Helen Morgan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jul 2025 · NHS 10-Year Plan · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of the plan this morning. After years of Conservative failure, a plan for the future of the NHS is welcome and Liberal Democrats support the Secretary of State in his vision to shift the NHS to a community-focused, preventive service. However, I seek his reassurance on some questions. In the 143 pages of the 10-year plan, there is only a passing reference to social care. Everyone knows that we cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care. With so many people unable to return home from hospital to get the care they need, solving the crisis in social care is a huge part of moving care out of hospital and into the community. Will the Secretary of State bring forward the Casey review, so that it reports in full this year, and reinstate the cross-party talks, so that consensus can be reached on the future of care? I welcome the idea of a neighbourhood health centre, but how does that interact with the plan for GPs? The 10-year plan implies that GP contracts will encourage them to cover a huge geographic area of 50,000 people. In North Shropshire, that would be two or three market towns combined and would span dozens of miles. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that there will still be a physical health centre, accessible to all, and that in areas with little public transport in particular, people will be able to access care when they need it? Finally, the plan hinges on the shift to digital solutions, and that is not without risk. The use of the NHS app is critical to what happens. How will the Secretary of State ensure that those without a smartphone—because they cannot afford one, do not feel confident using one or simply do not have adequate broadband or internet—can access the NHS? Many elderly and disabled people in particular who are digitally excluded will feel worried by today’s announcement.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. Businesses and individuals in my constituency tell me that the single-biggest factor holding back growth in our rural area is poor public transport. Shropshire has been poorly served by the bus service improvement plan, and by the spending review’s focus on investment in city areas. How will the Chancellor improve public transport in rural areas to drive the growth that we so desperately need there?

