Helen Morgan MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  The cross-border point is really important. A number of people will come into England from Wales to have their secondary care delivered, because that care is not available in Wales. The single patient record will presumably not be available to the clinicians in the hospitals in England who are dealing with the patients. I wonder whether we should consider how that will work when we get to the regulation stage, because other systems will clearly be needed to deal with the people who are coming from outside England to be treated in English hospitals and other settings.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Asylum Accommodation · Hansard source

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  May I raise my concerns about the site at Stoke Heath, which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard)? It is a really rural location, with the nearest town being Market Drayton in my constituency, and people there are very concerned about the appropriateness of the site, with it being 30 minutes’ walk from a bus stop and there being no shop. Shropshire council has raised its concerns about the site’s remoteness. Given that we have seen increasing far-right infiltration in Shropshire, with people beyond the constituency borders spreading misinformation and hatred on Facebook, I am concerned about the security of the people in the development at Stoke Heath. What measures are being taken to keep those people safe? Will he explain what the criteria are for a suitable location for dispersal accommodation? It seems to me that somewhere without even a bus stop or a shop is a really inappropriate place.

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

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  I want to draw the Minister’s attention to some of the difficulties relating to cross-border healthcare in a border area. I represent an area on a border. North Shropshire has a very wiggly, for want of a better word, border with Wales, which means that some English constituents are registered with a GP surgery in Wales but receive their secondary care in England. That causes significant difficulties for them because of the lack of joined-up communication between the two Administrations. I seek assurance from the Minister that as ICBs in England will have to pay regard to people who live near the border in Wales, conversations are going on with the commissioners in Wales to ensure that that process is as smooth as possible.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Cross-border Health Services: England and Wales · Hansard source

