James Frith MP: speeches

I hope that my further remarks will address that very point; I am happy to pick it up with the hon. Member in due course if they do not satisfy. ICBs will use national modern service frameworks set by the Government and guidance to create the right services for their areas. That means local systems coming together to create neighbourhood services that reform the health and care system and are rooted in the needs of people and communities. On the issue of maximum waiting times for vascular disease, this Government recognise that it is imperative that any patient requiring a vascular assessment receives that in a timeframe that reflects their condition and enables the best possible health outcome. The Government are committed to making progress on NHS waiting times, including returning by March ’29 to the NHS constitutional standard of 92% of elective care patients’ waiting times from referral to treatment being within 18 weeks. Of course, that includes those patients waiting for vascular services. The NHS met the first interim target of 65% in March ’26, and we are now focused on driving improvements to achieve our second interim target of 70% by 2027. To help support the commitment to reduce waiting times, the podiatry workforce pipeline is currently being strengthened through NHS England’s focus programme for small and vulnerable professions, with the NHS workforce plan to be published shortly. The health service also has clear guidance on what is required in delivering services for people with vascular disease or at risk of developing it. In March ’26, NHS England published guidance on standardising community health services. That guidance identifies podiatry, diabetes and tissue viability, and wound care as core components of ICB-funded community provision. People who need urgent wound assessment—for example, those with suspected infection, rapid deterioration, or diabetic foot ulcer—should be seen within 24 hours. The guidance also makes it clear that routine assessments should occur within five to seven working days, with data collected on healing and complications. The purpose and goal of community health services must be to support people as well as to avoid their needing to be admitted to hospital and, critically, the need for amputations.

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We have to keep ICBs and their commissioning powers accountable to local jurisdictions. I will say a bit more on that in due course, but we are on the same page. To facilitate faster assessments we also need to speed up and make earlier diagnoses, which is why the Government plan to open four new community diagnostic centres during ’26-27. That expanding capacity will help meet our March ’29 target that no more than 1% of patients should wait over six weeks for a diagnostic test. On reforming commissioning to reward outcomes, as set out in the 10-year health plan, we want to develop new ways to pay healthcare providers based on clinical practice that maximises productivity and outcome, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West mentioned. Under the best practice tariffs, providers receive payment when they follow agreed standards of care. On the adoption of proven innovation, the APPG report rightly identifies the importance of the NHS being able to quickly adopt new innovations. As part of my responsibility to oversee further development and enhancement of the use and usability of the NHS app, one development coming through the House at the moment is the creation of the single patient record. The future exciting development of NHS online, or digital doctor, as I might yet call it, is about the digitisation of our NHS service—embracing innovation, personalising healthcare and responsive to individual need—as well as the innovator passport, delivered through a phased approach to accelerate access to and adoption of technologies. The APPG’s report says that preventing vascular disease and its deterioration should be at the centre of the system, and I agree. Identifying people with vascular diseases and providing care centred on their needs is critical to ensuring vascular disease does not progress to the point where somebody needs incredibly serious interventions, such as a leg needing to be amputated. In this modern era, such amputations are wholly avoidable and should be prevented. The distinction between the APPG’s report and the Government’s most recent announcement of the MSF has been mentioned. I was delighted to join the British Heart Foundation yesterday at the celebration event for the MSF ahead of the delivery plan later in the year. It is a reasonable challenge to ensure that we distinguish between conditions, a point made by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley. It was a point made to me—and a point I thought was likely to be raised with me—by stroke and diabetes charities at the event yesterday. We are on the same page on that. He made an excellent point and challenge on the distinction that is needed. As hon. Members will know, prevention is at the heart of the Government’s health agenda—the prevention of health conditions and the prevention of them worsening. The cardiovascular disease modern service framework, which was published in July, sets a clear direction for how health and care systems should accelerate progress on the Government’s ambition to reduce premature mortality from heart disease and stroke by a quarter within a decade. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) talked about irregularity and different areas having different levels of heart failure, which she said was four times more likely in the area she represents. I would be very happy to have conversations about how we can embrace that insight and intervene. Prevention is fundamental to the Government’s efforts around an annual heart failure review, improving access to rapid diagnosis and embedding heart failure support in cardiac rehabilitation, as well as the wider Government goal to reduce premature mortality by a quarter within the next decade. Central to the cardiovascular disease modern service framework is a holistic approach with a strong focus on reducing inequalities. The principles apply here, too: the missing millions; the need for healthy intervention and to understand the difference between the physiological, behavioural, environmental and social; an appreciation that living standards and the cost of living have as much impact as any knowledge of what to eat and when; and looking after each other. It is about commissioning for outputs, not just diktat, which means recognising that several conditions and risk factors share common causes and contribute to most heart attacks and strokes. Members have described them in their speeches: high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, unhealthy diet and lack of exercise. At its core, the framework is about a fundamental shift towards proactive, whole-person, preventive care that is located in communities and neighbourhoods and makes better use of hybrid, traditional, in-person and digital models to increase uptake and treatment. Podiatry and related foot-health services align with the shift towards local community hub delivery. The framework’s approach is backed by wider Government, including the creation of the first smoke-free generation, which began under the Conservative Government.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I would be very happy to discuss those requests in person. I also pay tribute to the families of Wilson and Vicky. The impact of more and more defibs being available is incredibly important, and I am very happy to speak in more detail on that issue.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; I hope I will cover and do justice to those important points. NHS pathways also give providers call-level CPR data to support local reviews and improve quality, as well as reviewing data and emerging evidence to see where we must do better. They send quarterly reports to the national clinical assurance group, which is made up of senior clinicians drawn from royal colleges, professional bodies and urgent and emergency care services. These professionals can and often do submit constructive feedback on the way that pathways are run. At present, NHS clinical staff are trained in CPR, but from April 2027, this will be extended to all NHS staff, including those in A&E. The roll-out of this training will take time, but it will hugely increase the number of people in the country with valuable lifesaving knowledge. Finally, when it comes to recognising cardiac arrest, I can confirm that the Care Quality Commission does assess call handlers’ skill as part of its inspections. We know that no human system is perfect, and I am all too aware that a list or accounts like this can risk sounding defensive, so let me repeat my openness to sitting with the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, Adam’s parents and other colleagues to see how and where we can do better and go further. Turning to the hon. Member’s points about genetics, I am hugely optimistic about the potential of genomics and life sciences over the next 10 years. The NHS clinical genetics services deliver a comprehensive clinical genetics and genetic counselling service for individuals with a family history of genetic conditions, including cardiac conditions. They provide a detailed review of family history that can direct the diagnosis, risk assessment and lifelong clinical management of patients of all ages and their families who have, or are at risk of having, a genomic condition. The current specification for the clinical genetics services was published more than a decade go under the previous Government and is no longer fit for purpose, not least because this is one of the most innovative fields in healthcare. Today, specialist clinical services simply do not have the capacity or infrastructure to contact family members proactively, except where a particularly high risk has already been identified. For me and my work, it is a clear example of why innovation must help connect our public services. NHS England’s genomics programme, working with the genomics clinical reference group, has done a review of the 17 regional NHS clinical genetics services. This has shone a light on the challenges to be addressed for this service to match the Government’s expectations. I am unable to confirm a specific date for the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, but suffice to say, there is much more to be done before expectations are met by service. On his point about the UK National Screening Committee, it is true that the draft recommendations, which have been consulted on, did not find that the current scientific evidence—