• 24 Jun 2025 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the acting Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), on securing this important debate and on her excellent opening speech on the risks inherent in the spending review settlement. The Conservatives left our NHS in a disgraceful state that is impacting every one of our constituents. On their watch, people with life-threatening emergencies were left waiting hours for ambulances, hospitals were left to crumble, and accessing a GP became a huge challenge. The collapse of NHS dentistry has left some people pulling out their own teeth at home. It is essential that the new Labour Government are bold and ambitious in turning the NHS and care sectors around. The Liberal Democrats support the principles of the Secretary of State’s three shifts and have stated on many occasions the alternative means we would use to raise the necessary funds, but today’s debate is about how the money should be spent. I was pleased that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s statement last week incorporated a measure that the Liberal Democrats have long called for, not least in our last Opposition day debate in April: a ringfenced fund for maintenance, to deal with the huge repair backlog that has built up across the NHS estate. However, I must reiterate the need to go faster with the new hospital programme. We know that the Conservatives’ plans were unfunded, but this capital spend must be brought forward so that crumbling hospitals in places like Torbay, Watford, St Helier and Stepping Hill can be rebuilt as soon as possible, because spending billions on maintaining buildings that face demolition in the next 20 years is not a wise use of taxpayers’ money. The Liberal Democrats believe that the crisis in the NHS—particularly in accident and emergency—cannot be solved unless we transform social care. We have long argued that investment in the NHS will be pouring good money after bad if hospitals cannot discharge patients because there are no care workers to help them recover. The fair pay agreement for care workers is a start, but it will not touch the sides of the yawning abyss of current and forecast vacancies in the care sector. At a bare minimum, we need a higher minimum wage for care staff to stop the sector haemorrhaging workers. It is more urgent than ever that the cross-party talks for which the Government had such enthusiasm at the start of the year are reinstated. The terms of the Casey review, which leaves fundamental restructuring of the care sector to 2036, are not ambitious enough. The review needs to be completed this year, so that meaningful change is not put off while our population ages. I turn to mental health. The Darzi review outlined in stark terms the fact that mental and physical health are not given parity in the health service; mental ill health takes up 20% of the caseload and only 10% of the funds. Proper investment in mental health is essential to the shift from treatment to prevention. It was disappointing to see the Government abandon mental health waiting list targets and reduce the overall proportion of money spent on mental health, while proclaiming that they were meeting the mental health investment standard because, at integrated care board level, there had been a fractional increase. I urge the Minister to ensure that mental health is given priority, and to ensure that prevention, through early intervention, can bring about improved outcomes. Yesterday, the Secretary of State announced a new national investigation of maternity services. I was disappointed that no oral statement was made. Many MPs represent constituents whose families have been left distraught by maternity service failings at Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Morecambe Bay, Nottingham, and potentially other trust areas. Those voices deserve to be heard in Parliament, but that opportunity was denied. I welcome the inquiry, but remain dismayed at the slow progress since Donna Ockenden’s shocking report into the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust in spring 2022. She recommended 15 immediate and essential actions for national implementation; three years later, that has not happened, and the Government have removed the ringfence from funding intended to ensure safe staffing levels. Her findings were consistent with those after other maternity scandals, and the Government accepted her recommendations. It is vital that the inquiry moves the situation forward and is not used as a distraction tactic to delay real action. Before concluding, I will raise the subject of the fundamental reorganisation of the NHS, which is being undertaken without any meaningful parliamentary scrutiny. NHS England announced the decision to slash ICB running costs by 50% by the end of this year, with detailed plans to be submitted by the end of last month. No impact assessment for that drastic change was undertaken by the Department and, as far as I can see, there is no funding from the Treasury for potential redundancy costs and no confirmed redundancy scheme. ICBs will be expected to transfer some statutory duties to other trusts without that change being on any formal statutory footing. The guidance from the soon-to-be-abolished NHS England has been hastily prepared. If ICB money can be spent more efficiently, the Secretary of State has our support, but surely such radical change requires scrutiny, particularly when it was not in the Labour manifesto and there has been no White Paper, no consultation, no legislation, and not even a short ministerial statement on the subject. We would all appreciate the opportunity to better understand how the process will improve outcomes for our constituents. The new Labour Government face an enormous challenge in turning around an NHS left at breaking point by the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats’ job as an effective Opposition party is to urge the new Government to go further, faster, in tackling the issue of access to GPs and dentists, in ending the appalling scandal of corridor care and dangerous ambulance waiting times, and in bringing urgency to the issues of spiralling mental health waiting lists and the crisis in social care.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Incontinence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for securing this important debate and for outlining the issues so well in her opening speech, particularly the importance of breaking down the taboos surrounding incontinence and the social isolation that can result from it. I have carefully scribbled out the term “incontinence” all the way through my speech and hopefully replaced it with “bladder and bowel control issues”—forgive me if I have missed one. I recognise the importance of prevention and specialist treatment. The hon. Member for Dudley highlighted the benefit to both individuals and taxpayers from investing in women’s health up front, and I echo that call. There have been lots of excellent contributions, but I thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) for raising the scandal of pelvic mesh implants. I thank him for highlighting that issue and the need for redress there. Incontinence, or bladder and bowel control issues, can have a hugely detrimental impact on a person’s wellbeing and sense of dignity, as we have heard. Despite affecting millions of people across the UK, it is the subject of stigma, and the needs of those with bladder and bowel control issues are not properly considered in many aspects of life. All too often, people suffering from these issues are left without the right support, whether that is the uncomfortable bladder pressure tests that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan) referred to, or the lack of access to sanitary