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  Powys health board has been categorising the needs of its patients based on cost rather than clinical need, and that is causing a real problem for the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic hospital in my constituency and the associated Headley Court veterans’ centre, because they need to prioritise patients based on clinical need, not whether Powys health board will pay for them this year. What is the Secretary of State doing about Powys health board to ensure that patients are treated according to clinical need and in a way that my hospital trust can manage?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Cross-border Healthcare · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) for securing a debate that is really important along both the Welsh and Scottish borders. It is always a pleasure to respond for the Liberal Democrats. This is an issue that my own constituents deal with daily, because North Shropshire has a very long and winding border with Wales. My office, as a result, has dealt with many upsetting pieces of healthcare casework that stem directly from the broken and disjointed system that serves our border counties and, critically, the lack of information that flows between them, as we have heard. Take for example many of my constituents whose GP will be in Wales because that will be their closest GP, and who usually attend Wrexham Maelor hospital for investigations and procedures, because if they live in north-west Shropshire that is almost as close as the hospitals in Shrewsbury and Telford. It is certainly closer than Telford. In an emergency, because their address is in England, the ambulance that they are sent comes from the West Midlands ambulance service and it is most likely that they will be taken to Shrewsbury or Telford hospitals as a result. When they get there, those hospitals are unable to access their medical records, including any recent blood reports or clinical history. I think the Minister will agree that that is inherently dangerous for those patients, whose only “fault” is to live close to the border. The 2018 cross-border statement promised that no patient would face delay or disadvantage because of which side of the border they lived on, but in reality that promise has not been kept. Another constituent of mine who is registered with a GP in Wales was unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer about 18 months ago. Her GP in Wales was very good; her initial care was excellent, and she was set to have a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in Telford, but a couple of days before the surgery she was told that the Welsh health board would not be paying for the reconstructive element of the surgery. Obviously she was distressed and very scared about her future, and worried about having to wait longer to have that vital surgery because the funding issue needed to be sorted out. Although my office resolved the issue fairly quickly, it should not be necessary for an MP to get involved in a funding flow across the border. That is not acceptable, and not how we should be dealing with cross-border care. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden) have described, Powys teaching health board has set waiting times for elective surgery that are arbitrarily long and without reference to clinical need. That means that Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, which treats my constituents, and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic hospital, which is in my constituency and provides the veterans centre that the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) mentioned, are being asked to prioritise waiting lists based not on need, but on nationality. I am an accountant, not a medical expert, but how can clinicians at those trusts be expected to manage their lists if they must take into account nationality before clinical need? The teams in both trusts are working incredibly hard to bring down their own long waiting lists. They have ambitious targets to meet, but they are being instructed to leave some patients longer, for no obvious reason. It is clearly an untenable situation for those hospital trusts. The patients, who may be living with chronic pain, are being told to wait longer than necessary because they live in Wales. That is not fairness; it is failure. I ask the Minister to ensure that the Labour-led Welsh Government are working hand in hand with our English integrated care boards and hospital trusts to ensure that residents on the border—on the Welsh side and the English side—are provided with the care that they need and deserve. Behind the problem with funding flows lies another problem—the data-sharing chaos. After 25 years of devolution, NHS England and NHS Wales still cannot share patient records properly. Although England uses the NHS e-RS, or e-referral service, Wales uses the Welsh clinical portal, I am reliably informed. Clinicians often need multiple logins to access cross-border data, and GP-to-GP digital record transfers do not work between nations, with referrals, test results and discharge letters still moving by post or fax, which is an absurd situation in 2025. As we have heard from our Scottish colleagues in today’s debate, there is a similar situation on the Scottish border. A fundamental difference in national strategies has left those on the border torn between two healthcare systems and two sets of priorities. The pilot project between Powys and the Wye Valley is a glimmer of hope, but progress on that is too slow. This is leading to a situation in which it is harder to recruit GPs, referrals take longer and patients fall through the cracks, because the two systems do not talk to each other. Treatment pathways can be confusing and fragmented, as we heard from my constituent’s example. Patients are facing delays and disputes not because of medical need, but because of bureaucracy. The 2018 “Statement of values and principles” has no legal force; it is a voluntary agreement that leaves patients powerless when things go wrong. What we really need is proper accountability, shared data and transparent funding, so that the border does not become a barrier to care. It should not decide how long people wait, what care they get and whether their doctor can access their records. One of the communities hit hardest by these challenges is St Martin’s—the largest village in Shropshire and, of course, in North Shropshire. Its GP surgery was a branch of the medical practice over the border in Chirk and it was overseen by Betsi Cadwaladr university health board. In 2022 it was closed, despite strong opposition from me and the village residents. The Betsi Cadwaladr university health board has no official responsibility for my constituents over the border in North Shropshire, but it does get funding from the Welsh NHS for each individual registered in Chirk. Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB presumably cannot afford a new surgery for the village, despite its being Shropshire’s largest village—it is also rapidly expanding—which means that residents must travel into Wales to see their nearest GP, with all the complications that entails. The best interests of English patients were disregarded by Betsi Cadwaladr health board because it was not responsible for those patients’ outcomes. It is essential for the health and wellbeing of residents on both sides of the border that we move to a system that focuses on a smooth flow of information between the nations and, crucially, that prioritises patient outcomes. Improvements should be built on existing systems and border projects, rather than attempting some kind of long-winded, full national integration. As a party, the Liberal Democrats believe that the best way to do it is by, for example: extending England’s secure nhs.net to Welsh GP practices to allow safe patient data exchange; expanding English clinicians’ access to the Welsh clinical portal, which is currently available just in Wye Valley, to improve safety and efficiency; implementing any further sensible measures integrating English, Welsh and Scottish secure email systems; broadening the Welsh clinical portal, including expanding the Powys teaching health board and Wye Valley trust data-sharing model to other border trusts; and investigating interoperability of the NHS app between countries to support patient communications. In 2025, we should be in a place where the flow of information is smooth and patients in the UK need not worry where they are located or what nationality they are if they need healthcare. I call on the Minister to work with her colleagues in the Welsh Government to ensure that their health system works in harmony with ours. Devolution should not mean having a dysfunctional border region. It should help deliver the localised care that residents need. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 10 Sept 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am broadly supportive of the Bill, because I think it will do that. My point is that the power to franchise bus services is all very well, but the funding needs to follow the power. Otherwise, constituencies such as mine will not see the improvements for which they are desperate. Colleagues have talked about the bus fare cap. I am supportive of measures to keep it at £2, but I must point out that in constituencies such as mine, which has little in the way of bus services, a cap has not made a huge difference. Some of the operators have not opted into that cap, so it has had limited impact for my constituents, important as it is. The £1 billion fund announced by the Department for Transport last November promised to give rural and coastal areas a real sea change in their bus services, but in Shropshire—as I mentioned, it has had the worst drop-off in its services in the whole country—only £2.5 million was allocated. That is the critical point and why I am fully supportive of the Bill’s measures that will allow local authorities to decide where bus services are essential. The funding needs to follow them, regardless of whether areas are in a combined authority or have a mayor, and it should follow need, not just structure. I urge the Minister to take that on board. Although we are not voting on new clause 37, across the House, including on the Government Benches, 30 Members have sponsored it. Many similar amendments have been tabled that likewise seek to improve bus services for people living in rural areas, and ensure they are adequate to access essential services. I urge the Minister to consider the intentions of my new clause, and those of similar amendments tabled by colleagues, and commit to some kind of improvement for rural areas when he makes his closing remarks. I mentioned that North Shropshire is pressed up against the border with Wales and that the border with Wales is very wiggly. That gives my constituents a specific challenge with their bus passes. If they want to catch a bus between two destinations in England but it stops in Wales or they need to change in Wales, their bus pass is not valid. I think that is a bit crazy. For example, if they want to go from Oswestry to Chester and they need to change at Wrexham, their bus pass will not be valid. That is the one service that runs on a Sunday. We need to ensure that people can use their bus passes when they are crossing the border. That is a very low-cost thing, which ought to be very easy for a Government to sort out. My new clause 39 would require the Secretary of State to liaise with the Welsh Government and come up with a workable solution for what is probably an unintended consequence of devolution between England and Wales. I hope the Minister will take that on board and consider a workable solution for people using their bus passes across the border. I also tabled new clause 40, which replicates that requirement for Scotland. I appreciate that that does not impact my constituents in North Shropshire, but I tabled it in the name of being inclusive. I am proud to have been one of the first signatories to new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon). I will not take any of the credit for the new clause because he has done all the hard work, but I will urge the Minister to consider accepting new clause 2 because it is so important. Disability does not stop at 9.30.

• 10 Sept 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  North Shropshire is a very rural constituency, and it is nestled in against the Welsh border, which is wiggly—I think that is the best way to describe it. That means that my constituents’ experience of using buses can be problematic, and I have tabled some new clauses that I hope the Minister will reflect on. Shropshire is one of the worst-served counties for buses, having lost 66% of its bus miles since 2015. It has lost more bus miles, by percentage, than any other county in England. The average loss of bus miles is about 20.9%, so it has been a severe experience for my constituents. Towns such as Market Drayton have almost become isolated, because their bus service is so poor. I am sure the House has heard me say before that there is only one bus running in Shropshire on Sundays. I am lucky enough to be able to report that it runs from a town in my constituency, but it is hardly an acceptable situation for my constituents. New clause 37 is sponsored by 30 colleagues from across the House, revealing that my constituents’ experience is shared by people in many parts of rural Britain. It tries to address the problem of poor bus services in market towns by requiring the Secretary of State to ensure that a service must be available seven days a week, and that she consults the relevant bodies to ensure that constituents using the bus service can access essential services. My Bus Services Bill, which aims to get people to hospital and other health services when they need to do so, has that requirement, but it could equally be applied to schools, colleges and other important destinations for people who find themselves isolated.