which has been shown to improve outcomes and quality of life for those with long-term conditions. Fixing the back door of the NHS is just as crucial for us. We have long been pressing for better social care, including free personal care and more support for family carers. Obviously, we welcome the steps that the Prime Minister took over the summer recess to ensure movement on the social care issue. Our proposed package would make it easier for people with long-term conditions and disabilities to access flexible working. It would support those suffering from vascular disease to access the world of work wherever possible, and hopefully transform their mental health and independence, too. Given the prevalence and severity of these conditions, I urge the Government to develop a strategy to transform the vascular sector to give patients the timely support and treatment they need. I look forward to hearing what steps the Minister will be taking to address this issue.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), to their places—I have to say that I was not expecting to be the continuity figure in the health portfolio. We need to be honest: the NHS is now in permacrisis, as outlined by the National Audit Office report. The hallmarks of peak winter pressure in the past—overcrowded A&Es, queuing ambulances and soaring 999 calls—are now a feature year round. This summer was particularly difficult due to record temperatures across the UK, with over 33 NHS trusts reporting temperatures well above the 28° limit set by NHS England, and we can all agree that is not acceptable. It is inhumane not just for patients but for staff—42° is unbearable. A constituent of mine suffered in his final days in a desperately hot setting in Royal Shrewsbury hospital until managers worked with my team to ensure that he was made more comfortable. We do not want to be dealing with cases like that every year. We need hospitals that can withstand the heat, and the Lib Dems have been calling for a new NHS rapid adaptation unit to urgently heatproof the most heat-affected hospitals and care homes. Turning to corridor care, the percentage of people waiting 12 hours or more in A&E has tripled since before the covid-19 pandemic. Analysis suggests that people waiting this long are twice as likely to die within 30 days of leaving A&E, compared with those who wait just two hours. It is abundantly clear that policies to deal with A&E are not working. Spend is increasing, as outlined in the report, while outcomes are decreasing. We are pumping money into emergency departments with no proportionate improvement. The Lib Dems have outlined our plan to end 12-hour waits in a year by investing more in step-down care and support for people to leave hospital and go into social care. The Health Bill will reduce co-operation between local authorities and integrated care boards, risking those improvements in social care. Although we welcome the cross-party talks on social care, I hope that the Secretary of State will look at this issue as the Health Bill makes its way through the Lords. Will she listen to our plans, change her approach and commit to ending the ongoing A&E scandal?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, I highlighted our concerns about the implications of quick-fix, top-down reorganisation for the sovereignty of the NHS and the interests of patients. In a system that already spends too much time and money reacting to failure, rather than planning for success, patient safety is already under threat. Rather than addressing those failings, this Bill is at risk of making a bonfire of patient safety. Our amendments would reverse the gutting of safety mechanisms from the NHS, all of which have been painstakingly introduced after far too many scandals. Amendments 8 and 9 would restore Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch organisations, while new clause 14 would restore Healthwatch funding after 10 years of cuts to its service. Given that Healthwatch was originally established as a response to the devastating Mid Staffordshire scandal, its abolition would be a step backwards, showing that lessons have not been learned. An independent patient voice is essential to shape local services and highlight where they are not working well, and folding it into existing NHS structures risks destroying the trust that exists precisely because of its independence.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I am not going to give way, because there are many colleagues who wish to speak and there is very limited time. I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me. Another vital body for safeguarding and investigating patient safety is the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, which again functions well because of the trust NHS professionals have in its independence and objectivity. Both would be lost under the proposal to roll it into the CQC. Our amendment 12 would ensure that HSSIB’s functions remain operationally independent of the CQC, so that the NHS is not left to mark its own homework. Together, these amendments are designed so that patients are protected from another Mid Staffordshire, another Shrewsbury and Telford, another Nottingham, another East Kent or another Morecambe Bay. Rash decision making must not be allowed to put patients at risk.