I am honoured to be standing at the Dispatch Box as the new Minister for Health Innovation. Let me start by thanking NHS staff for their heroic shifts over the summer months. I also thank the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) for bringing this debate forward and speaking with such deep conviction. I am humbled that this is the subject of my first outing in this new role, and I thank him and other Members for their work in this important area. I know that the hon. Gentleman, through his work on the APPG, already met a previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), in July. Reading about it and then listening to the hon. Gentleman’s account again in this debate, we agree that Adam’s death was an absolute tragedy. As a dad, I cannot begin to imagine what Adam’s mum and dad continue to go through, and I pay tribute to them. It goes without saying that I would of course be happy to meet with the hon. Gentleman and Adam’s parents to discuss what more we can do to change the system, to go through the seven requests in detail, and to help save other parents from the same heartbreaking loss that they have endured. I am determined that the benefits of innovation are felt first and fastest by patients and families, as quickly and safely as possible. That means accelerating the adoption of technology, digital services and the Government’s single patient record, and better integration between our national platforms, so that relevant information about known conditions, family associations and medical history can follow the person across services, professionals and organisations.

I never fail to be impressed by the sheer determination of humans who have endured the worst of losses to turn such loss into a positive contribution. Without hesitation, I pay tribute to Mia’s family for their fundraising efforts. Done properly, innovation can support more joined-up care and personalised services, and faster sharing and implementation of new guidance and learning. Let me now turn to some of the specific points raised by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire. NHS England has made changes to the call script in response to new advice from Resuscitation Council UK, issued in November 2023. That advice was given just two months before Adam’s death. It is tragic that it had not yet come into force by the time that Adam stepped on to that pitch. As healthcare professionals, Adam’s mum and dad will know that those changes would have given him a much better chance of survival, as callers now receive advice to begin life support, as well as the certainty of using a defibrillator on a teenager. The hon. Gentleman raised a number of important points about the NHS pathways system. The challenge we face in improving the sensitivity of cardiac arrest identification is to do so in a way that does not generate false positives. Ongoing performance monitoring of NHS pathways finds that the system accepts over-triage; this is an intentional safety feature of triage systems. As the hon. Gentleman knows, at a time when many ambulance services are under such significant strain, the management of stretched resources is paramount. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that NHS England works with the NHS pathways clinical team, ambulance services and specialist organisations, including Resuscitation Council UK, to review data and emerging evidence and to see where we can do better.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) on securing the debate, which speaks directly to the kind of country and society that we want to create for everyone we represent, and our friends and family—the type of country and society we want to live and thrive in. The Government recognise that AI is, as Members have said, already changing our economy, the delivery of public services, our expectations of each other and the ways in which we interact and engage in debate. For me, it is not merely the latest thing, or the something new and shiny that is so attractive to politics and politicians; in my mind, it is equivalent to a new atmosphere in which we now all expect to feature and play our part. We see the potential of AI in everything from scientific discovery to better public services and stronger economic growth. The Government have a clear responsibility to make sure that the change at the heart of this debate reinforces rather than weakens the fabric of our society. That includes standing up to big tech firms when we deem it necessary—examples will follow—when they facilitate harm to UK citizens. As so many Members have powerfully made the argument for, it also includes developing sovereign capability—determining what comes next and honing it for best benefit. As we bring this debate to a close, it is important that we continue to consider those questions. We must collectively decide how we build a better society in an AI-enabled world. AI must serve us, and not the other way round. The Government recognise the pressure to internationally compete on AI. That means we need to actively shape the transition towards it to secure benefits for the UK while managing risk or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) put it, exert the domestic control that we need. That is why we are working hard to ensure that the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs in the technologies that will shape our economy, public services and national security. It is why we established the sovereign AI unit with £500 million to enable the Government to back promising UK firms. The UK already attracts the third highest private investment in AI.