bins in public and workplace toilets. It has been widely assumed for many years that sanitary bins for men are not required in public toilet facilities. As we have heard, many millions of men are affected by bladder and bowel control issues. The absence of sanitary bins has a wholly unnecessary and damaging impact on their self-esteem, causing embarrassment and stress and, as we have heard, withdrawal from public places and the workplace. The cost is tiny but the benefits for those affected can be significant. There has been progress in this area, thanks to the work of campaigns such as Boys Need Bins by Prostate Cancer UK, but there is much further to go. That is why it is crucial that we support all individuals with the condition by ensuring access to services such as public toilets and sanitary bins, as unfortunately that is not the case. Under the last Government, 19% of public toilet facilities—nearly 600—lost their local authority maintenance and funding between 2015 and 2021 alone. Liberal Democrat research from 45 councils found that the number of public toilets had fallen by 14% from 2018-19 to 2023. Many local authorities are on the verge of bankruptcy and do not have the spare capacity for these vital services. Proper funding of local authorities to provide services such as public toilets and sanitary bins could make a truly meaningful difference for people with bladder and bowel control issues, and I hope the whole House will agree that these individuals deserve access to basic facilities. There is also a clear need for more research into developing better treatments and mitigations for people suffering from bladder and bowel control issues. Crucially, these should avoid unnecessary discomfort or invasive procedures. As such, I support what the hon. Member for Gravesham has said. The University of Aberdeen has found that women with ongoing urinary incontinence can avoid invasive bladder pressure tests, and that non-invasive assessments work just as well in guiding treatment. An emphasis on respecting people’s dignity and reducing discomfort should be at the heart of how we approach the testing, treatment and mitigation of these issues. We also know that these issues—particularly bowel incontinence—can place a significant strain on family carers carrying out personal care, who are often under-supported and suffer from ill health themselves. Many care requests go unmet; last year, the King’s Fund estimated that nearly a third of requests for local government funding result in no support for care at home. This means that there are many thousands of families struggling with the realities of caring for a loved one with bladder and bowel control issues, which can include not only feelings of shame and embarrassment —both for them and for their loved one—but difficulty with lifting and moving a family member to clean them, and in accessing the equipment necessary to cope. That is why dealing with the crisis in social care should be a top priority for the Government. When the Secretary of State phoned me—and, presumably, the other national party health spokespeople —over the Christmas break to let me know that he was instigating the Casey review and cross-party talks to find a long-term solution to that crisis, I was hugely encouraged. Since then, the Casey review has been delayed, and the cross-party talks have apparently been cancelled. I must stress that each party giving its view to Baroness Casey is not the same as sitting in the same room and agreeing a long-term funding plan. The review’s terms of reference will not deliver meaningful reform until the next Parliament, and there is a huge risk that, again, nothing will be done by the Government of the day—in this case, despite them having a huge majority to achieve whatever they want. Meanwhile, the number of people needing care increases every year, and the step change required to transform the sector becomes larger and less politically palatable. As such, I urge the Minister to speak to the Secretary of State and help him to recover the enthusiasm for change that he showed over Christmas, because he will have my full support. However, there are simple steps that can make a difference now, such as hospitals working with family carers ahead of discharge to ensure that they are equipped to carry out heightened personal care needs. In many places, that support is not delivered, let alone ongoing support and meaningful respite care. Wait times for a continence assessment vary across the country—it can take weeks and weeks. Improving those wait times would ensure that the right care and equipment is available much sooner. There is also a chronic shortage of speech and language therapists, who can make a real difference in helping people with limited or no speech to more easily communicate when they need the toilet or want to be changed or washed. That is particularly essential in cases in which those people suffer from bladder and bowel control issues. Incontinence is not properly reflected in how we organise paid social care. For instance, too often the pay for domiciliary carers and the time they are expected to care for any one person do not reflect the fact that someone’s need for care might vary hugely from day to day. Any embarrassment, frustration and discomfort for the person being cared for will only be made worse if their carers are rushed, stressed and overworked, and if spending longer at one house could mean that those carers are effectively having to work for free. I also want to highlight the importance of good care in hospital settings. NHS England’s 2018 “Excellence in Continence Care” guidance states that “pathways of care should be commissioned that ensure early assessment, effective management of incontinence, along with other bladder and bowel problems such as constipation and urinary tract infections and their impact on social, physical and mental well-being”. I highlight this because my constituent Trevor Collins died on 21 May 2022 as a result of aspiration pneumonia and small bowel ileus, due to a small bowel obstruction caused by constipation. The coroner concluded that neglect at Royal Shrewsbury hospital and a failure to manage Mr Collins’ constipation contributed to his avoidable death. It is essential that healthcare settings follow the NICE guidelines that are in place, not only to preserve dignity but to prevent serious harm and—in the worst cases—even death. Liberal Democrats recognise the seriousness of the issues surrounding all types of incontinence and bladder and bowel control issues, and the critical importance of ensuring that people with those conditions can live in dignity. The Minister will have heard the calls in my speech. I hope she will commit to repairing our broken social care system, reinstating cross-party talks and wrapping up the Casey review this year, so that we can make the reforms that are necessary for long-term stability in the sector and the dignity of all those receiving and providing care.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Oswestry livestock market in my constituency serves not only North Shropshire, but Mid Wales, and its operations are under threat because of the hard border introduced as a result of the bluetongue protection zone. I echo the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for a statement on how we can effectively manage this concerning situation. May I also ask the Leader of the House to consider whether 40 minutes for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions is sufficient, given that a fifth of the country live in rural areas, and there is very little time under the current allocation for those of us who represent those areas to question Ministers?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Care in the Community · Hansard source

