Jeff Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  Clauses 5 and 6 place duties on the Secretary of State to promote patient involvement, patient choice and innovation. My new clauses 86 and 87 would apply those principles to psychedelic-assisted therapy treatments involving schedule 1 controlled substances. I have been pleased to be a trustee of the charity Drug Science, which has allowed me to talk to researchers who are looking at therapeutic treatments using what are called psychedelic drugs. Around the world there is growing evidence of the successful treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma, mental health issues and end-of-life distress using these drugs. For some patients they are absolutely revelatory. They change lives for the better and can relieve the burden of those conditions on the wider health service. Researchers tell me, however, that the barriers the current system puts in place really restrict research. Research involving schedule 1 controlled substances generally requires a Home Office licence, and the bureaucracy and inertia in the system adds delay, cost and an administrative burden to the extent that research grants are being lost because of delays. The issue has already been considered. In 2023 the Home Affairs Committee recommended urgently moving psychedelic drugs to schedule 2 in order to facilitate research. Later that year, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended that research using schedule 1 drugs in universities and hospitals should be exempt from the Home Office domestic licencing requirement and should instead operate under schedule 2 controls. In 2025 the Government accepted the ACMD recommendations in principle. There is supposed to be a pilot of a proposed extension to test operational feasibility, but that has not happened. The Government said the policy work was under way and that further plans would be published in due course, but without a timetable for implementation. My new clause 86 would make it happen. Other jurisdictions are ahead of us on this issue. The US Department of Defence and the US Department of Veterans Affairs are already funding clinical trials for military personnel and veterans. New clause 87 concerns compassionate access to treatment. International research has identified potential in some treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions and end-of-life distress. There is international precedent. The 2022 Canadian special access programme has allowed clinicians to request restricted drugs, including psilocybin and MDMA, to treat those conditions. We can learn from those experiences. Finally, I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss these issues, and for her agreement on the principle of enabling the clinical research of these drugs and her commitment to get back to me to outline how the Government will take them further.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  It is not often that I agree with both the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) and the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The Father of the House said that the whole House should cry out against the situation in the west bank. He is right and, as I look around, I think that is what is happening in the Chamber. I am not sure that anybody, apart from possibly the Front Benchers, is going to disagree with the motion, so brilliantly moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed). I support a two-state solution, but every day, as the result of illegal settlement expansion, driven by violence and supported by the Netanyahu Government, that only real hope for a sustainable peace in the middle east gets less likely. Every day there are violent attacks on Palestinians in the west bank: homes demolished, farmland seized and roads blocked. Every day Palestinians are blocked from accessing healthcare, water, employment and education—the basics of life—as a result of their inability to move freely across their land. The settlements make the situation more intolerable and intractable every day. Of course the settlements are a breach of the fourth Geneva convention. They are condemned as illegal by the ICJ, the UN Security Council and the vast majority of member states, including the UK. If we accept that settlements are illegal, we cannot just stop there. Many of my constituents in Manchester Withington have contacted me, calling for the UK to do what international law requires of us: to ensure that our trade policy reflects both our values and our legal obligations, and to do everything we can to stop the Israeli Government’s actions in supporting settler violence. That means, as a bare minimum, a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I am not naive enough to think that what the UK does alone will change the Netanyahu Government’s policy, but the international community, working together, has to use every lever we have in this situation. Last year, the ICJ set out its advisory opinion on the situation in the OPT. Governments who are committed to the rule of law should take its conclusions seriously. The court said that states should take steps to prevent trade and investment relations that assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by the occupation and by the settlement enterprise.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q2. In three weeks’ time, Greater Manchester residents will have the chance to vote for Labour’s brilliant candidate, Bev Craig, to be their next mayor. I have worked with Bev for many years, so I know her strong record as a leader and what an outstanding mayor she will be. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in welcoming Bev’s pledge to extend free travel on public transport to all 11 to 18-year-olds, so all our young people in Greater Manchester can have the independence to travel to the work, education and leisure opportunities they deserve?