Jess Brown-Fuller MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Jun 2025 · Business Rates Relief: High-street Businesses · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in congratulating Robin’s Nest coffee shop in my constituency, which has just celebrated its first birthday. In the year that the shop has been open, its owners have seen their business rates double, and they have written to me to say that they might not make it to their second birthday. Does he agree that business rate reform cannot come soon enough and that it would be a crying shame to lose such high street businesses?

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

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  My hon. Friend talks about collaboration across borders and county councils. I have an issue in my constituency because of a proposal to close the GP practice in Westbourne, but there is no bus service for all the patients in Westbourne to get to Emsworth, which is over the border into Hampshire county council. Does he agree that there should be provision in the Bill to ensure that local authorities work together? People do not see the local authority borders.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  The Government’s plans lay out an expectation that they will be able to manage ex-offenders in the community under intensive supervision. A probation officer in my constituency recently told me that she was told off by her bosses for spending too long with offenders when she was booking just 15-minute appointments. Can the Lord Chancellor tell me when the promised investment will actually reach frontline probation services, and can she guarantee it will be enough to ensure public safety and reduce reoffending?

• 21 May 2025 · Broadband and Mobile Connectivity: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that rurality does not necessarily correlate with population density? My constituency is a city, albeit a small one, yet mobile signal is non-existent in the city centre, and businesses have had real issues attaching to any sort of broadband availability.

• 21 May 2025 · Business and the Economy · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a great point. I was contacted by Yoddi, who owns La Fish in my constituency of Chichester. He says that the rise in national insurance contributions will cost him £1,200 a month that he now has to find. He has two choices, one of which is passing on that cost to consumers. We already know that the price of fish and chips has risen exponentially over the years and the cost of living pressures continue to make that worse. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that small businesses like that one are at risk from the Government’s NICs rises?

• 21 May 2025 · Ukraine: Forcibly Deported Children · Hansard source

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  The strength of feeling in the room is shown by the raw emotion of the hon. Gentleman and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne). Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most important thing we can do today is take the opportunity to come together, across the parties, and recognise the need to continue to support these Ukrainian families?

• 21 May 2025 · Ukraine: Forcibly Deported Children · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that we should support not only the return of the abducted Ukrainian children, but their reintegration into their families and communities through rehabilitation programmes that address the psychological and developmental trauma that has been inflicted by their forced deportation?