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  As we have just heard, it is widely acknowledged that the crisis in social care is a cause of dangerously high occupancy rates in hospitals that lead to the horrors of corridor care, the dreadful ambulance waiting times that we have seen and a knock-on effect on the community. When I was contacted by the family of a terminally ill man in Wem in my constituency last month, I was reminded that not only is care often provided in the wrong place, but it is often not available at all. Will the Government bring forward the timeline for the horribly delayed Casey review to report back, get it done this year and heed Liberal Democrat calls for cross-party talks so that we can agree on a long-term solution for the crisis?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Medicine Supply Chain: Community Pharmacies · Hansard source

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  Across the country, community pharmacies struggle not only with supply chain problems but with dispensing some of the critical medicines for our constituents at a loss. I was concerned to read that higher prices for United States pharmaceuticals are on the table for the next stage of trade negotiations with Donald Trump, because an additional £1.5 billion would cost both the NHS and our community pharmacies dear. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that the NHS, and the vital medicine supply on which we rely, will not be used as a bargaining chip in a trade deal with a highly unreliable US President?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  Shropshire council’s finances have been left on the brink by 16 years of Conservative administration. It is the largest landlocked county in England, and it is struggling with about 85% of its budget being spent on social care. When the Minister does his fair funding review, will he look at the difficulty and costliness of delivering services over such a wide rural area and ensure that councils such as Shropshire, which has lost its rural services delivery grant, will be able to sustain themselves in the future?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I chair the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities, which is concerned that there are 6.3 million properties currently at risk of flooding—a figure that is forecast to rise to 8 million by 2050 because of climate change. However, the Bill does not really address climate change or any kind of flood resilience. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in urging the Minister to consider the amendments tabled by me and others that deal with building properties in areas that are at risk of flooding and lack flood resilience?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Bank Closures and Banking Hubs · Hansard source

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  Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was so absorbed by the debate that I did not hear you call my name. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) on securing this debate, which is important. In my constituency of North Shropshire, there are five market towns, but only one will have a commercial banking branch left after the closure of the NatWest in Market Drayton this year. We find ourselves in a situation of managed decline for rural constituents, with essential services slowly removed bit by bit every year. Just two months ago, I attended the opening of the Whitchurch banking hub, which is providing a vital service to a town of around 10,000 people that had lost its final bank branch. While that is great news for Whitchurch and the best alternative to a network of commercial banks, we must consider now those market towns that do not meet the criteria set by Link. For example, the lovely, historic, but quite small town of Ellesmere in North Shropshire has a population of around 5,000 people and 90 commercial units. It is a hub for a large rural area and there is no bank and no prospect of getting one, according to Link, because it does not meet the criteria. Ellesmere still has a post office, which is relied upon by local businesses for cash services. Having been the financial controller of a business in an area served only by a post office, I can tell the House that people need to do more than simply deposit and withdraw cash. Although I was a big fan of Prees post office and village store, if I needed to change the signatory on a bank account or set up a new one, it was a logistical nightmare; if I did not want to post valuable and sensitive documents, it required a half-day trip to a town with a physical branch. For someone in Ellesmere, the nearest town is Oswestry. To visit an actual bank in person is a 45-minute round trip on public transport. Someone living in the surrounding villages is in a difficult situation. Those residents might also have used their post office at some point, but now those post offices are being systematically closed down. In my constituency, from Knockin to Hadnall and from Weston Rhyn to Shawbury, outreach post offices have been closed in one fell swoop with a couple of weeks’ notice. A Post Office representative sounded surprised recently when they told me that outreach services only available for one hour a week were not well used. It seemed not to have occurred to them that if the post office is only available for a single hour, that might not be terribly convenient. I have little time left, so I will just say that for places with poor digital access, where many people cannot access online banking, it is essential that we review the criteria that Link uses to assess the need for a banking hub. A medieval market town that has been serving the centre of its community for hundreds and hundreds of years is on its knees because there is no access to banking. It is essential that we get those services back into high streets to revitalise towns such as Ellesmere and Wem as soon as possible.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This week the Government announced an enormous investment in transport projects in metropolitan areas, but nothing for rural areas. Given that almost a fifth of the population live in rural and coastal areas, and that many of them, like North Shropshire, have very poor public transport, can we have a debate in Government time to consider how we might invest in really good public transport projects, such as the Oswestry to Gobowen railway line, to unleash growth in rural areas?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Government Announcements · Hansard source

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  Integrated care boards had their budgets cut by 50% via a phone call from the interim head of NHS England to ICB leaders, and that announcement was only made formal in response to a written question that I put to the Secretary of State. Half of NHS targets were cut without a statement in the Chamber, and although there was a statement in the Chamber on the abolition of NHS England, it has been carrying on at pace without so much as a White Paper, a Bill or any opportunity for effective parliamentary scrutiny. Will the Leader of the House give us an opportunity to look at and scrutinise this fundamental reorganisation of the NHS, which is so far going under the radar?

