Ian Byrne MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q9. The parliamentary ombudsman concluded that an injustice was done to 1950s-born women and ruled that they are owed compensation, and asked Parliament to intervene to deliver justice. I have more than 5,000 women affected in my constituency. Alongside a great many Members in this House, I believe these women are owed compensation for the injustice done to them at the hands of the state. Will the Prime Minister give Members the opportunity to vote on whether they believe WASPI women are owed compensation?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl. Her family were fleeing Gaza City when their car came under attack. The first shot killed Hind’s aunt, uncle and three of her cousins. Just Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan were left alive. Trapped in the car and surrounded by the bodies of dead relatives, Layan phoned for help. The recording of her call with the Palestinian Red Crescent was later released. Layan told the operator: “They are shooting at us. The tank is next to me.” Layan’s last moments were then heard: machine gun fire, a scream, and the phone went dead. The Red Crescent phoned back. Five-year-old Hind answered. She was now alone in the car, her cousin was dead, and Israeli forces were still close by. “I’m so scared, please come,” Hind told the operator. For three hours, Hind pleaded to be rescued: “Come take me. You will come and take me?” As it grew dark, she told the operator how frightened she was. Eventually, Israeli authorities gave the green light for a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to be dispatched to her rescue. When it arrived, the ambulance was attacked and contact was lost. Two weeks passed before the bodies of Hind, her family and the two paramedics were recovered. All had been killed by Israeli forces. In the aftermath of these horrific events, images of Hind’s beautiful smile and the recording of her final moments caught the world’s attention. Next month marks a year since Hind was killed. Since then, the slaughter of Palestinians has not stopped. Hind is one of more than 17,000 children killed in Israel’s assault, and one of more than 45,000 Palestinians of all ages killed. A study published last week found that 96% of children in Gaza believe that their death is imminent and that, following the trauma they have been subjected to, almost half want to die. A new report by Amnesty International has concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide; last month, Human Rights Watch said that Israel had committed ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza; in January, the International Court of Justice found that there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza; and in July the Court said that Israel’s occupation of Palestine breached the international convention that guards against segregation and apartheid. The Israeli Prime Minister and his former Defence Secretary are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. So no one in this place can say they did not know what was happening or that the facts were unclear. We know what has happened in Gaza. It is an unthinkable, unspeakable horror. The time for expressions of regret and concern are long past. International law is clear and urgent action is needed. This means ending all arms sales to Israel, including parts for the F-35 fighter jets that are raining down hell on Gaza, and, as has been explained throughout this debate, it means sanctioning Israel and boycotting trade with illegal Israeli settlements. It means upholding the ICC’s arrest warrants, and it means revoking the 2030 road map that deepens economic, trade and security ties with Israel. These measures would go some way in showing that here in Britain we recognise our shared humanity and our legal and moral responsibilities.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s commitment to uphold their obligations under international law and therefore to issue arrest warrants to these men if they set foot on British soil. If the Government acknowledge that the Prime Minister of Israel should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, how—morally and legally—can we continue to supply him with the weapons being used by Israel in its horrific assault on innocent civilians in Gaza?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Infected Blood Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Last week a constituent came to my office whose mother had died 50 years ago, eight months after a blood transfusion she had received when giving birth to her fourth son. When the family went back to collect the medical records, they found that they had all been destroyed. When we talk about a cover-up, they rightly make that link. Is there anything the Government can say to reassure my constituent that her case will be heard?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Children’s Hospices: Funding · Hansard source

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  It has been a privilege to listen to hon. Members and sense the unanimous feeling that where we are now is not sustainable or acceptable. We do not want to see more cases like Zoe’s Place to happen in constituencies across the country. Once again, I thank the House and all hon. Members here for what they did, and the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), for their responses. I hope that we can find the solution moving forward; I will certainly be having conversations with the Chancellor about it. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered funding for children’s hospices.