• 21 May 2025 · Chronic Urinary Tract Infections · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing today’s debate and for being a champion for both his constituents and the wider population suffering with UTIs. Although I will not mention all the contributions this morning, I must mention that of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), whose speech was not only passionate, but well informed and very personal. It is the hardest thing to share a personal story, and I commend her for her bravery this morning. Urinary tract infections are far more common than many realise and far more serious than many assume, and women are 30 times more likely to suffer from a UTI than men. They are agonising and can, in some cases, even be fatal. Between 2018 and 2023, 1.8 million hospital admissions in England involved UTIs, not to mention the no doubt countless GP appointments. Chronic urinary tract infections, where symptoms do not go away, are a particularly distressing form of this condition. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam spoke about sufferers being in bedbound isolation and unbearable pain, preventing them from living their lives and often from attending important family events and moments that should be celebrated, because this condition can be so debilitating. Short courses of antibiotics often fail, and urine tests can come back negative, even when the patient is in clear discomfort. That is because chronic UTIs can be caused by bacteria entering the lining of the bladder, which makes them much harder to detect and treat. The diagnostic tools available to us are simply not good enough. Midstream urine cultures are still considered the gold standard for diagnosing acute UTIs, but recent research shows that MSUs miss a wide range of bacteria, which leaves many sufferers undiagnosed, untreated and often feeling disbelieved. Like most women, I am grateful that I do not suffer from regular UTIs, although I do remember the panic as a child when I was in absolute agony. I do not know whether this is oversharing, but I remember my mum running in with a milk bottle of cold water to pour on me while I went to the toilet, just to take an element of that pain away for me, as a young child experiencing something I did not understand. I have seen how a UTI can be particularly debilitating for those living with dementia. I experienced that with my nana during her final years. She could not identify that she was experiencing pain, so it fell to us, as her family, to recognise the symptoms. Her carer would test her urine most days, as she became so prone to infections. Those can cause sudden and alarming changes in behaviour, known as delirium, which is often exhibited as confusion, agitation, hallucinations or sudden withdrawal. My nana ended up being hospitalised for some severe UTIs in her final months. Her hallucinations were quite often enjoyed by the family, and I particularly remember one where she was very cross at me for coming to her hospital late at night with an entire choir, singing to her and waking up the whole ward. That obviously did not happen, but in her delirium she was absolutely convinced that I had not respected her sleep. Such symptoms are often mistaken for the progression of dementia, leading to the underlying UTI going uncured. Social care has a key role to play in UTIs, but only 45% of care workers receive any sort of dementia-specific training. We were incredibly lucky that the carer we had for my nana was dementia-trained and recognised the signs of UTIs before they got too bad. Families are also vital in this process, especially when someone cannot advocate for themselves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam mentioned, when patients are so exhausted from having to fight a system that does not believe them, families often have to step in and be their advocates. People cannot do this alone. Too often, UTIs are dismissed as short term or minor, but for many people, particularly those with underlying conditions, they are anything but. We welcome the NHS’s recognition of chronic UTIs as a legitimate condition since 2022, but too many people still suffer in silence or are dismissed, misdiagnosed and left without adequate support. That is why we urge the Government to explore ways to improve diagnosis, particularly for chronic UTIs. Further research is desperately needed. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a significant expansion in the capacity of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and for a comprehensive agreement with the European Medicines Agency. We must ensure that new treatments can reach UK patients without delay, especially as we currently rely on three different strands of antibiotics to treat UTIs, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South said. Those who suffer regularly are at risk of developing antimicrobial resistance, which then makes treatments less effective. If they are also allergic to certain strands, they are incredibly limited in the antibiotics they can receive. The hon. Member also mentioned that there is a UTI vaccine in other countries, which I am very interested in. Continuity of care is equally important. Everyone with a long-term condition such as a chronic UTI should have access to a named GP. That would help to build understanding, avoid delays and improve outcomes, especially for those whose symptoms may be dismissed or misunderstood. Lastly, I want to touch on the role of community pharmacies, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned. The Pharmacy First scheme, which was introduced in England in January last year, has the potential to relieve pressure on GPs and to provide quicker treatment for uncomplicated UTIs, but many pharmacies are struggling to meet the consultation targets required to access funding. Ongoing financial and operational pressures are undermining the very service that we need to provide, and in the year to date we have lost the equivalent of four community pharmacies a week. My questions to the Minister are as follows. What steps is her Department taking to support community pharmacies in delivering the Pharmacy First service, especially those struggling to meet the increase in consultation targets, and to ensure that patients with UTIs can access timely, local and effective care? Pharmacy First is currently available only for those with UTIs between the ages of 16 and 64. Is there a plan to widen that age range? Given the known limitations of current testing methods, will the Minister also outline what steps are being taken to ensure that better diagnostic tools are made available? Is there any plan to introduce a UTI vaccine? Finally, will chronic UTIs be included in the 10-year health plan, and is that still on track to be published in June?

• 20 May 2025 · Adoption and Kinship Placements · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) for securing this important and timely debate. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, I will focus on how vital kinship carers are and on how they are often overlooked and under-supported. Many do not even identify as kinship carers, yet they are the ones providing stability, safety and love to children who can no longer live with their birth parents. Often, they are grandparents, aunts, uncles or family friends; they do this for the love of the children, and often of the families the children can no longer be with, yet kinship carers need proper support to avoid these arrangements breaking down. In a 2024 survey, 35% of kinship carers rated the information they received from their local authority as very poor, while 44% said they did not trust their local authority at all. They are exhausted by being forced to battle a system that should be supporting them. Many are navigating complex traumas on top of a failing special educational needs and disability system, with half of children in kinship care also not getting the help they need in their education setting. Families also face a cliff edge of support when the young person turns 18. That is why the adoption and special guardianship support fund—a pot that kinship carers have been able to access only since 2023—is so crucial to getting the bespoke therapies that these children and their trusted adults rely on. In my Chichester constituency, we are lucky to have Beacon House, which is a truly outstanding therapeutic service for young people, families and adults. I will share some of the comments from the children who have had the support of Beacon House. One said: “It has helped me to understand why I sometimes act the way I do in scenarios and to unload my day to day worries that perhaps were taking a toll on my mental health”. Another said: “It’s made me feel safer. It doesn’t make me feel I’m not welcome here”. And finally: “It has helped me to think about why I do things and help to understand and for my parents to understand too”. For so many of the families using services like Beacon House, the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been a lifeline. It benefited more than 18,000 children last year. I believe that the Government know this fund is vital to families up and down the UK, and I understand their desire to increase its availability so that more families can benefit, but the fund is preventing breakdowns in adoptions and special guardianship arrangements. Will the Minister make the argument to the Treasury for increasing the fund, so that all children under care arrangements can access this support, with proper clinical assessments funded so the support can be tailored? These families do extraordinary things, stepping in, often at a moment’s notice, to give vulnerable children a future. The least we can do is give them the support they deserve.