If I am considered worthy to meet in a few weeks’ time, I will be very happy to do so. This is not about self-sufficiency or about turning away from trusted international partners; it is about ensuring that where the UK has genuine strengths—in research, talent, creativity and innovation—we can translate them into long-term economic benefit. Significant private investment is now flowing into areas that would have seemed like science fiction even a decade ago, including therapies that slow or reverse biological ageing and AI-accelerated drug discovery that could compress timelines for curing major diseases. If realised, such developments would profoundly reshape expectations of health, work and the role of the state. That is why the Government have already committed to ambitious plans to transform services and digitise government, as set out in the road map for modern digital government published earlier this year.

The Government’s principle is to regulate at the time of deployment or at use. I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, but it is important that we strike the right balance between innovation and regulation. Of course, as I will come on to discuss in more detail, where there have been examples of harm we must call that out and call in those who caused them. The Government have already committed to ambitious plans to transform services. For a radiologist, that means access to the best tools for detecting cancer—tools that can save lives and cut waiting lists in our NHS. The public sector is where it is perhaps most crucial that the Government ensure that we embed frameworks, standards and guidance to ensure that AI is deployed in a way that is fair, transparent and accountable. We are doing so with the data and AI ethics framework, the AI playbook, and transparency standards that ensure the public can understand how systems are used. We are also supporting UK firms that provide third-party AI-assurance ecosystems, demonstrating that AI systems are safe and reliable as well as creating new jobs. That is critical not just for risk management but for building businesses, building confidence in those deploying AI, and building trust in the systems we use. To the points that were made about the job market, AI has the potential to enhance job roles and the performance of each of us at work, but it is necessary and reasonable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole pointed out, to distinguish the jobs that are most at risk—those least likely to be enhanced and most likely to be replaced. That is a very reasonable proposition. We recognise that one of the primary areas where people will interact with AI is in the labour market. To zone in on labour markets, and the issue of young people and entry-level jobs, an estimated 12.8% of all people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are not in education, employment or training. That goes well beyond data-entry or access-level jobs, or a potential shift of culture in relation to entry-level jobs. To date, there is little conclusive evidence that AI is reducing employment. However, the International Monetary Fund estimates that around 70% of UK workers are in exposed occupations. Around half of those exposed workers are in high complementary roles, where AI will enhance rather than replace their work. The Government are committed to supporting the worker experience through the AI transition, and have a proud record of advancing workers’ rights. To that end, earlier this year the Government established the AI and the future of work unit, bringing together expertise from across Departments and industry to monitor how AI is affecting jobs, wages and opportunity in real time. We are putting in place the institutions, data and cross-Government co-ordination needed to ensure that AI transforms the labour market, that workers are supported and that opportunities are widely shared across society. We are also investing in people, because the opportunities of AI will be realised only if the workforce are equipped to harness them. That is why we have launched one of the most ambitious skills programmes anywhere in the world. Our AI skills boost programme is already delivering results. In an answer given to the House last week, I referred to the early careers funding and work on curriculum reforms to come, such as an AI-inclusive GCSE in computing. This is about ensuring that workers at every stage of their career, and whether in small businesses, large firms or public services, have the tools that they need to thrive in an AI-enabled economy. AI will have—is having—seismic impacts on our working lives and productivity, and we must embrace the democracy this gives us. We must democratise access to AI to ensure that communities across the country reap the benefits. Central to that effort is ensuring that support is delivered to the graduates and young people entering the world of work for the first time. Much has been made of the rising level of NEETs. Programmes such as TechLocal are creating new jobs, traineeships and professional training, while scholarships and fellowships are supporting the next generation of researchers and innovators. Nobody is waiting 25 years to tackle the threats, however. AI harms are very real, and we do not sit idly by when it comes to tackling them. We are not standing still. The AI Security Institute is conducting world-leading research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI. In response to the generation of vile and degrading non-consensual sexual deepfakes on Grok earlier this year, the Prime Minister himself, and the Government, stood up to Grok and X and won that fight. We have criminalised the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes and legislated to require platforms to remove them. Separately, we have banned nudification apps and criminalised AI tools designed to create sexual abuse material, as well as learning the importance of sovereignty when considering the recent switching off of the latest Anthropic AI tool. I was asked a specific question about the social media ban. I was a proud early adopter of the policy and I am pleased to say that it remains the Government’s intention to update the House before recess. The UK is proactively responding to the AI revolution—we are shaping it. AI has extraordinary potential to improve healthcare, accelerate scientific discovery, personalise education, strengthen public services and drive economic growth. We will harness the opportunities across every region and community to shape UK society for the better for all.

This Government are boosting digital and AI skills by embedding media literacy across all key stages, including by introducing an AI-inclusive computing GCSE and a £20 million early careers jobs alliance. We will ensure that digital inclusion is fundamental as the Government work to develop digital access to public services through digital ID. These measures will support children and all people to access public services when they need them; they will be personalised, joined up and involve less faff.

I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 (Directions to OFCOM) (Revocation) Order 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to the Committee for considering this instrument today. Wireless connectivity underpins a vast range of everyday services, from mobile phones and wi-fi to broadcasting and satellite communications. All of those rely on access to radio spectrum, the invisible frequencies that carry wireless signals. Spectrum is a finite and valuable resource. It must be carefully managed to ensure that different services can operate without interference, that networks function reliably and that consumers and businesses benefit from competition and innovation. In the UK that is the responsibility of Ofcom, the independent communications regulator, which manages spectrum by issuing licences, setting conditions and promoting efficient use. The Government set the overall policy and strategic priorities, including through the statement of strategic priorities.

Yes, sorry—I will write to him. I am grateful for the support across the House on the draft instrument. The direction it revokes has already been fully implemented in terms of obtaining—

On the first and third questions asked regarding this measure, consumers should not expect an immediate or visible change as a result of the instrument, but the Government will work closely with Ofcom to ensure that mobile coverage is improved through other policy measures. If the shadow Minister will forgive me, on the substantive numbers of gigabit availability—

I will not. The direction being revoked serves no practical purpose. This SI is therefore a simple but important step to ensure that the statute book reflects the current position by removing provisions that are no longer needed. In doing so, it supports a clear and coherent framework for spectrum management, giving certainty to regulators and industry alike. It helps to maintain the conditions for continued investment, innovation and reliable connectivity across the economy. I commend the order to the Committee. Question put and agreed to .