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Children’s Hospices: Funding · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered funding for children’s hospices. It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. “To me and my family, Zoe’s Place represents one word… family…They gave my confidence to give my angel 10 years of a fantastic life and provided the most outstanding care when she passed away last year.” Those are the words of Abbi, mother of Evie-Kate, who relied on Zoe’s Place, a children’s hospice in my constituency. Abbi said: “Without Zoe’s Place and the support, friends, families and being able to go visit my baby girl’s plaque on her final day…I would be a broken woman.” Another parent, Jennifer, mother of Theo, said Zoe’s Place means that “Theo gets the love and care that he has at home, they have been amazing, I can’t put into words how much we will miss the girls…The pure joy in Theo’s face as we pull up and see the Teddy bear. So yes, to us Zoe’s Place is our family…Zoe’s Place has been a massive support and a lifeline, without Zoe’s Place we wouldn’t have got Theo home from Alder Hey after being there for 12 months.” Those parents are far from alone in finding Zoe’s Place to be an absolute lifeline. If I had more time, I would love to tell hon. Members about countless other families and children supported by Zoe’s Place. But I applied for this debate because earlier this month, we received the shocking news that Zoe’s Place was going to close. Jennifer spoke of her “devastation” on hearing the news, and Abbi said: “Please don’t take this amazing place away.” Zoe’s Place opened in my constituency in 1995 and has supported thousands of children and their family members over the years, providing respite and palliative and end of life care for babies and children up to the age of five. It is one of two wonderful children’s hospices that my constituency is home to and which I am so proud of. The other is Claire House, another place of love and warmth, with the most wonderful staff, who do so much good when families are facing such heartbreak. I see that at first hand when I volunteer at that wonderful place, and I find speaking to the families so enlightening. The absolutely life-changing service offered and given by those places is why we could not accept the news, when it was announced three weeks ago, that spiralling costs meant there was not enough money to build a planned new home for Zoe’s Place.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Children’s Hospices: Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Former football stars from Liverpool joined the efforts, donating more than £150,000. The local paper, the Liverpool Echo, and its staff led by Liam Thorp, have thrown their weight behind the campaign, doing everything they could to save the hospice. On Monday, we had the incredible news that Liverpool-based company Home Bargains was pledging £2.5 million to the campaign, bringing us within touching distance of the total. The tireless and wonderful work of so many has been invaluable over the past few weeks. There are so many to thank, if I had the time, but I must pay tribute to the wonderful comic, Adam Rowe and fellow funnyman, Willie Miller, who have done so much to raise this issue both publicly and behind the scenes, and John Gibbons from “The Anfield Wrap” for his tireless efforts over the past few weeks. There are still 10 days to go, and we are not over the line yet, but we are proving that if any city can do it, Liverpool can. The community, the solidarity, the togetherness—I have never been prouder to be a Scouser. Today, the plans for the future are coming together. Last week, we announced what the new Zoe’s Place Liverpool would be like, operated and run in Liverpool, putting it on a footing to care for kids from across Liverpool and beyond for generations to come. I am really optimistic that we will do it. But the truth is this: talk to the families who rely on Zoe’s Place and Claire House, see the support that those hospices give to seriously ill children, babies and families, and you will know that that support is not a luxury—it is essential in a modern, functioning society. They provide a vital service that should not require charity to keep it going. Everyone who needs it should have access to high-quality palliative and end of life care, but that is not happening at the moment. Not just Zoe’s Place, but children’s hospices across the country are in crisis, with many more fearing for their future. That is why today’s debate is important to families up and down Britain. Despite children’s hospices providing an essential service, they are overwhelmingly funded by charity. Less than a third of their income—around 30% —is public money, with the remaining 70% coming from charitable donations. That is a broken model. Let me be clear that I have the utmost respect for people who give up their time and money to support our hospices, but as one constituent said to me recently: “We shouldn’t have to sell charity cupcakes to make sure kids are cared for”. But that is what is happening at the moment. The public funding element of children’s hospices is both inadequate and messy. Most of it comes from the children’s hospice grant. Introduced by the previous Labour Government, it was designed to provide direct funding to children’s hospices. Today, it stands as a £25 million grant, but it has an uncertain future. It was renewed by the previous Government for 2024-25, but the new Government have not yet said whether the funding will continue. According to the charity Together for Short Lives, if the grant is not renewed, there will be a profoundly negative impact on lifeline care and support. Eighty-two per cent of children’s hospices told the charity that they would have to cut or stop providing respite care or short breaks; 70% said they would have to cut or stop providing emotional and psychological support; and 45% said they would have to cut end of life care. Will the Government commit to maintaining the £25 million children’s hospice grant as a ringfenced fund in 2025-26 and for the long term? Will they commit to making it centrally distributed once again? Many care homes have said to me that they are opposed to the integrated care board model that NHS England is using, as it has led to delays in children’s hospices receiving money. The next biggest pot of public money for children’s hospices comes from integrated care boards, which have a legal duty