• 15 May 2025 · World Asthma Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq, and always a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important and timely debate to mark World Asthma Day, which took place last week. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for respiratory health, he is a tireless advocate for the millions of people across the UK living with lung conditions—and, indeed, multiple other conditions. As my party’s health spokesperson, I have been in this Chamber many times for debates that he has secured. He is certainly a credit to the less-spoken-about health conditions. His commitment to raising awareness and driving change in health is deeply appreciated, and I commend him for his leadership. To mark World Asthma Day 2025, the Global Initiative for Asthma has chosen the theme “Make Inhaled Treatments Accessible for ALL”. It is pertinent that this debate follows one on international development and global health—a powerful reminder of the need to ensure people with asthma have access to the treatments they need, not just to manage their day-to-day symptoms, but to prevent life-threatening attacks. Asthma remains one of the most common chronic health conditions worldwide, yet, as the hon. Gentleman clearly set out, progress over the past two decades have been slow. Lung conditions are now the third biggest killer in the UK. Hospitalisations due to respiratory illness have doubled in the past 20 years, and the UK has seen little improvement in outcomes over that time. Those are not just statistics—they are people, and they reflect a systematic failure to treat respiratory health with the seriousness it demands. There are 7.2 million people living with diagnosed asthma in the UK today, including 2 million children—one in nine adults and one in eight children. The UK’s asthma death rate is higher than the OECD average, and the highest in Europe. Every day, four people in this country die from asthma attacks. Every 10 seconds, someone experiences an asthma attack that could be life-threatening. That should be a wake-up call. In my constituency of Chichester, 7.5% of GP patients aged six and over have been prescribed some form of asthma-related medication in the past year. That statistic is higher than the national average, and it represents hundreds of families trying to manage a condition that, with the right support, should not prevent anyone from living a full and active life. Yet time and again those are the families let down in other areas, by poor housing, air pollution—as the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) mentioned—inconsistent care and a public health system that has been hollowed out over the past decade. The UK should be a world leader in public health. We have a long history of innovation, grassroots sports, high-quality food production and leading medical research, but, thanks to the previous Government, we now lag behind our international peers. It is profoundly troubling that our children experience some of the worst asthma outcomes across Europe and other high-income countries. The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to take urgent action. First and foremost, we must reverse the Conservative cuts to public health funding, but we must not stop there. We need a comprehensive approach that tackles the root causes of poor lung health, from poverty and cold, damp housing to polluted air and hazardous working environments. We want an increase to the public health grant delivered by local authorities, with part of that funding set out for communities facing the greatest health inequalities. Those communities must be supported by co-designed solutions, including better smoking cessation services, stronger action on air quality and improvements to housing and occupational health. Prevention must be at the heart of our approach. That means investing in primary care, supporting individuals to improve their own health and giving local areas the tools they need to build healthier environments. It is one of the most effective ways that we can reduce pressure on NHS services and deliver better value for money to taxpayers. The Liberal Democrats would also take decisive action on air pollution by passing a clean air Act based on World Health Organisation guidelines and establishing a new air quality agency to enforce those standards. We must do more to ensure access to consistent, high-quality care for those already living with long-term respiratory conditions such as asthma. That includes guaranteeing that people with severe asthma have access to a named GP so that they do not have to constantly retell their story to new clinicians, and increasing the capacity of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency so that new treatments can reach patients more quickly. I was on a Delegated Legislation Committee earlier this week, with the Minister, where the funding for the MHRA was increased. However, it was not clear whether that would speed up the process of getting new medicines to patients. As the hon. Member for Strangford rightly pointed out, the scale of this issue demands urgency. Four asthma deaths every day and a life-threatening attack every 10 seconds are tragedies could be prevented, if only we prioritised respiratory health as we ought to. Will the Minister, therefore, commit to setting aside part of the public health grant to support those communities facing the largest health inequalities? Will the Government propose a new clean air Act based on World Health Organisation guidelines, to ensure those with severe, long-term respiratory conditions are not breathing in harmful pollutants? Finally, when can we expect the publication of the 10-year health plan, and will respiratory health be included? Asthma is not just a clinical issue; it is a question of justice and of whether we are willing to tackle the social and environmental factors that make people ill in the first place. I hope the Minister will reflect seriously on what has been said today.