I will conclude my remarks and perhaps pick up that question in my closing speech, which I am looking forward to making. Maintaining a clear and effective framework for managing spectrum is therefore an important part of supporting investment in digital infrastructure and the wider economy. The instrument contributes to that by improving legal clarity without changing existing services, business models or regulatory requirements. The draft order revokes a direction given to Ofcom in 2010. At the time, the Government used the direction to ensure that a specific set of reforms to support the roll-out of mobile broadband were implemented clearly and at pace alongside Ofcom’s existing statutory framework, and in line with wider European measures to harmonise the use of key spectrum bands. Those measures included allowing operators greater flexibility in how they could use key spectrum bands, enabling spectrum licences to be bought and sold, updating licence conditions to support long-term investment and preparing for major spectrum auctions. Together, those changes helped operators to transition from older mobile technologies towards newer ones, enabling the roll-out of 3G and 4G services more quickly and efficiently, and supporting the widespread availability of modern mobile services across the UK. The reforms were also reflected in wider European measures to harmonise the use of key mobile spectrum bands and support the transition to newer technologies. They played a significant role in enabling the roll-out of modern mobile networks in the UK and in promoting investment and competition in the sector. All the obligations set out in the direction have now been fully implemented by Ofcom through a series of regulatory actions over the past decade. As a result, the direction no longer has any practical effect and is now redundant. The instrument therefore revokes that direction, improving the clarity of the legal framework and removing the risk of confusion that could arise from retaining obsolete provisions. For example, when Ofcom looks to set annual licence fees for mobile spectrum, we want to minimise the risk of unnecessary legal challenge. The instrument does not introduce any new policy or change the way spectrum is managed in the UK. Ofcom will continue to exercise its functions under the existing statutory framework, including the duties set out in the Communications Act 2003 and the powers under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. They provide the framework for managing spectrum efficiently, promoting competition and investment, and protecting consumers. That step helps to ensure that the framework underpinning wireless connectivity remains clear and effective, supporting continued investment, innovation and reliable services for consumers and businesses. I hope the Committee will support this instrument.

The Government’s preparations for digital ID will ensure that all existing routes for accessing public services will remain in place. The preparation for digital ID, which will make digital access to public services easier, as I described earlier, will be built with the highest trusted status and will be road-tested by the public as we prepare it, design it and then build it. Verification is vital if we are to ensure that the guiding principles of digital ID—being trusted, inclusive and of use from day one—are seen and not just told.

Thank you—a batsman needs runs, Mr Speaker. Digital ID will ensure digital access to our public services. In recent weeks, citizens have been debating evidence from independent technical experts, privacy advocates and civil society groups. They have been discussing how we can join up our public services, saving time and money and reducing faff and friction. It will be a free-to-use and a freedom-to-choose proposition from this Government, and the Government are now considering the recommendations I received in person on Sunday in Birmingham from the 120 citizens involved. By taking this independent, people-led approach, we will ensure that digital ID has genuine public consent.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is crucial that we learn how well some of the innovations in our health tech have lent themselves to the process of implementing digital access to services. I recommit to learning the lessons, and we are open-minded. In many cases, Scotland is ahead in its thinking and delivery in this area, and I am happy to have further conversations.

We are working closely with the devolved Governments through bilateral meetings and regular official engagement, and we are thankful to them for their constructive and ongoing engagement. In recent weeks I have had the pleasure of attending our regions’ devolved authorities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and we are sensitive to their expectations and demands on this Government to deliver effective digital access to public services across their Administrations, but I repeat: digital ID will be free to use, and there will be freedom to choose.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I bring the attention of hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for moving the motion. He does so on behalf of the signatories of the petition, which asks for “a public inquiry into pro-Israel influence on politics and democracy”. I also thank hon. Members from across the House who have participated today. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) in paying tribute to the Prime Minister, who has shown his finest form in his six years leading our party in rooting out antisemitism. I pay tribute to how he has handled himself and took the fight to issues in the party. On the specific request of the petition, the Government do not support a public inquiry solely on pro-Israeli influence—in fact, I would like to turn to and address what I believe to be the underlying premise of the petition and this debate. Before I do, I should say that we could have had another kind of debate today: a debate about legitimate concerns about foreign influence and interference in our politics and democracy, more wide-ranging than from any one country, and what the Government are doing about that. Instead, the premise of this debate is narrowly and deliberately targeted on Israel. To speak to the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) about the need for education in this debate, the premise is that Israel—the world’s only Jewish state—is an influence on British politics that stands alone and must be held to a standard different from that for any other democratic nation. It is unfortunate that the petition behind this debate plays into the same old antisemitic tropes of hidden forces and malign control. I remind hon. Members that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism lists the “double standards” applied to Israel as one of the hallmarks of contemporary antisemitism in public life. The definition also refers to the mendacious allegations of Jews having power as a collective, controlling the Government and other institutions. This e-petition invokes those very same stereotypes when it talks of pro-Israel organisations shaping Government decisions. With that in mind, I want to be clear that we reject the premise from which this debate originates. The framing used risks reinforcing the narratives historically associated with antisemitism. The UK and Israel have a deep and enduring relationship. Seventy-six years ago, we were rightly proud to recognise the state of Israel. Our commitment to the security of it and its people remains unwavering. My political party has long been an advocate for the Jewish state. More than 100 years ago, Labour’s 1917 war aims declaration committed us to support for a Jewish homeland. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Israel found itself yet again under attack from its neighbours, it found one of its most passionate advocates in the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Criticism of Governments is democratic and proper. Within Israel itself, citizens regularly protest against and challenge the actions of their elected Government. As a Government, we have challenged and will continue to challenge the Israeli Government when we disagree, such as on recognising the state of Palestine and the expansion of illegal settlements, and to impose sanctions on their leaders. There are those in the UK who wish to criticise the influence of a particular Israeli Administration or their policies, but we should acknowledge that there are individuals and organisations that support the Government of Israel: they engage in our democratic process and advocate for causes they believe in, just as countless other groups do. They are normal features of a democratic society, not evidence of malign control or undue influence. Furthermore, donors who support Israel are singled out like no others, expected to defend their position on Israel: “Jewish donors’ support for Israel equals malign influence” is the implicit and too often explicit rhetoric we see and hear. The premise of this debate gravitates towards a familiar inconsistency that even influence rooted simply in supporting Israel, or its legitimacy and right to exist, is somehow an improper or hidden force in British politics.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to an earlier answer I gave about misassociation, whether unintentional, explicit, deliberate or wilful. It is possible to be in Labour Friends of Israel without being a Labour friend of the Israeli Government’s actions on a particular day, and it is the duty of allies and friends to point out where we disagree. If we were debating certain behaviours of the Israeli Government, I am sure that a mix of views would be expressed in the House, including on a strong common theme. But that is not this debate, so I urge the hon. Gentleman to pull back from wilfully or unintentionally using tropes.