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

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  I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and the granddaughter of a London bus driver. Bus services have been reduced to a dire state in my North Shropshire constituency in recent years—most drastically under the watch of the previous Conservative Government. We are one of the worst-served constituencies in England for public transport, having seen a staggering 63% reduction of our bus miles since 2015; that compares with an English average reduction of just 19%. A person in Market Drayton who wants to get to the Princess Royal hospital in Telford, which is a 20-minute car journey, is looking at something like a five-hour round trip on the bus. Only one service operates on Sundays in the whole county, between the market towns of Oswestry and Chester. In short, the current situation is unacceptable. Just before recess, I met students from Lakelands academy in Ellesmere at Parliament’s education centre and answered their questions. One young woman asked me what we were doing to make bus services better, because she could not go with her friends to any after-school clubs due to her bus not running back to St Martin’s past 3.30 pm. I recently met members of the Oswestry Youth Forum, and they raised similar concerns. Young people in rural communities are now presented with a childhood confined to the small village or town they live in, and they are left with a lack of choice over their education, a lack of opportunity for socialising and taking part in activities outside school, and shrinking horizons. Ultimately, their options for employment can be significantly curtailed—unless, of course, their parents can afford to give them a car. Meanwhile, older or disabled constituents who are no longer able to drive, or simply cannot afford to, are fully dependent on family members and friends to get them to where they need to be. I think everybody in this House would agree that this is driving deep and fundamental inequality, as well as holding back the economy in rural areas. That is why I am broadly supportive of this Bill.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was about to say that I am broadly supportive of this Bill and the empowerment of local authorities to franchise bus services for those reasons. That should enhance accessibility and safety and allow local authorities to establish new bus companies, which they have not been able to do before. It is critical that local authorities can protect and establish routes that ensure access to employment, healthcare and town centres, which is one of the main aims that my own bus services Bill—Bus Services Bill No. 1, if I may be so cheeky—seeks to address, but with these new powers rightly being given to local government, I have real concerns about the ability of rural local authorities to find the funding to drive the meaningful change we so need. In November, the Government allocated £1 billion of funding for buses, and the then Secretary of State for Transport said that the funding for rural areas would be “unprecedented”, but Shropshire council received just £1.4 million in capital funding and £2.5 million in revenue funding for this financial year. That was the 53rd lowest of 73 allocations for one of the worst-served counties in the country. That funding allocation is a tiny fraction of Shropshire council’s bus service improvement plan, which outlined the need for £73.5 million of bus funding across three years to transform the county’s bus network to an acceptable standard. The cost of franchising is also likely to be prohibitive to local authorities such as mine. The Government who promised a new formula based on need, deprivation and bus mileage to end the postcode lottery have so far made it abundantly clear that living in a rural area means less money, less public services and less opportunity. There is a clear need for better transport in Shropshire. A third of North Shropshire’s children are growing up in poverty. Our deprivation may be hidden by our beautiful leafy setting, but it certainly exists, and by limiting the opportunities of these children, it is being perpetuated. The council spends around 80% of its budget on care, a percentage that is forecast to rise, and its costs for delivering services are high. At more than 1,200 square miles, Shropshire covers an area 27 times the size of Greater Manchester. The roughly 325,000 people who live there are relatively evenly distributed across the area, adding to the cost of delivery of those services. I support the principles of the Bill, but there must be recognition of the desperate situation that local council finances are in, particularly in large rural areas such as mine. The looming rise of the bus fare cap from £2 to £3 is especially concerning, forcing people to fork out a significant amount every week for return travel to their job. In rural communities such as North Shropshire, alternatives to bus travel are few and far between. For the financially vulnerable who rely on buses to access services, the impact of the hike to £3 is going to be devastating. I support the Bill’s aims, and I can see its success in cities such as London and Greater Manchester, but it is essential that rural areas are not left behind and crippled by the cost of delivering social care over a large geographical area, as they have been by previous Administrations. Buses are the best way to reduce inequality for people in rural areas and, critically, to unlock the economic growth they can offer. I hope the Minister will listen and work with his colleagues in the Treasury to help transform the opportunities for people in rural areas.

• 22 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I chair the all-party parliamentary group on digital communities. At our meeting on Tuesday, we heard from industry executives that the shared rural network has been rolled out well ahead of schedule. However, I am afraid that my constituents have noticed no discernible difference to their mobile signal on the ground. May we have a debate in Government time to discuss what a decent mobile signal looks like for rural areas and how on earth we will deliver it?

• 21 May 2025 · Potential closure of Oswestry Crown Post Office · Hansard source

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  I rise on behalf of petitioners in North Shropshire. Oswestry post office is one of 115 larger Crown, or directly managed, branches that have been listed at risk of closure by the Post Office. Its closure would leave many residents without easy access to essential postal and banking services, which are particularly important for elderly residents, small businesses and those without access to reliable public transport. An online petition with similar wording to the petition that I present today has been signed by 2,668 people. The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to guarantee the future of Oswestry Crown post office. And the petitioners remain, etc.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the constituency of North Shropshire, Declares that Oswestry Crown Post Office has been earmarked for potential closure, removing vital mail, money, travel, identity and driving services from the town centre; further declares Oswestry Crown Post Office’s role as an essential community service at the heart of Oswestry; notes that high streets in towns are already facing huge challenges, including business rate hikes and loss of bank branches; further that North Shropshire is one of the worst served constituency in the England for public transport, and this poses a significant challenge to accessing vital services that crown post offices provide; and further notes that 2,668 people have signed an online petition on this matter. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to guarantee the future of Oswestry Crown post office. And the petitioners remain, etc.]