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I broadly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am about to come to mental health. It is right to modernise the NHS and end some of the duplication that we see between NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, but the way it has been handled has been chaotic. It has been combined with 50% cuts to ICB budgets, unfunded redundancy payments, and chaos through the system. I was alarmed to read the report in The Times at the weekend about advice to the Secretary of State that the changes envisaged under the Bill are impossible to implement, given that the staff of NHS England are on different pay scales to those in the Department. Given those significant hurdles, I hope that in her closing remarks the Minister can provide some reassurance that abolishing NHS England in the way the Bill envisages is achievable. We are particularly concerned that the functions of the Secretary of State under these reforms open the door to political capture, which is a huge risk given the unstable political climate we live in. Amendment 16 would create a firewall between the Secretary of State and operational decisions. These new powers are particularly worrying in the context of patient safety issues created by the Bill, which we will discuss in more detail tomorrow. Beyond the Department, the Bill is complacent on taking seriously the vulnerability of our NHS to foreign interference and its implications for national security. That is why we tabled new clauses 2 to 5, which recognise and address the role of the NHS as part of our sovereignty, and the sensitivity of patient data. New clause 17 would require scrutiny in the House of the arrangement between the United States of America and the United Kingdom on pharmaceutical pricing. That deal, forced on us by Donald Trump with no say from the British people, will hike medicine prices in the coming years by billions of pounds, and deserves parliamentary scrutiny. All those shortcomings of the Bill attest to the fact that the NHS already spends far too much time and money responding to failure, rather than improving the safety and quality of services in the first place.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  Crumbling estates are a big part of the problem across the whole NHS and in maternity, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight the state of his own local hospital and advocate for its quick remediation. Amendment 10, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) will outline in more detail, would reintroduce the mental health investment standard. That is a crucial investment to avoid failures further down the line if interventions are not made for patients early on. Nowhere is the cost of failure more obvious than in maternity—a devastating scandal which, despite many recent reviews, still deserves far more attention. Our amendments to make our maternity services finally safe for mothers and babies will therefore be the main focus of my remarks today. I thank the Minister for her constructive engagement with me on new clause 1, and the commitment that she made at the Dispatch Box today to table relevant amendments when the Bill reaches the other place, and to put that maternity commissioner in place. I am grateful to her for the discussions we have had, and the constructive approach she has taken both with me and with the many campaigners on the issue beyond this place. In the light of that, I will not be pushing new clause 1 to a vote. I have seen up close the human costs of failures in our maternity system. Four years ago the Ockenden review found that over 200 babies and nine mothers in my community had died needlessly in Shrewsbury and Telford due to failures in maternity care. That has been devastating for my community, and we have heard since then that the situation was not isolated. There have been terrible stories from families around the country, most recently following the review into services in Nottingham. New clause 6 would introduce a scheme to ensure that every maternity unit in the country is rated “good” or “outstanding” by the Care Quality Commission. That new clause is essential if we are to meaningfully address the crisis in our maternity services and show families that lessons have been learned not just locally but nationally. The Liberal Democrat maternity rescue package would require an estimated £600 million a year to bring safety in maternity units up to standard, investing in safe staffing and listening to mothers. The Government already spend £1.3 billion a year—more than double the cost of the package—on maternity negligence payments, so introducing that reset is a no-brainer. Rather than spending a fortune compensating for failure and heartbreak, the NHS should be getting it right in the first place. Recently we have seen the consequences of safety failures, with lack of staffing causing North Devon’s maternity unit to close, forcing women to take a 50 mile trip if they go into labour. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), whose constituency has been hit hard by that news, has tabled new clause 66 to guarantee safe staffing levels and access to a maternity unit within 45 minutes. While on women’s health, I also want to highlight new clauses 11 and 12. Earlier this year I wrote to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to highlight the stark inequality in research and investment in women’s health, with a huge gap in investment, governance and reporting mechanisms between women’s and men’s health strategies. The new clauses would set up an inquiry into women’s health outcomes, and ensure that average waiting times for women’s health conditions do not exceed the average waiting times for wider elective treatments. The crisis in our maternity care is a national shame and reveals a systemic neglect of the safety of women and their babies over many years. However, that is indicative of even wider concerns for patient safety, which I urge the Secretary of State to address in the Bill, and which we will discuss in more detail tomorrow. If the Government are serious about using the Bill to improve our NHS, they must invest time and money in the front and back doors of the NHS rather than structural reorganisations. The safety of staff and patients must be at the centre of those changes, and I urge the Minister to consider the amendments tabled by me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues, which would improve the Bill to achieve just that.