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. The record will show his support, and I concur with it. We have all seen the harm caused by the abhorrent rise in antisemitism, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). Antisemitism in the UK has been on the rise, and it has no place in our society. Since the appalling 7 October terror attacks, there has been an increase in antisemitic attacks in the UK, including in Heaton Park, near my constituency. That is just one example of the shocking fear, prejudice and anger directed towards the Jewish community. The attacks cannot be divorced from the nature of the debate. We should condemn the readiness, ease and tendency to hold 300,000 British Jews collectively accountable for the actions of the Israeli Government. That standard is never applied to other communities in relation to foreign Governments.

I do not agree with that. On 30 April, the Government announced £25 million of additional funding for 2026-27 to strengthen policing, protect Jewish communities and provide reassurance in response to the terrorist attacks in Golders Green and the recent spate of antisemitic attacks. Instead of accepting the premise of this debate without question, I urge Members across the House to reject it, to remember the context and to question the notion of focusing any debate on Israel alone. Had this debate addressed the issue of foreign influence or interference as a whole, we could have focused on the range of actions that the Government are taking to address improper influence outside of the rules. The Prime Minister has asked the Ethics and Integrity Commission to carry out a review of lobbying, disclosure and access to Government. The Government are working with Parliament to consider their own rules on lobbying. We are tackling foreign financial influence by improving transparency, closing loopholes and reinforcing legislation.

I will make some progress. The premise of the debate veers into the unhealthy territory of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories: the double standard towards the only Jewish state, questioning the legitimacy of a democratic state’s existence that is not applied to other countries, including those with authoritarian regimes. The Government are clear that antisemitism is unacceptable in all its forms and that British Jews must never be held responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government.

I agree that there is cause for concern that the premise of the petition is antisemitic. I have explained my reasons why. I commented earlier on the Prime Minister’s leadership in rooting out antisemitism in the Labour party. For too long, the Labour party gave too much benefit of the doubt to explicit antisemitic tropes and antisemitism. I encourage all Members not to trip over tropes knowingly or unknowingly when considering this matter, as holding British Jews collectively responsible for the Government of Israel’s behaviour is its itself antisemitic.

Thank you, Mrs Harris. The Prime Minister has asked the Ethics and Integrity Commission to carry out a review into lobbying. We have commissioned and are now responding to the Rycroft review of political finance rules, with immediate steps taken to cap total political donations from British citizens abroad and to put a moratorium on cryptocurrency donations. These measures are a first step, and the Government will have more to say. The Government will always take legitimate concerns over foreign influence and interference in our politics and democracy very seriously, but I do not believe that the premise of this debate is to focus on those concerns. Criticism of Governments and policies is democratic, but the use of double standards in relation to Israel and conspiracy theories and tropes about the influence of Jews and the Jewish state take us into ugly, inciteful and deeply unhealthy territory. I urge Members to join me in rejecting this framing and rejecting the petition.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on his work in this area and on securing this important debate. In the interest of time, I intend to go through my pre-prepared remarks, but I have noted the themes that have been covered. I hope that colleagues will forgive me if I breeze through the themes and pick up any shortfall in subsequent correspondence, either through me or the Cabinet Office. We have heard excellent contributions on the impacts of hot and cold weather; covid and the need to learn lessons from the discoveries in the inquiry; the role of the Cabinet Office; the role that MPs lead locally; and education, skills and the role of devolved learning. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) that specifics on Cornwall shall not be ignored or bought off, and I look forward to a conversation with him on this in due course. The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the country safe. Domestic resilience is a fundamental element of our national security strategy. The resilience action plan, published in July 2025, sets out the Government’s strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient UK and the steps being taken to deliver that, including building domestic resilience and supporting the whole of our society to build its own resilience. The Government utilise a range of tools as part of emergency response, including the National Situation Centre, which was established in 2021 and provides situational awareness for crisis response and the emergency alerts system, which is an essential capability to inform and warn the public in emergencies. We are living through a rapidly changing global risk landscape, driven by geopolitical instability and rapid technological change, where the threats facing the UK are numerous, complex and exist on many fronts. Those risks may be non-malicious, such as accidents or natural hazards, or they may be malicious threats from malign actors who seek to harm us. Against that set of risks, it is more important than ever to make resilience front and centre of the UK’s approach to national security. Without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth, peace and prosperity or any of the other Government missions to improve everyday life in Britain.