• 19 May 2025 · NHS and Care Volunteer Responders Service · Hansard source

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  I was a volunteer vaccination steward during the pandemic, and the Liberal Democrats are hugely grateful to the thousands of volunteers who have made a difference to the lives of patients and vulnerable people in their communities since the pandemic ended. Their compassion and commitment have been inspiring. We are concerned that the end of the programme has been announced at extremely short notice; there will be no further shifts in just 12 days’ time. Will the Minister reassure the House that those currently receiving help from the volunteer scheme, such as collecting prescriptions or fetching shopping, will not be left high and dry after next Saturday? Has the Department conducted an impact assessment? If so, will it publish it? As with so many major decisions, such as dropping cross-party talks on social care or cutting funding for integrated care boards by 50%, it is concerning that the Government did not come to the House first to answer questions from hon. Members. Will the Minister reassure the House that these decisions will improve patient care and that they are not just a cost-cutting exercise dictated by the Treasury?

• 19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an important point about lack of provision. Does he agree that the 10-year timescale for ensuring that that provision is available is critical? If the Government could speed that up, it would be extremely helpful in instances such as this.

• 19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I welcome this piece of legislation, which I think is generally in a very good place. I have had a tragic situation in my constituency, where somebody who had been admitted to hospital in a suicidal state discharged themselves, after which, unfortunately, no follow-up care was provided, and they took their own life. It has been devastating for their family. Would the Secretary of State consider looking at how the community supports people experiencing a mental health crisis who might have discharged themselves, and how we can keep them safe in future?

• 14 May 2025 · Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I totally agree with my hon. Friend: the continuation of the PRN scheme alongside the EPR scheme is one consideration. We need to protect local and high street businesses. The lack of clear information about what the levy will be is really problematic. Since September 2024, the price has been estimated at between £110 and £330 per tonne—a huge variation. Businesses cannot plan their cash flow and how much they need to accrue without at least some certainty about the levy that will be introduced on a scheme that is already in place. I urge the Minister to nail down that final amount as quickly as possible, so that there is certainty for managing this difficult situation. There is an enormous amount of bureaucracy involved in calculating the amount of packaging. For example, an importer of wine bottles sells bottles to the on-trade and the off-trade. Although the importer can make good assumptions about the off-trade, where people buy bottles for personal consumption, they have no idea what happens when bottles go to the on-trade—they have lost control, so how do they realistically accrue? Some of DEFRA’s assumptions are not helpful, such as that a bottle of wine or beer bought from a pub will end up being recycled by the council just because it cannot be proven that the person who bought it did not take it home with them. That seems insane. Most pubs are paying huge amounts of money to get their waste recycled privately and they are not costing the council anything, but the producer—the importer of the product—is now having to charge them. They will be paying twice, which is not sustainable for most local pubs. Small pubs will have to pay about £350 or more a year, a medium-sized pub will have to pay around £750 and larger ones will have to pay £2,000, on top of their excessive business rates. It is important to remember that pubs cannot absorb that, because of their tiny margins, so 85% of those costs are likely to be passed on to consumers anyway. The idea that the producer pays is not going to work in this instance because pubs cannot change the packaging they use, so the consumer will end up paying, which is extremely problematic. The cost will be about 5p to 7p on every bottle of beer and around 15p on a bottle of wine; that might not seem like a great increase for a one-off purchase, but it will cost consumers an extra £154 million a year to buy bottled beer, which is quite considerable. It is crucial that businesses are supported in transitioning to this scheme, because they are already struggling with the employer’s national insurance hike, the business rate increase and, for wine merchants, the changes to the way that duty is paid. I call on the Minister to take a sensible, common-sense approach to this issue and to consider an exemption from EPR for pubs. We should also reconsider the scope and timeline of its implementation, because we are at risk of delivering a crippling blow to hospitality and the drinks industry, which are already struggling with huge headwinds. In the time that I have left, I will mention the example of a wine merchant—Members may wonder how I know this information. The wine merchant in question has a turnover of £25 million and makes profits of only £500,000 a year. That is a 5% profit margin, and this wine merchant is unusual in that it is quite profitable. EPR is estimated to cost it £272,000, more than 50% of its current profit margin, so there is no way that it will be able to avoid passing that on to the pubs and the consumers that buy from it. The increase in national insurance will cost the wine merchant £92,000, and the ABV changes a further £262,000. It is a highly profitable and successful business of enormous longevity, but there may be no alternative for it other than putting up prices and laying people off. I urge the Minister to take into account these really serious concerns about the viability of businesses and to reconsider the implementation of this tax.