• 15 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State accept my warm invitation to visit my constituency and sit in traffic with me so she can experience what my constituents experience morning, noon and night on the A27, which is strangling economic growth in the area and preventing investment?

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

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  There has been real interest in Westminster Hall debates on maternity services and the recently announced closure of the maternity service and special baby care unit at Yeovil hospital. Will the Leader of the House commit to time in the Chamber to debate the failure to implement in full the Ockenden recommendations that would see the improved maternity care we need across the UK?

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

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  I thank the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing today’s wide-ranging debate. It is hard not to get stuck on flooding, developer responsibilities and planning, but I will try to focus on just two key points in the short time that I have. My criticisms of the planning system are well recorded in Hansard , as is my support for the Liberal Democrat amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to make water companies statutory consultees, which we need to see happen. My constituents in Chichester know how fortunate we are to live in such a beautiful part of the UK, but we are seeing sites that have been identified as at risk of flooding still being approved for development if they are classified as strategic development sites in the local plans that were written based on an outdated flood risk methodology. That is deeply concerning for my communities, which are watching fields flood year on year and then seeing houses built on those very fields. The situation has been worsened by historical planning failures. The previous administration at Chichester district council allowed the local plan to expire, which left developers to ride roughshod over areas such as the Manhood peninsula, a fragile, low-lying coastal region that is increasingly vulnerable to extreme flooding. Climate change is exacerbating the already serious flood and erosion risks on the English coast. In 2018, the Climate Change Committee said: “the current approach to coastal management in England is unsustainable in the face of climate change.” The flood risk modelling fails to reflect the lived experience of many of my constituents. The Manhood peninsula has already seen numerous floods since 2012, which have displaced families from their homes and caused widespread fear that does not go away once the water has receded. I would like to talk briefly about coastal squeeze. Natural England estimates that 58% of the salt marsh habitat in Chichester harbour has been lost since 1946, and that we are losing around three football pitches-worth of salt marsh every year. To address those concerns, I tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to make national landscapes, such as the one responsible for Chichester harbour, statutory consultees in the planning process. I hope that Bill Committee members on both sides of the House will support it, because places such as Chichester harbour are crying out for a seat at the table so that they can relay their concerns about the planning process for areas of significant scientific importance.

• 13 May 2025 · Local Housing Need Assessment Reform · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse, for the first time, I think. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing this vital debate. My constituency of Chichester has been grappling with serious housing challenges, which have been continually worsened by a deeply flawed planning process. The demand for social housing vastly outstrips supply. Private rentals are prohibitively expensive, and sky-rocketing house prices have made home ownership increasingly out of reach for those who have grown up in my constituency. Housing developments should enhance our communities, delivering affordable, sustainable homes alongside essential infrastructure, but the current approach does the opposite. The standard method for assessing housing need imposes arbitrary national targets on local authorities, which ignore the specific needs and constraints of each area. It fails to deliver genuinely affordable homes and does little to reflect local demand or geography. As my hon. Friend highlighted, the standard method fails to address above-inflation house price rises. Our average house price in Chichester, according to the Office for National Statistics, is £454,000. In just one year, to February 2025, the price of a semi-detached house in Chichester rose by 8.1%, yet Chichester has seen huge-scale development in recent years. Meanwhile, the average salary in my constituency is under £30,000, which is below the UK median. When new homes are delivered, they often enter the market at prices higher than the local median, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) mentioned. That artificially inflates the affordability ratio, which then increases future housing targets, creating a vicious cycle that drives prices even further out of reach. It does nothing to address the real challenges that my constituents face in getting on the housing ladder. Instead, it leaves new developments affordable only to those who are moving into the area, not those already living there. At the same time, councils face an uphill battle in trying to ensure that developments, required by the same standard method, include adequate levels of social and affordable housing. At present, we have over 2,000 families on the wait list for social homes in Chichester. Any development of 11 homes or more is expected to provide at least 10% as affordable housing. Both Chichester and Arun district councils, which sit within my constituency, request 30% social and affordable housing in their local plans to address some of the unmet need locally, but those targets are continuously undermined by viability assessments submitted by the developers, because of the high land prices in our constituency. A recent example is a 2,200 home development to the west of Bersted, approved by Arun district council on the basis that it was included in the Conservative local plan from 2022. There is strong opposition in the community to the proposal, not only because those homes will add to the strain on local infrastructure, but because only 10% of those homes will be “affordable”. The very definition of affordable is fundamentally flawed when even 80% of unaffordable is still unaffordable for so many people. The developer claimed that a higher proportion of social and affordable homes on the site would have made the project commercially unviable, so the council was left with no power to enforce its requested levels of social and affordable houses. That is why I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, calling on the Government to adopt a separate social housing target. I am sure that would be welcomed by local authorities up and down the UK, because they are best placed to know what their communities need, not the developers that are trying to build in them. The standard method also fundamentally fails to consider any geographical constraints, which ties the hands of councils during land allocation. In my area, 70% of Chichester district is covered by national park, with an additional 5% designated as national landscape at Chichester harbour. That means that our ambitious housing target, which has doubled under the Labour Government, must be met within just 25% of available land, yet the housing target remains unadjusted. We need a method for assessing local housing that actually works for communities—one that recognises local constraints, delivers genuinely affordable housing, protects the national landscape and ensures that every development contributes positively to the places that we call home. This will not change until the top-down approach of the standard method for assessing local housing need is reformed to genuinely reflect community need, and until local authorities are given the power to challenge and regulate developers effectively. I beg the Minister to look again at the standard method so that we can truly address the local housing need for areas such as mine in Chichester.