I will get on to preparedness and the impact of global events, including in the middle east, but I will come back to my hon. Friend on specifics. Responsibility for the overarching resilience system is led by the COBR Directorate in the Cabinet Office. Colleagues are rightly asking about the role the Cabinet Office takes in this work. It leads work on cross-cutting and high-priority risks, and in scenarios with major impacts, it uses the COBR mechanism to manage the Government’s response to major crises or events. The UK Government define resilience as the ability to anticipate, assess, prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from shocks. The resilience landscape is extensive and encompasses natural hazards, deliberate attacks, geopolitical instability and so on. The foundation of the Government’s approach is the national security risk assessment, which identifies and assesses the most serious acute risks facing the UK over a two to five-year time horizon. Under the lead Government Department model, each NSRA risk is owned by a lead Government Department, ensuring that those with the most relevant expertise, relationships and levers are responsible for putting the necessary planning response and recovery arrangements in place for each risk area. The Government are also taking steps to enhance our readiness for the highest impact, whole-of-system crises called catastrophic risks, including by explicitly embedding the leadership role of the Cabinet Office in our central crisis management doctrine, the Amber Book. Alongside that, the Government have an extensive programme of assurance to understand how prepared we are to assess risks, including through a dedicated red teaming capability in the Government Office for Science and independent expert panel reviews. Together, this approach ensures that the Government collectively understand and are prepared for the risks the UK faces overall, which relies on a collaborative approach and a shared ownership across Government Departments. The Government are committed to working in partnership with both the devolved Governments and the local tier to effectively plan for and respond to risks wherever they occur. The Cabinet Office leads for Government on the overall response to severe weather. That is, in effect, a co-ordinating role, as individual Departments lead for the response, planning and longer term resilience of the sectors they represent. A key component is the severe weather resilience network, which is chaired by the COBR Directorate and comprises representatives across Government Departments. On the matter of heat, periods of high temperature and heat waves are not a new phenomenon, and their risk—in terms of both impact and likelihood—is well documented in planning advice from the Government. There are tried and tested arrangements in place to warn of impending extreme temperatures, to review preparedness and, if needed, to co-ordinate the Government’s response to the impacts that they may have. On the devolved authorities, it is vital that the four nations across the UK work together to keep communities safe, so that we can ensure that we are most effectively using the different levers that each Government hold. On the matter of local resilience forums, it is also essential that we strengthen resilience at the local level, and the Government are committed to the stronger LRF trailblazers programme, which provides selected areas with the opportunity to test approaches and strengthen leadership. I encourage local MPs to engage with that leadership.