• 14 May 2025 · Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 14 May 2025 · Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  Businesses really need to know what that rate will be as soon as possible. The financial year has already started, they have very little headroom in their cash flows and they need to be able to plan. Will the Minister commit to give us that number as soon as possible?

• 14 May 2025 · Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate, and I congratulate her on opening it with such a comprehensive description of the issues that the industry is facing. I will start by declaring an interest, because my husband is the finance director of a wine merchant. I assure hon. Members that the impact of EPR on the wine industry has been described to me on many occasions—it is causing such great concern. North Shropshire has a number of excellent breweries, in addition to wine merchants, including Joule’s, Stonehouse and Salopian. In fact, Salopian had one of its excellent products, Shropshire Gold, in Strangers Bar two weeks ago—I hope that everybody had an opportunity to sample it. The pubs that the breweries supply are at the heart of our rural communities, and are fundamental to both village and market town life. The hospitality and drinks industry are facing a number of headwinds, and the EPR scheme threatens to have a devastating effect on them. We recognise that the principle of applying a levy to those products to encourage producers to reduce the amount of packaging, and unnecessary packaging, is absolutely sound. There are significant concerns with the EPR scheme, however, and it causes a significant issue for the industry.

• 13 May 2025 · Flooding: Planning and Developer Responsibilities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I commend the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for his excellent speech. I have several points to make in the short time that I have, so here goes. I agree with the hon. Member that when people are flooded either by surface or river water, the response is often chaotic. In Gobowen in my constituency, it is not clear who is responsible for closing the road. When vehicles drive through, there is a big bow wave, and the flooding in shops and homes becomes much worse. I fully endorse his point about better co-ordinating the response for people who have been flooded. Insurance is hard to get. Homes built since 2009 are not covered by Flood Re’s remit. The remit ends in 2030, leaving people stuck in potentially unsaleable and unmortgageable homes. I know that the Minister is looking at Flood Re and its remit, so I would be grateful if she gave us a bit of an update. I should have declared at the start that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities, so I have an interest. After people have been flooded, it is often hard to get help. The “frequently flooded” criteria do not catch all homes in rural communities, because the density is not there. I know that the Minister is looking at that; I would be grateful for an update. Farms are hit very badly, and they are storing an enormous amount of water upstream. Will the Minister be working with her colleagues in the Department to consider how the sustainable farming incentive and similar plans might be used to help people to store water upstream and prevent flooding downstream? Finally, in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government are not taking the once-in-a-generation opportunity to deal with the increased likelihood of flooding. We have talked about having water companies as statutory consultees in planning; about implementing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 so that SuDS have statutory guidance and are properly maintained; and about ensuring that houses are not being built in inappropriate places. The current guidelines do not achieve those objectives. I hope that the Minister will work with her colleagues to make those requirements statutory.