• 12 May 2025 · Draft Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her speech. As she says, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is a world-class regulator that should be innovative, transparent and truly independent, while maintaining high standards and always putting public health first. In recent years, however, confidence in MHRA standards has been undermined by the Primodos, vaginal mesh and infected blood scandals. It is crucial that we ensure that those mistakes are never repeated, and that the MHRA regains the public’s trust. The MHRA has suffered from insufficient staffing levels and inflexibility around funding and resourcing, and patients are the ones paying the price. The Government should aim for nothing less than halving the time in which new treatments reach patients for life-threatening conditions such as cancer. The Liberal Democrats therefore support additional resource for the MHRA, but that must go hand in hand with greater capacity and a stronger service to address past failings. Can the Minister confirm that when the regulations are made, we will see an increase in the speed at which patients receive treatments? Can she tell us when that improvement will be delivered? Concerns were expressed during the consultation that fee hikes, some of which exceed inflation, will stifle innovation and undermine important research. What assurances can the Minister provide that there will be no deterioration in the number or quality of new products? Is she confident that payment waivers and easement measures are sufficient to stop small and medium-sized enterprises significantly cutting back their activity?

• 7 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People · Hansard source

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  With limited time, I will share the voices of some of the 200 constituents who have been in touch with me about the proposed changes to personal independence payments. For example, one worried father, Robert, contacted me on behalf of his son, Richard, who lives with functional neurological disorder. Robert told me how vital PIP is to Richard, who will never be able to work again. They feel completely abandoned by these proposed cuts and, after countless attempts to engage with the Department for Work and Pensions, they feel ignored and disillusioned. Another example is James, who lives with multiple mental health conditions that have left him hospitalised several times in the past. He wrote to me saying: “Nearly all my PIP goes towards paying for my guardian angel carer. Without that support, I would have to move into a supported living arrangement, which would make my mental health problems much worse and I would end up in hospital again. I don’t want to lose my independence as I am just managing with the support I have now.” For James, it is clear that PIP is the difference between managing or entering crisis. Meanwhile, Susan is the sole carer and appointee for several disabled members of her family. Under these proposals, at least two of them would lose all of the support they get. She wrote to me saying: “I honestly am broken, life is hopeless—I can’t feed my family if these cuts go through. Please can you join us in fighting the cuts.” My constituents in Chichester are not asking for special treatment. They are just asking to live with dignity, fairness and, importantly, independence, which is what PIP gives them. The changes are the exact opposite of what the Government claim they want to achieve.