I will not, as I want to make some progress, and I am afraid there is still a lot to cover. On covid, several Members made excellent points about the need to recall, remember and learn from that damning period. One such example is the significant improvement made to our crisis response structures and capabilities in line with the recommendations made in the covid-19 module 1 inquiry. That included establishing the National Situation Centre in 2021 to improve the use of data in crisis response, creating a single Cabinet committee for resilience to ensure ministerial oversight. On the issue of education and resilience, we must provide excellent training, and exercising is also essential to ensure that individual sectors can work together to prepare for, respond to and recover from crises. The Government have also established the UK resilience plan. On the matter of AI, AI sovereignty is defined as the UK having resilient access to key AI capabilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) referred to the need to counter the increasing threats posed by AI that is housed and created away from these shores. Sovereign capability is vital, and the launch of the sovereign AI unit is vital as we transition towards that authority, as it will help the UK to win at strategically important parts of that value chain. Civil society also plays an important role in the UK’s resilience, including the many voluntary, community and faith sector organisations that contribute to community-level resilience and emergency planning. The resilience of the UK’s critical national infrastructure is of central importance to ensuring that the essential services on which the public rely continue to operate. Given the fundamental and connected nature of those services, failure has the potential to cause cascading and catastrophic consequences. The resilience action plan’s all-hazards approach, combined with the priorities in the strategic defence review, the national security strategy and the 10-year infrastructure strategy, underpins the Government’s commitment to improving the security and resilience of CNI. On smart devices and tech resilience, the Government take an actor-agnostic, risk-based approach to supply chain resilience. Instead of reacting to individual firms or components in isolation, we must focus on the structural choke points and systemic dependencies that create national-level vulnerability, regardless of where in the chain they are. While cellular modules present some specific cyber-threats, those can be mitigated in effectively the same way as any other cyber-risks. Therefore, existing work to strengthen our cyber-resilience will impact how vulnerable sectors and organisations are to threats via the cellular internet of things. In conclusion, the Government continue to regularly engage the public and parliamentarians on risk and resilience through our annual statement to Parliament, which gives a strategic overview of the current risk picture. The next annual statement will be made in July this year, and it will provide detailed updates on progress made to deliver against the commitments over the last 12 months.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for securing this debate, and all Members who have spoken. As ever, my hon. Friend made a powerful and compelling argument. She is a compelling advocate for the people she argues for and the case she makes. That is met with deep appreciation and understanding. I think I understand most of the very helpful list that she provided, which I have handed to my officials, but I do not know whether I can pronounce every word on it. She made her point brilliantly, as did so many Members in their own speeches. My hon. Friend is right to challenge platforms that arbitrarily remove legal health content or engage in the practice of shadow-banning people, particularly where people struggle to appeal those unfair decisions. I will set out the Government’s position clearly. First, we believe it is crucial that every woman and girl can access trusted health information online. Secondly, the Online Safety Act does not prevent adults or children from accessing legal content about women’s health. Thirdly, the Online Safety Act will require the largest user-to-user platforms—designated by Ofcom as category 1 services—to have clear, accessible terms of service. Those must explain what legal content for adults they do and do not allow, and when a user may be banned or suspended. Category 1 services will also need effective routes for users to challenge content being wrongly taken down. Their complaints processes must be clearly set out in their terms of service, and platforms will be expected to act appropriately when complaints are made. Ofcom is due to publish the register of categorised services in July of this year, alongside a consultation on these additional duties, including strengthened terms of service requirements. Ofcom will consult over the summer and aims to publish final policy statements and guidance in 2027. Once those duties are in force, the largest platforms will have much clearer and stronger appeal mechanisms, and expectations on them, for users whose content has been removed inappropriately. Ofcom will be required to send out annual notices to categorised services, which may require them to disclose information about the design and operation of their algorithms. As the online safety regulator, Ofcom published guidance in November 2025 setting out practical steps that technology firms can take to make their platforms a safer and more inclusive place for women and girls online. The guidance is clear that safeguards for freedom of expression must remain in place, including routes for users to challenge wrongly moderated content. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is working closely with Ofcom to support the effective implementation of those measures. In March 2026, the Secretary of State held a roundtable with social media firms and set clear expectations that firms should implement Ofcom’s guidance by the end of this year. I hear the call from the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for a repeat roundtable with all parties, and I absolutely agree that that is a way forward. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), is absolutely right to say that this is about dialogue first—we agree on that. Where required, we must call out, but calling in is a good start. The Online Safety Act also requires Ofcom to raise awareness and understanding of misinformation and harmful content, especially when vulnerable groups are affected. As part of that requirement, Ofcom must publish a media literacy strategy every three years. The first focuses on research, evidence and evaluation, and on engaging with platforms, people and partnerships, which includes the delivery of targeted media literacy interventions for priority groups. DSIT is ensuring a more joined-up approach to media literacy across Government, aligning policy, education and communications. We are working to ensure that every person can access trusted health information online. That is why our media literacy action plan, published in March this year, highlights the central role that online sources play in helping people to learn about important topics such as health. It is also aimed at supporting parents in building their children’s resilience to the creeping-in of misleading content. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology continues to work with the Department of Health and Social Care on ensuring that people have access to safe and trusted health information online. Social media companies must realise the role that they play in women and girls accessing accurate information about their health. The Government agree that social media companies must do more to enable women and girls to access accurate health information. Ofcom has set out clear guidance on what companies must do to make the online world a safer and more inclusive place for women, and the Government have been clear that platforms need to implement this guidance by year-end. The Online Safety Act does not prevent adults or children from accessing legal content about women’s health. Safeguards for freedom of expression are built into the framework of the Act, which places duties on platforms to protect users’ right to freedom of expression when introducing safety measures. The largest services regulated by the Act will have additional duties: they cannot arbitrarily remove content; they must be clear what content is acceptable for their adult users; and they must enforce the rules consistently. Users will have access to effective complaints procedures to appeal when content is unduly taken down. On the specific points that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central raised about the Eve Appeal’s letter, the Government acknowledge that censorship of terms and diagrams relating to women’s anatomy is a problem, especially when such material can help to increase awareness about the spread and risk of cancer. In April 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care published a renewed health strategy. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) is no longer in his place, but I commend him for the work he did on that strategy and for the powerful statement of intent that it is a Government priority, alongside the strategy to halve violence against women and girls in this Parliament. The strategy represents a decisive shift towards addressing long-standing failings in women’s health outcomes, experiences and access to care. It applies the Government’s 10-year health plan to women’s health, aiming for faster and more equitable improvements through fundamental reform rather than incremental changes. It aims to tackle medical misogyny and rebalance power within the healthcare system, to ensure that women’s voices and choices are prioritised. Central to the strategy is improving women’s and girls’ awareness of and access to services, and driving research that will benefit women’s health. Alongside this, the strategy recognises the need to tackle misinformation about women’s healthcare. That is why it focuses on making credible health information easy to find. I will now address a few specific issues mentioned in today’s debate. The renewed women’s health strategy has committed to invest £1.5 million in femtech, via the femtech healthcare challenge. Health information is critical. The sophisticated algorithms that we all experience as they target us with adverts should—indeed, must—be used to identify health-based information to ensure that women and children do not miss out on crucial health information. The role of the NHS social media team is to make credible health information easy to find, understand and trust, in the places where people already spend their time. It is using channels such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook to explain topics including menstrual health, contraception and conditions such as endometriosis. The team also uses audience insight and social listening to understand how people talk about these topics, what they are worried about and where they have gaps in their understanding. That helps us to make content that is clearer, more empathetic and genuinely useful. Finally, the Government agree that platforms need to do more to address how they moderate content. We will continue to engage closely with platforms and with Ofcom to understand better how enforcement is being conducted. We all agree that we want to see women and girls being able to access trusted health information, and we must remain vigilant on this issue. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central for securing this critical debate.

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point; I know that he has an excellent record in this area. The digital inclusion fund was designed as a one-year programme to allow us to understand what works in digital inclusion. I share his concerns. We remain committed to building a digitally inclusive society, and that includes our public services, which we are making more personalised, joined up and digital, so that everybody is included and benefits from them. We all expect our public services to be adequate, and as inclusive as they can be.

The Labour Government are the first in a decade to publish a digital inclusion action plan, to ensure that everybody benefits from our digital society. Seventy-three per cent of the £11.9 million digital inclusion innovation fund supported charities, many of them grassroots organisations. Through the digital ID work that I lead, we are supporting digital inclusion, and we are engaging expert grassroots organisations directly to ensure that we get this right, and that they are included.

I thank my hon. Friend for his well wishes; I am grateful for the opportunity to help to dispel any misinformation on this exciting programme of digital transformation of our public services. Let me be clear: this will not be compulsory, and there is no central pot of data. In my early conversations, I have already been assured of the security of data by design and the intentions of this plan to make digital ID not compulsory, but something that people deem for themselves to be a “must have”. It is for us to rise to this challenge in our design and delivery of it. More broadly, we want to have a national conversation. The upcoming consultation will clearly set out the Government’s position on this programme.