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I have tabled several amendments to the Bill, but I will hopefully keep my remarks focused so there is a good opportunity for other Members to make their speeches. The Bill should be about fixing the front and back doors of the NHS. It offers the opportunity to bring in tangible changes for patients to address pressing problems and introduce desperately needed improvements to patient safety and experience. The primary care and social care crisis, in particular, are millstones around the neck of the NHS. But instead of addressing them, the Bill has focused on a top-down reorganisation, which risks diverting time and money away from those pressing issues, and it gives sweeping powers to the Secretary of State, which is not in itself without risk. The Liberal Democrats would instead have put social care and general practice at the heart of the Bill—a move that would represent real reform of the health service. In particular, new clauses 54 and 56 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) would together transform the rights of family carers through guaranteed respite care and reform of the carer’s allowance. They would put free personal care, and an end to catastrophic care costs, at the heart of social care reform. New clause 53, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), would ensure that everyone can see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent, and amendment 17 would introduce a primary care investment standard. Although general practice is the core of a patient’s relationship with the NHS, it has seen its funding decline as a share of NHS spending. Less than 10% of the NHS budget is spent on primary care, although that is estimated to constitute 90% of a patient’s direct experience with the NHS. A primary care investment standard would help to reverse that trend. Dentistry is another area of primary care that has been neglected, leading to dental deserts and dangerous DIY dentistry. New clause 18 would introduce a scheme to end dental deserts, and guarantee appointments for children and those most in need.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 77, in clause 68, page 47, line 27, leave out from “to” to the end of line 28 and insert “the affirmative procedure”. This amendment ensures that all secondary legislation as a result of this bill is subject to the affirmative procedure.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is really important not to blame people who have seen convincing information online or have been given convincing information by people who ought to know better—including at political party conferences. We need to battle the source of that information and ensure that accurate, factual information is available and communicated to everyone in an accessible way by people they trust. That is key to all this. As I have said before, ostracising or ridiculing people who have been given information in a very convincing way is not the way to resolve this problem. We need to tackle it in an understanding way by communicating the facts sympathetically and accessibly. It is important to note that concerns about vaccinations are not exclusive to a single group of voters. There is significant vaccine hesitancy across some ethnic minority communities and in hard-to-reach places across the country. We must do more to support doctors, nurses and the NHS to fight fiction with facts, or the long-term health of the country will suffer. That is what new clause 77 seeks to do. There is some great local work being done, but there needs to be a joined-up strategy to combat all aspects of disinformation, because a nice social media video telling people to get their jab will not beat it. Now that Reform UK has a greater presence in our local government, NHS leaders will have to handle more and more difficult conversations with anti-vax and conspiracy theorist councillors, and they deserve support to engage with those people effectively and constructively. The proposed strategy would provide just that. It would have to consider “support for medical professionals to build trust and engage with persons who are anti-vaccine…investment in public messaging to combat medical disinformation, including engagement with trusted online influencers…outreach campaigns focused on communities that are sceptical about vaccinations…introducing criminal liability for those, including online influencers and politicians, who profit from medical disinformation, and…a new verification requirement for any social media account claiming to be a medical professional.” We must do more systematically to protect the NHS and our nation’s health from the growing threats of medical misinformation. We urge the Government to give this issue the focus it needs, and we hope that they consider this new clause one way to do that.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. My mother and grandmother both had polio, which nobody would expect to experience in this day and age. That same grandmother’s sister died of diphtheria, and her father had smallpox. That was all just over 100 years ago, so it was not too long ago that people were experiencing what we now consider to be antiquated and unthinkable diseases. The vaccination programmes that have been brought in over the past century have undoubtedly been game-changing for public health, not least for people growing up with working-class backgrounds, as my family would have been. That is why it is so important to deal with the disinformation that allows unscientific and dangerous anti-vax views to be communicated convincingly to the wider community.