• 6 May 2025 · Eye Care: 10-year Health Plan · Hansard source

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  NHS Sussex ICB is one of only five in England not to commission a minor eye conditions service—known as MECS—in community optometry settings. That means that patients in Chichester with urgent or minor eye issues have to either join the 8 am queue for a GP appointment or go to their hospital rather than being seen quickly on the high street. Given that 99.9% of MECS patients elsewhere in England are seen within 24 hours, will the Minister set out what action he is taking to ensure that those services are commissioned consistently across all ICBs within the 10-year health plan?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Black Maternal Health Awareness Week · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) on securing today’s important and timely debate, following Black Maternal Health Awareness Week earlier this month. Her opening remarks were comprehensive and thoughtful. I am always pleased to hear from the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), who is a passionate advocate for improved maternity services in Nottingham and across the UK; I am pleased to serve on the APPG with her at the helm. Women are at their most vulnerable during pregnancy, as they carry another human life, and they deserve the very best care. They have more touchpoints with the NHS than they will have for most of their lives. We engage with the NHS when we are born and when we need to access care at the end of our lives. When we are carrying a child, we have more moments in front of medical professionals than for the majority of our lives. Following its inspection of 131 maternity units, the Care Quality Commission found that 65% were not safe for women to give birth, 47% required improvement on safety, and 18% were inadequate. The commission warned that it is concerned about the potential normalising of serious harm in maternity care. Those risks are particularly stark for women of colour in this country, for whom pregnancy continues to carry an unacceptable level of danger. As the Darzi report highlighted, black women are almost three times as likely as white women to die during childbirth, while neonatal mortality among the most deprived quintile is more than double that among the least deprived. That is nothing less than a national scandal. Maternity care is an issue close to my heart, having had two very different experiences giving birth in my local hospital in Chichester. I tabled an early-day motion on maternity care and secured a Backbench Business debate in this Chamber on that subject just two months ago. Like the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest, I am in regular contact with Donna Ockenden, who produced the Ockenden report. Her findings, along with those of Dr Bill Kirkup, show that the problems identified at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust and the East Kent trust are not isolated incidents. The same issues are systemic and widespread across many NHS trusts up and down the country. In preparation for the previous debate on maternity services as a whole, I spoke to families across the country who had experienced devastating failures in the system. They went into hospital expecting the joyful outcome of going home with a child, but instead they had to return without their baby, carrying the trauma of that experience for the rest of their lives. As the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill mentioned, the MBRRACE-UK report for 2021 to 2023 confirms that inequalities in maternal mortality rates persist, with a nearly threefold difference among women from black ethnic backgrounds, and an almost twofold difference among women from Asian ethnic backgrounds, compared with white women. Women living in the most deprived areas continue to experience maternal mortality rates that are twice those in the least deprived areas. Care for black women who experience stillbirth or neonatal death is often inadequate. Ethnicity is still not routinely recognised as a risk factor in, for example, the screening and prevention of conditions such as gestational diabetes. Births to black mothers are almost twice as likely to be investigated for NHS safety failings, and black mothers are twice as likely to suffer from perinatal mental illness compared with their white counterparts. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who has long talked about these disparities. She introduced the Miscarriage and Stillbirth (Black and Asian Women) Bill in 2022, which sought to require the Secretary of State to lay annual reports before Parliament on efforts to reduce miscarriage and stillbirth rates among black and Asian women, but unfortunately it was not carried over into the next Session. When so many of our conversations in this House and in the other place are about the economic pressure we are under as a country, it is worth reflecting that, on top of the enormous human toll of this issue, failure also has a financial cost. Obstetric claims make up just 13% of clinical negligence cases handled by NHS Resolution, but they cost more than £1 billion a year, which is nearly 60% of the total cost. Across the country, families face unbearable grief and trauma because of failures in maternity care, and that burden is falling disproportionately on black women and families. We Liberal Democrats are committed to transforming maternity services to make the UK the safest place in the world to have a baby, and we fully support the work of Black Maternal Health Awareness Week in drawing attention to these critical issues. Our general election manifesto pledged to revolutionise perinatal mental health support, not only for those currently pregnant and for new mothers but for those who have endured miscarriage or stillbirth. We have been clear that the Government must, as a priority of the highest urgency, implement all the immediate and essential actions recommended by the Ockenden report. It is deeply concerning that, years after the tragedies at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust and the East Kent trust, failures are still widespread and efforts to address them appear piecemeal. When my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) recently questioned the Department on the implementation of the Ockenden recommendations, it was alarming that it could not confirm whether the actions had been implemented, nor did it appear to have a system for centrally monitoring the progress. The Minister pointed to the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services as the Department’s main response. Deeper analysis shows serious shortcomings. Many measures in the plan have no meaningful numerical targets, which makes real accountability for the difference made by the plan very hard to track. Targets for expanding access to perinatal mental health support are being missed, even as some improvement is noted, and staff satisfaction indicators remain worryingly low, with some measures still recording fewer than half of staff expressing confidence in educational opportunities or in their management’s response to unsafe practices. The target set in 2010 to halve maternal mortality looks increasingly out of reach. Maternal mortality rates did not fall for a decade, and they actually increased between 2021 and 2023. Worse still, no updated data has been published for the last two years on the rates of serious brain injury, stillbirth, neonatal mortality or preterm birth. Without transparency and accountability, women will continue to be failed, and black women, who already bear the brunt of the disparities, will continue to be disproportionately harmed. That is why I ask the Minister to commit to reviewing these issues urgently, to meet me and my colleagues from the Liberal Democrat health team to discuss a more effective plan to improve maternity safety, and to set out a clear path to address the deep disparities in black maternal health. Alongside that, the Liberal Democrats are calling for a cross-Government strategy, led by the Department of Health and Social Care, with annual progress reports on reducing miscarriage and stillbirth rates among ethnic minorities. We also call for increased funding for public health initiatives, with a portion earmarked to allow communities facing the worst health inequalities to co-produce solutions tailored to their specific needs. We propose the establishment of a health creation unit in the Cabinet Office to lead work across Government to improve health and tackle inequalities. Black women have waited too long for their concerns to be heard, for the system to change and for justice to be done. We owe it to them and to every woman, family and baby in this country to get maternity services right. No woman should fear for her life or her child’s life because of the colour of her skin or the postcode that she lives in. We have to do better.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Construction Skills Training · Hansard source