Public services should be there for us when we need them, but right now it is too hard for people to get what they need. The new, free-to-access digital ID intends to change that by supporting the personalising of public services, making everyday life easier for everyone. The consultation will be launched next week to ensure that the public can have their say on how we make digital ID work for them.

I thank the Minister for his work on this matter and for his statement. I want to raise the testimony of a constituent, a British-Iranian woman who fled Iran after being arrested three times for campaigning for the rights of women and children. She was raped and tortured in detention. Following the latest events, she received only brief calls from family before all communications were cut. Her relatives report people being shot in the streets, women and children being killed, bodies being withheld unless families pay large sums—sums based on the amount of bullets that are being used to kill—and almost no access to food, water, medicine, power or cash for those living in fear. What are the Government doing to document and preserve that evidence and testimony; is the status of the Iranian embassy and regime-linked assets in the UK under active review; and how are we supporting British-Iranian families who fear the worst for those they love back home?

Of course I support the Bill. It is what we are here for: to do this at the stroke of a pen—not of any pen, but that of a Government pen—after years in opposition, hoping to be able to come in and enact the sort of change we are able to make today. I am proud to stand in support of this Bill, and of the work that the Minister for Social Security and Disability continues to do in assessing the welfare reforms to come. In my constituency, child poverty is a daily reality for too many families. More than 7,000 children in Bury North are growing up in poverty. That means that over a third of the families I represent are in poverty—well above the national average—and the majority of them are in work. Behind each number is a child arriving at school hungry, a parent worrying about rent or heating, and families doing everything right but still falling short on the bills they have to pay. What makes this harder is that Bury North is often seen, on paper, as doing reasonably well, with strong communities and pride in place, but proximity to prosperity does not cushion poverty; it simply hides it. Too often, policy has failed to understand that. That is why the Government are right to reassess how funding is allocated, recognising that affluence and deprivation sit side by side, ward by ward. Crucially, it is why this change is being made now, when it is costed and affordable, yet overdue. In Chesham Fold and parts of East Ward, parents work every hour they can, budgeting meticulously, yet still struggle to cover the basics. The least well-off are often the best at budgeting, because they have no choice but to stretch limited means as far as possible. Nowhere is inequality clearer than in health. A child born in one part of my constituency can expect to live seven to 10 years less than a child born barely a mile away. That gap is not about lifestyle choices. It is about poverty shaping lives before they have even properly begun. That is why lifting the two-child limit matters so much, and why I support it as an economic and moral intervention. Scrapping it will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, reduce the depth of poverty for many more and increase spending power in exactly the communities that need it most. That money is spent locally, in full, on food shops, markets, uniforms, rent, heating and transport. It circulates through local economies, gives them buoyancy, stabilises households and reduces pressure on public services downstream. Child poverty already costs our economy close to £40 billion a year in lost potential and higher demand. Ending it for families in Bury North is not ideological; it is hard-headed prevention. I challenge those who continue to trade in the myths that cling to this debate. Most affected families are already in work; many include a disabled child. Family circumstances change overnight for many of us, through bereavement, redundancy or relationship breakdown. A social security system that fails to recognise that is not tough; it is brittle and will break too easily, as it did for 14 years. This matters even more profoundly for children with special educational needs and disabilities, with the recent Sutton Trust report stating that growing up with SEND and in poverty creates a “double disadvantage”. I support this Government’s instincts on welfare reform. Rights, responsibilities and contribution matter, but responsibility works only if the floor people are expected to stand on is high enough in the first place. The Bill, alongside wider measures to support families and tackle low incomes, sends a clear message: we are serious about prevention, serious about fairness, and serious about breaking the link between the circumstances of birth and chances in life.

I welcome the leadership that the Secretary of State is showing on this issue. In Bury North, parental appetite for a ban on mobile phones is real, but so are the practical considerations when parents rightly want to track the location of their children, have a form of emergency contact and be able to reach their children safely. Does she agree that the existence of this anxiety is not about the technology itself, but about the design for use? Social media platforms are shaping our children’s childhoods, with excessive screen time and endless feeds absorbing the equivalent of a full-time job’s worth of hours of our young people’s lives every week. Will the Government’s approach focus on shaping healthier digital environments and rewarding first-mover tech companies that lead on safer design, rather than simply leaving the burden on families?

T4. Following my recent meeting with Bury’s child and adolescent mental health services, can I ask the Secretary of State whether he has considered the merits of separating neurodiversity services from core CAMHS mental health provision? Will he meet me and Bury’s health leaders to discuss this approach, given the rising number of referrals in the system, the long waiting times, the workforce pressures and the growing risk of overmedicalisation?

T9. I welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting servicemen and women, including those from Bury North, to travel home for Christmas. Given Bury’s long and proud military tradition and our ambition to host a Valour centre, will the Minister set out what practical steps the Government are taking this Christmas to support armed forces personnel and their families, and how that commitment will translate into stronger long-term local support for veterans? Will she also join me in wishing our brave men and women a very happy Christmas?

The right hon. Gentleman is making a typically thoughtful contribution, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. I also thank Clare Harrison, a constituent of mine, from the Brain Injury Group for bringing this important matter to my attention. The right hon. Gentleman makes a point about the Government’s role, and as he mentioned, sporting injuries populate such issues. Among those affected are former professional footballers, who are four times more likely to develop a neurodegenerative disease, support for which is patchy. For female former professional footballers, that support is non-existent. Will he join me in encouraging the Minister to consider the creation of an independent, football-funded body, alongside any wider action plan that his APPG is advocating for?