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Amendment 77 is a probing amendment in the light of our previous discussions in Committee about the extensive powers that the Bill transfers to the Secretary of State. It would make all secondary legislation under the Bill subject to the affirmative procedure. I do not intend to press it to a vote, but I hope that the Minister will take into account the concerns that we have raised during these proceedings about the sweeping powers that the Secretary of State is taking on board.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) for tabling the new clause. She has asked me to speak about dental deserts in Surrey and East Hampshire, the area that she lives in and represents. The new clause places a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that there is adequate provision of NHS dental appointments in Surrey and East Hampshire, and allows us to raise once again the shocking state of dentistry in this country. As we have discussed on many occasions, more than 5 million children did not see a dentist at all in 2025—that is a stark reminder of what we mean when we talk about dental deserts. We have heard that DIY dentistry has become normalised, which is pretty horrifying. People are using pliers to extract teeth and superglue to reattach crowns, or attempting to fill cavities with household adhesives. Beyond those obviously shocking Victorian scenes, DIY dentistry is very risky and has, tragically, led to deaths from sepsis. That is all because people cannot get an NHS dental appointment and cannot afford a private one. The last Conservative Government pushed dentistry to the brink, and children and parents in particular are paying the price of that neglect. That is a national shame—one that we must fix. As I mentioned, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford tabled the new clause to highlight the issues in her part of the country. Surrey and East Hampshire is not the worst place in the country for access to NHS dentistry, but it does face serious issues. Some pockets of the population have been left unable to get an NHS dental appointment. The action taken so far by the Labour Government has not been good enough, but the fault for this dire situation lies solely at the door of the Conservatives. Their years of neglect have left our dentistry in a shocking condition. Healthwatch—once again showing why it is so important—has classified large parts of Hampshire as dental deserts. Equally, a Healthwatch report into dentistry in Surrey told us of ever-so-familiar themes: people cannot find a dentist accepting NHS patients, information about dentists accepting NHS patients is not up to date, and there are financial barriers to receiving dental care. Clearly, much more needs to be done for the people of Surrey and East Hampshire. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Minister’s comments and thanks to everybody who has been involved in working on the Bill? I have also enjoyed my time on the Committee, despite the heat. I hope that the Minister remains in place when we come back on Report, because she is a hard-working and thoughtful Minister and it is a pleasure to stand opposite her in the House in my place as my party’s spokesman. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 68 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 69 ordered to stand part of the Bill . Clause 70 Extent Amendment made: 80, in clause 70, page 48, line 18, at end insert— “(2A) Section (Medical Devices Regulations 2002: mutual recognition agreements) extends to England and Wales and Scotland.”.— (Karin Smyth.) This is consequential on NC92. Clause 70, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 71 Commencement Amendments made: 81, in clause 71, page 48, line 25, leave out “Section 63” and insert “The following”. This paves the way for Amendment 82. Amendment 82, in clause 71, page 48, line 26, at end insert “— (a) section 63 (Care Quality Commission: time limit for bringing proceedings); (b) sections (Regulations: reference to agreements and standards), (Medical Devices Regulations 2002: mutual recognition agreements), (Consultation about medicines and medical devices regulations), (Medicines and medical devices regulations: parliamentary procedure), (Medical devices: parliamentary procedure for certain fees regulations).”. —(Karin Smyth.) This provides for the new clauses listed to come into force 2 months after royal assent. Amendment proposed : 37, in clause 71, page 48, line 28, at end insert— “(3A) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under subsection (3) commencing section (1) until the conditions in subsection (3B) are met. (3B) The conditions are that— (a) the Secretary of State has published a document setting out the operating model for the exercise of functions by the Department of Health and Social Care following the abolition of NHS England (the "operating model document"); and (b) the Secretary of State has published a plan for the management of personnel affected by the abolition of NHS England and the transfer of its functions to the Department of Health and Social Care (the “workforce transition plan”). (3C) The operating model document must include— (a) a description of how each of the functions exercised by NHS England is to be exercised following its abolition; (b) the governance and accountability arrangements for the exercise of those functions; (c) the organisational structure of the Department of Health and Social Care as it will operate following the abolition; and (d) the proposed timetable for the transition. (3D) The workforce transition plan must include— (a) an assessment of the number of personnel whose employment is affected by the abolition of NHS England; (b) the arrangements for the transfer, redeployment or redundancy of affected personnel; and (c) proposals for consultation with recognised trade unions and staff representative bodies in connection with the abolition. (3E) Regulations to commence section (1) are to be made by statutory instrument and may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament. (3F) Before laying a draft instrument under subsection (3E), the Secretary of State must allow a period of at least 60 days beginning with the date of publication of the operating model document and the workforce transition plan (whichever is the later) before the draft instrument is laid. (3G) A period during which Parliament is dissolved, prorogued or adjourned for more than four days are not to count towards the 60-day period in subsection (3F).”