• 8 May 2025 · Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for bringing forward this debate. It has been a privilege to sit through such excellent speeches on this very important topic. I am sure that the hon. Lady’s sister Margaret would be very proud of her, and I am sure that my hon. Friend’s sister is proud of him too. As the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend have outlined, a brain tumour diagnosis can be utterly devastating and life-changing. Some 12,000 people a year are diagnosed with a primary tumour, while many others are diagnosed with a secondary tumour that has spread from elsewhere in their body. Primary tumours are largely unpreventable, and cause the death of more adults and children under 40 than any other type of cancer. As primary brain tumours do not spread around the body like other cancer types, they do not receive the same staging categorisation. Current NHS programmes for diagnosing cancers earlier do not include brain tumours, as they focus on targets and improvements for catching more cancers in stages 1 and 2. Nearly half of people diagnosed—49%—are found to have a so-called benign tumour, a grade 1 or 2 tumour that grows more slowly. Those tumours are not technically cancerous, so they are not covered by previous cancer plans or initiatives for improving cancer care. However, the treatment and care for patients with a low-grade tumour has long-lasting impacts and can be life-altering. I would like to mention the experience of my constituent Madi Ruby, who has tirelessly campaigned and fundraised on this issue. She has experienced both a grade 1 and a grade 2 tumour. She first experienced symptoms of a brain tumour in 1995 with numbness in her right arm, and went on to write backwards and develop headaches. She went for a CT scan when that numbness spread to her foot and she was involved in a minor car accident. Only then was she diagnosed with a grade 1 meningioma measuring 6 cm, which was removed—she was only 23 at the time. Although that surgery was successful, Madi developed partial epilepsy. She was eventually discharged after five years of clear scans, but as we have heard, tumours still impact lives. She has had poor mental health and become depressed, and in 2013, her brain tumour returned. That tumour has also been removed, but she still deals with partial epilepsy, constant headaches and migraines, and suffers daily. She is also an inspirational person; she has bravely spoken out about her depression, trained to be a counsellor, and is now an associate dean responsible for nursing and allied health professionals at Wrexham Glyndŵr University. I also want to mention my constituent Shaun Burgess, who raised more than £11,000 for the Brain Tumour Charity and the Meningioma Support Group by running 3,000 miles across Shropshire last year. He was raising money after his wife Mo was treated for a non-cancerous tumour, but not everyone diagnosed with a brain tumour gets that second chance; Shaun has lost a friend to a more aggressive brain tumour. We must end the tragedy of people losing their lives because treatment for brain cancer took too long to start. As my hon. Friend the Member for Witney has outlined, progress on the treatment of brain tumours has not been good enough. The diagnosis and treatment of cancer should be a top priority for any Government, and the UK should be a global leader in cancer research and outcomes. I urge the Minister to listen to the pleas of Members from across the House on that point today. For so many people, diagnosis and treatment are too difficult to access. My constituency is a typical example. The major hospitals in Shrewsbury and Telford face a number of challenges and regularly have some of the longest waiting times in the NHS for cancer screening and treatment. In December 2024, just 64% of patients were treated within the 62-day period, despite the target being 85%. The average across England was much better, but still poor at 71%. Not only do too many people live in treatment deserts, but when they are finally offered the treatment they need, it is hard to access. Anyone living in rural North Shropshire would say that. Having waited anxiously for weeks or months for a scan and the result, they then, if the news is bad, have to travel extremely long distances for the treatment they need. Most of North Shropshire is an hour and a quarter away from a radiotherapy centre on public transport. For patients with brain tumours, public transport is fundamental if they can no longer drive. One of my constituents has faced exactly that problem, having had their driving licence suspended by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency after being diagnosed with a tumour. Apparently that could be remedied if his consultant provided a BT1 form, but he has not been able to get through to the doctor. In the meantime, he is trapped without freedom in a constituency with some of the worst public transport in the country. Ongoing funding issues, which we know are a huge challenge for the Government, continue to afflict brain tumour patients in a number of ways. Another constituent of mine told me their experience after being referred to a care navigator following their diagnosis. The care navigator’s job is to contact patients on a monthly basis, seeing whether they have any problems and concerns and guiding them through an experience that is extremely traumatic. However, the care navigator position has now been cut, and my constituent has been left in the dark, with growing anxiety and no one to speak to. No one should be going without treatment because there is not enough equipment, and no one should suffer because there are not enough staff to support them. What would Liberal Democrats do? We would recruit more cancer nurses, so that every patient has a dedicated specialist supporting them throughout their treatment. For brain tumours, we would like to see an improvement in diagnosis, the care people receive and the range of treatment options available. Diagnosis targets need to reflect the fact that brain cancer does not occur in stages in the way that other cancers do—otherwise, we risk brain tumours falling through the cracks of NHS targets and objectives. Low-grade brain tumours, such as that suffered by Madi, need renewed attention, including in the upcoming cancer plan, which we look forward to seeing. The Liberal Democrats have committed to boosting cancer survival rates more generally by passing a cancer survival research Act, which would require the Government to co-ordinate and ensure funding for research into the cancers with the lowest survival rates, such as brain tumours. We would halve the time for new treatments to reach patients by expanding the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s capacity and ensuring that every patient starts their treatment for cancer within that 62-day urgent referral target. We would replace ageing radiotherapy machines and increase their number so that no one has to travel too far for treatment. Measures such as Margaret’s law, which the hon. Members who secured this debate have pressed for, would be an important step in the right direction to improve research in glioblastoma in particular, and I urge the Minister to consider that too. Do the Government have any future plans for allocating support to research into vaccine treatment for brain tumours, which has reportedly shown remarkable progress against glioblastoma in recent studies? Too many patients with brain tumours have been let down by previous Governments over many years, and I hope that this Government will step up and make brain tumours, cancer and NHS care their No. 1 priority.