to commission palliative care, but the funding is patchy and falling. Research shows that the funding per child with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition varies wildly across the country. It is just £30 per child in Northamptonshire but £397 in Bristol, north Somerset and south Gloucestershire. In my area, Cheshire and Merseyside, it is slightly above average at £206, but there should be no postcode lottery in funding care for kids. And the funding is falling—last financial year, children’s hospices on average received almost 10% less funding than the year before, and almost a third less than the year before that. What are the Government doing to make sure that every seriously ill child and their family, regardless of where they live, have fair and equal access to palliative care? Local authorities have a duty “to provide services designed to assist” family carers of “disabled children to continue to” provide care “or to do so more effectively, by giving them breaks from caring.” Local authorities, which are under immense pressure, account for just a small fraction of children’s hospice public funding—about 2.5% of the total. The funding fell by 26% from last year to this year, and more than half of children’s hospices received no funding at all from their local authorities. What conversations is the Minister having with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that local authorities meet their legal duty to provide short breaks for disabled children who have life-limiting or life-threatening conditions? The funding streams are insufficient for children’s hospices at the best of times, but we really are at crisis point. That is why we are all here today. With public funding falling, charitable donations squeezed as the cost of living crisis bites—the cost of living crisis, again, is affecting us all— and increased energy prices, children’s hospices have seen their income fall. That is having grave consequences. More than half of children’s hospices in England ended the last financial year with a net deficit, and it gets worse: next year, more than two thirds of children’s hospices forecast a deficit. Unless more public money is found, more and more children’s hospices will have to cut back, more services will be reduced, more kids will miss out, more families will have nowhere to turn and more children’s hospices will be put at risk, just like Zoe’s Place in Liverpool. Extra funding is needed just to stay still, let alone to build the world-class care system that our constituents deserve. According to research from Together for Short Lives, the NHS needs almost £300 million extra to meet the standards for children’s palliative care set by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. That is the inheritance of 14 years of Conservative chaos, with deeply damaging NHS reforms and chronic underfunding of our public services. Our new Labour Government promised change, and that must be delivered. Will they use the opportunity of the NHS 10-year plan to fill the almost £300 million gap in funding for children’s palliative care? Let me remind everyone that there is money in this country to fund children’s palliative care. Our problem is not a lack of wealth, but its extremely unequal distribution. In the run-up to today’s Budget, I was one of the MPs who called on the Chancellor to raise taxes on the richest, with policies such as a 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, which would raise £24 billion a year—enough to meet the palliative care funding gap 80 times over. That is why I introduced a private Member’s Bill yesterday that would launch a review of the funding for children’s hospices and guarantee high-quality care for all seriously ill children and their families. I really hope that the Minister will take up that call. In Liverpool, the people have risen to the challenge, and we are on the cusp of saving Zoe’s Place. Now this place has to rise to the challenge as well, and we have to give children’s hospices the funding they need to survive. The children and families who rely on these incredible institutions do not have time to waste.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Children’s Hospices: Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent intervention; I wholeheartedly agree. We had to raise £5 million in 30 days to give Zoe’s Place a future, so I asked the trustees to let us give it a shot, harnessing the spirit of the city, which has been galvanised since people heard the news, and the love for this wonderful institution. We put the call out in Liverpool, and I have never seen a response like it in my life. It has been my great city at its very best, for the world to see. We have had kids going door-knocking with fundraising buckets, raising money because one of their friends is being supported by the hospice; parents who turned to Zoe’s Place in times of need organising fundraising walks and sponsored motorbike rides; and support from MPs, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) promising to carry on playing his unique take on “You’ll Never Walk Alone” on his trombone if we did not raise the funds—the city has spoken, John, and I’m saying no more. Cafés have pledged their takings to the campaign, running raffles to raise money, and local businesses have got involved, donating tens of thousands of pounds, and their time and expertise, which will never be forgotten.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Children’s Hospices: Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that wonderful intervention; I wholeheartedly agree about what Claire House does and with his asks. Three weeks ago, it was announced that spiralling costs meant that there was not enough money to build a planned new home for Zoe’s Place and that the baby hospice would close for good at the end of the year. It was therefore with real trepidation that we met the trustees on the Thursday after the announcement. We entered Zoe’s Place with the staff—many had been there for decades—feeling devastated after being issued with the consultation period ahead of the planned closure. At the meeting, we were desperate to find a future for Zoe’s Place. The trustees and the staff present outlined what we needed to do: raise £5 million in 30 days and then Zoe’s Place could have a future.