. —(Dr Caroline Johnson.) This amendment would prevent the abolition of NHS England before the production of an operating model for the merged DHSC/NHSE and associated plan to manage personnel. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would place a duty on the Secretary of State “to publish a strategy to combat anti-vaccine and medical disinformation”. We increasingly see the impact of anti-vax and medical disinformation. Lower vaccination rates have been recognised as a growing threat to public health this year, and in February the NHS launched a new vaccination campaign following concerns about the declining uptake of measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. Disinformation, including anti-vax conspiracy theories, is dangerous and leads to increased levels of preventable illness. The leader of Reform UK has platformed prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theories at his conferences, and Reform UK needs to be held accountable for its role in this. It is amplifying and importing the conspiracy theories and outright dangerous views of the US President and Robert F. Kennedy. The leader of Reform UK has refused to condemn Donald Trump’s medical conspiracy theories, including unfounded claims about autism and paracetamol. Those views have had a very real effect in the US, undermining and hollowing out important scientific and medical institutions to the detriment of the nation’s health.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford has specifically requested that I press the new clause to a vote because she feels so strongly about the issues in her area. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her response. I think it is important that we keep an eye on the power of medical misinformation or disinformation, and expand that consideration to things such as therapy chatbots. It is not just an online problem, but an AI problem—it is not just malign influences that cause the problem. I beg to ask to leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 81 Minimum service levels “(1) Within six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision for minimum service levels to operate in the NHS during periods of strike action. (2) Regulations under subsection (1) may repeal or otherwise amend provisions in the Employment Rights Act 2025, insofar as is necessary for the purposes of this section. (3) Regulations under subsection (1) must include provision for minimum levels of service by categories of NHS workforce staff, including all Agenda for Change staff but not doctors. (4) Regulations under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. (5) When minimum service levels are in operation under this section, the NHS must set minimum standards of acceptable service to be provided by the NHS during periods of strike action, including mitigating any effect on appointments, medical procedures, acute services, midwifery, surgical procedures, and any other matters that the Secretary of State deems appropriate. (6) With one year beginning on the day on which regulations are made under subsection (1), and within each period of a year thereafter, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on compliance with minimum service levels, including reasons for any failure by operators to secure the required thresholds, and actions the NHS is taking to improve performance to meet the minimum service levels.”— (Dr Caroline Johnson.) This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make regulations which create minimum service levels to operate in the NHS during periods of strike action. Brought up, and read the First time.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  New clause 57 would ensure that the average waiting time for diagnosis and treatment for elective conditions for women’s health issues does not exceed the average waiting time for wider NHS elective treatment. New clause 58 would establish an inquiry into the poorer health outcomes that women face. In communities up and down the country, we have seen the devastating toll taken by the various and sustained failures to invest in and deliver better women’s health. Vital services remain understaffed and underfunded, while women and girls are going without the care they need. In 2022, we welcomed the first women’s health strategy, which promised to “listen more carefully to women, close gaps in care, improve research and tackle inequalities.” Those were all vital goals, but three years on, the problems remain stubbornly in place: long waits for gynaecology treatment, patchy access to services, women reporting that they are not listened to, pain not taken seriously and conditions diagnosed too late. Medical misogyny is a perverse and unacceptable norm in the health sector. Women are not offered pain relief when they need it. The side effects of treatment and drugs on women in particular are far too often overlooked and under-researched. More research is needed to improve medical and reproductive products for women. In addition, about half a million women are waiting for gynaecology treatment across the country. We just cannot keep failing women in this way. The current average wait for a diagnosis of endometriosis is nine years and four months. Tackling NHS waiting times, including for gynaecological services, must be a top priority for the Government. More needs to be done to tackle the backlogs. Waits for health conditions specific to women should not be so much longer than those for general health conditions. The former Secretary of State recognised that the NHS “has a problem with basic, everyday sexism and an appalling culture of medical misogyny.” We welcome that acknowledgment, but we believe that the Department of Health and Social Care should ask the same questions of itself. As I say, new clause 57 would ensure that the average waiting time for diagnosis and treatment for elective conditions for women’s health issues does not exceed the average waiting time for wider NHS elective treatment. It would be a meaningful step towards parity and equality. As we know, in the NHS what gets measured gets done. The Government’s new women’s health strategy is welcome—it has more urgency and has the laudable goals of tackling medical misogyny, of faster diagnosis of conditions such as endometriosis, and of better pain management—but in comparison with the men’s health strategy that was released last year, it lacks teeth. Its goals are laudable, but it lacks a named academic network, a formal National Institute for Health and Care Research-aligned research mandate, a committed stakeholder governance group, a named condition-specific research investment at a comparable scale to that in the men’s health strategy and a formal accountability architecture with named organisations, governance structures and public reporting obligations. This time, we need to back the strategy with real investment in the services that impact women, which have been stretched to breaking point. New clause 58 would introduce an inquiry into the poor health outcomes faced by women. We hope that such an inquiry would achieve the same goal and shed a light on women’s health issues, which seem to get so little focus at the moment.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am suddenly cast back to 31 years ago, when I was choosing my subjects for the final year of my history degree. One of the early modern history papers was provocatively entitled “Women and other deviants”. It was called that to draw attention to the fact that, despite making up 50% of the population, women are often treated as a minority group. I sincerely hope that we are not still in that situation, but women’s issues clearly still need addressing. I will take the Minister at her word, but I will keep pressing her on this issue as we go through the course of this Parliament. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 66 Puberty blockers ‘(1) Within three months of the passage of this Act the Secretary of State must make regulations which ensure that puberty blockers may not be prescribed, dispensed or supplied to persons under 18 years of age for the purposes of treatment related to gender dysphoria, gender incongruence or a combination of both, in the United Kingdom. (2) These regulations must ensure that such drugs cannot be given out or used as part of clinical trials for the treatment of gender dysphoria, gender incongruence or a combination of both, unless that trial has specifically been approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament. (3) For the purposes of this section, puberty blockers means— (a) a “gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (‘GnRH’) analogue” which means a medicinal product that consists of or contains buserelin, gonadorelin, goserelin, leuprorelin acetate, nafarelin or triptorelin, and (b) any other drug which has the effect of suppressing or delaying puberty that the Secretary of State may by regulation appoint.’ —(Dr Caroline Johnson.) This new clause would create a requirement for the Secretary of State to make regulations which prevent puberty blockers from being prescribed to persons under 18 years of age for the purposes of treatment related to gender incongruence, or clinical trials related to gender incongruence unless specifically approved by Parliament. Brought up, and read the First time.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her response, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn .

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  In terms of ICBs and their responsibilities to veterans, there are specialist veterans’ services around the country. One exists in my constituency, at the orthopaedic hospital in Gobowen, which has an excellent veterans’ centre. Yet the commissioning and payment for those services between ICBs is complex, messy and unnecessarily difficult. Would the Minister consider using the measures at her disposal to ensure that those things can happen more smoothly in the future?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  New clause 108, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett), will place a duty on ICBs to collect and publish data on the number of patients who died while waiting for end-of-life care. This is a fairly self-explanatory new clause, so I will keep my remarks brief. We know anecdotally that palliative care provision is very patchy across the country and can be something of a postcode lottery, and that many people who die in hospital would have preferred to die at home with the support of hospice outreach services or in a hospice itself. The new clause would ensure that we understand how many of those people there are and where they are located, so that we can consider whether hospice provision is appropriately provided in the right places. I hope the Minister will consider the importance of the new clause, which would allow us to have a much more comprehensive palliative care service across the country.