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Hussain) said, on Sunday the UN’s top humanitarian official warned: “The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.” I spoke to the United Nations special rapporteur in person last week. He was in absolute despair about the lack of action from the world against what is happening in Gaza. I implore the Minister to give him and the House some reassurance that the Government are actively reviewing how the sanctions are working and what else they can do to force Israel to begin to work under humanitarian law.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T3. On 19 July, the Foreign Secretary stated that half a million people in Gaza are in phase 5 of acute food insecurity, the classification that indicates starvation and famine. UNICEF reports that 29 children have died from malnutrition. How do the Government plan to change that, as Palestinians face the harrowing reality of death by starvation because of a political choice?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), who I am delighted to see back in this place, and all the new Members who have made fantastic maiden speeches in this debate. It is a huge honour to be re-elected to represent my community in Liverpool West Derby, and to continue to serve in the place I grew up, especially under a Labour Government. It is fantastic to welcome into my constituency the new wards of Page Moss, Swanside and Old Swan. It has been a real pleasure meeting my new constituents, who do so much for our communities. I look forward to working with Jan and her team at Swanside Community Centre, Rhiannon and her team at The Gate Community Centre, and Kate and her fantastic team at The Joseph Lappin Centre. I am delighted that we now have a Labour Government with an historic mandate for change from the British public—a mandate to end the destruction of working-class communities; to end the decimation of public services; and to end austerity and create opportunity for all, lifting millions of people out of poverty. We must boldly seize this opportunity to deliver on the trust placed in us. On behalf of so many families in my constituency, I will continue to campaign for the right to food to be enshrined in UK law, so that everyone is legally protected from the scourge of hunger and we can end the obscene growth of food banks since 2010, which was caused by political choices. As a proud trade unionist, I am delighted that the Government will legislate for a new deal for working people. I have seen the human cost of fire and rehire with my brother, who was a victim of the British Gas cull, and many constituents have written to me about their experiences. As a former trade union organiser with Unite, I know the difference trade unions can make in the workplace, improving terms and conditions and transforming lives and the economy. I welcome the Bills that will bring rail services into public ownership and at last allow communities to take their bus services back into public ownership. I look forward to working with the metro mayor to achieve that. I am also delighted to see the return of the football governance Bill, which I was proud to scrutinise in Committee during the previous Parliament. Giving football supporters a real voice in shaping the beautiful game is vital to securing its future and continued success. A shameful legacy of the previous Government and their austerity agenda is that 43% of children in Liverpool West Derby are now living in poverty. The reason I am in Parliament is to ensure that those children and others like them are given a chance to thrive and live their best life under a Government who support them, rather than consigning them to a life of limited opportunities from an early age. That is why I wholly support the removal of the two-child cap on benefits, which would immediately lift 100,000 children out of poverty. Finally, I welcome the inclusion of a Hillsborough law in the King’s Speech. Shamefully, no one has been held accountable for the unlawful killing of 97 people and the injuries and enduring trauma suffered at Hillsborough, despite the 2016 verdict of the longest inquest in this country’s history. I pay tribute to all families, survivors, campaigners and legal experts such as Pete Weatherby, Elkan Abrahamson and Debbie Coles, who have fought for a change to the law to ensure that the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families and survivors is not repeated, and that there is a fit and lasting legacy. I also pay tribute to the many Members and former Members of this place who have fought across parties for that law. Many people would benefit from a Hillsborough law. I have had the privilege of hearing directly from people affected by a range of scandals and tragedies, including the Post Office Horizon scandal, Grenfell, covid-19, the “Truth About Zane” campaign, nuclear test veterans, the Manchester arena bombing, the infected blood scandal and hormone pregnancy tests. What is clear in those cases and many more is that the Hillsborough playbook has been used time and again by public servants and institutions. They are still allowed to withhold the truth, lie about their actions and blame victims for their own failures and mistakes. That is why a full Hillsborough law is urgently needed, including a legal duty of candour on all public bodies and parity of legal representation to ensure that the scales of justice are rebalanced. The 97 who were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough, their families and survivors, and indeed all who have suffered such a fate at the hands of the state, deserve nothing less than the legacy of a Hillsborough law implemented in full. That would begin to end the culture of state cover-ups that has shamed our nation for far too long.