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  Further education colleges such as Chichester college in my constituency are vital to the delivery of construction apprenticeships and skills training. Many colleges, however, have raised a concern with me that a loophole in the last Government’s Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, which brought colleges back into the public sector, means that they cannot go out and get public investment into their colleges. What is the Minister doing to address their concerns and ensure that FE colleges can invest in the facilities and courses needed to train our future construction workforce?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  Chichester harbour in my constituency is the largest recreational boating harbour in Europe, but the damage being done to its ecosystem is stark. A recent study by the Clean Harbours Partnership found 105 pharmaceuticals, pesticides and recreational drugs in the water, with the amounts going up 100 times directly after a sewage spill. Does my hon. Friend agree that tourism is incredibly important for areas such as his and mine, and that therefore we must have clean water?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Onshore Wind and Solar Generation · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member support the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), aptly named the sunshine Bill, which would make solar panels mandatory on the roof of all new homes?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Whiplash Injury Compensation · Hansard source

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  The changes today are simple: the compensation tariffs for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in whiplash claims are being uplifted by approximately 15% to reflect inflation since the original 2021 figures were set, with a buffer to account for future inflation. These updates are welcome, but also present us with an opportunity to reflect on the broader balance we strike between tackling fraud and protecting the rights of those with legitimate injuries. Whiplash has long been a contentious area of UK personal injury law. We have one of the highest rates of whiplash claims in the world, which has undoubtedly contributed to the rise in motor insurance costs, and whiplash claims have historically added billions of pounds to insurance costs. In my constituency of Chichester, the picture is particularly concerning. According to a study by the Driving Instructors Association, Chichester is now the most accident-prone city in the UK, reporting 232 accidents per 100,000 residents, which is 54% higher than the national average. Even more alarmingly, Chichester has the highest fatality rate of any city, at 5.6 fatal accidents per 100,000 residents. These are not just statistics; they are lives lost and families changed forever. That underlines the real-world impact of road safety and why fair, accessible compensation for those injured on our roads is vital. The 2021 reforms that introduced fixed tariffs and mandatory medical assessments have had an impact, and the number of whiplash claims has declined, but whiplash still accounts for a large share of personal injury claims, and the need to ensure fairness in the system remains. We must remember that behind every claim is a person, often in pain, unable to work, potentially scared to go back out on the roads and navigating an unfamiliar legal system. For them, the process must be simple, fair and accessible. Victims should never be discouraged from seeking rightful compensation because of excessive bureaucracy or overly rigid procedures. That is why the Liberal Democrats have consistently advocated for a balanced approach. During debate on the Civil Liability Act 2018, my colleagues in the other place, Lord Sharkey and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, worked hard to push for stronger safeguards. They argued that the definition of “whiplash injury” should be written into primary legislation to allow full parliamentary scrutiny, and they pushed for compensation to be based on Judicial College guidelines, not simply on fixed tariffs, to preserve judicial discretion and to reflect the severity of injuries. They also urged the previous Government to ensure that any savings made from reducing fraudulent claims are passed on to consumers through lower insurance premiums—a promise that the insurance industry has been slow to honour and which is certainly not reflected in the consumer experience. We also look forward to the findings of the review on whether those savings have been delivered to customers. We continue to support a system that is firm on fraud but fair to victims. Yes, we need robust safeguards, such as mandatory medical assessments and closer co-ordination between regulators, insurers and law enforcement to root out dishonest claims, but that must not come at the expense of those with genuine injuries. It is critical that review mechanisms are in place not just to track inflation, but to assess whether the tariff system continues to serve justice. We believe that the Government must do more to simplify the claims process, particularly for those who do not have or cannot access legal representation. The updated tariff is a necessary correction for inflation, but it must not be seen as the end of the matter. The long-term success of the system depends on three things: maintaining fairness for claimants, preserving judicial discretion where needed and ensuring that promised savings are felt by customers. We must remain focused on people, not just on policy.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  John, my constituent in Chichester, is 12. He sent an email to Beacon House, a therapy provider in Chichester, which said: “I’m really sad and worried that I won’t be able to see Becky any more.”— Becky is his therapist. The email continued: “Can someone please tell me how to not feel so sad?” John will be delighted that his support from Becky will continue, but the lack of clarity has been felt acutely by vulnerable families, who find uncertainty incredibly triggering. Will the Minister please provide clarity on the Floor of the House today—that we will not be back here next year having the same discussion?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Eating Disorder Awareness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing today’s important debate and for her tireless work over six years as chair of the all-party group on eating disorders. She has been a consistent and compassionate advocate for better awareness, better services and better outcomes for those affected. I am also pleased to see the Minister’s sharp elbows here in Westminster Hall today, as described by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Eating disorders are among the most serious and complex mental health illnesses. As the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) pointed out, it is estimated that more than 1.2 million people across the UK are living with an eating disorder, and, tragically, eating disorders carry the highest mortality rate of any mental health condition. Instead of stepping up to meet the scale of the crisis, however, services are being cut. The statistics are shocking: in 2023 the proportion of 11 to 16-year-olds with an eating disorder had risen fivefold from 2017, and among 17 to 19-year-olds the rate had surged from 1.8% to 12.5% over the same period. Girls are disproportionately affected, with rates four times higher than boys, although we are seeing a concerning trend of more males suffering with eating disorders, as highlighted by the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters). As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) said, numbers across the UK have risen dramatically since the pandemic, but behind each of those numbers are young people whose lives, education and futures are being taken away from them by this illness. Hospital admissions for eating disorders have doubled over the past decade, yet the national treatment targets set under the previous Conservative Government in 2019—for 95% of urgent cases to be seen within one week and 95% of routine cases within four—were dropped by that same Administration under the 2024-25 mental health national priorities, or success measures, and have not been reintroduced by the current Labour Government. That is a moral failure and it must be reversed. Instead, most areas in England are planning real-term cuts in eating disorder provision. As many Members have highlighted, 24 of the 42 integrated care boards across the NHS in England are projected to reduce their spending for under-18s in 2024-25 once inflation is factored in. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that even current levels of funding are too low to cope with the rising demand. Cutting further will only make the crisis worse. We must understand the true cost of inaction. Eating disorders strip people of their health, their relationships, their adolescence and, in too many cases, their lives. Still, many people are being told they are not thin enough to receive care. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) for his speech reflecting his experience, and that of parents across the UK, of waiting for a child to hit an arbitrary target on a scale that suggests that their mental health is bad enough to get the help that they so desperately need. We know that early intervention is effective. If people are not believed or not seen as ill enough, they are left to deteriorate until a crisis becomes a tragedy. The crisis is being compounded by the influence of social media and online platforms. As the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) told us, it is a “crisis of modernity” and of the increased societal pressures on our young people. Recent research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that algorithms on platforms such as YouTube are actively recommending harmful eating disorder-related content to young users. These are not passive platforms. They are powerful tools that are shaping the mental health of our children, and they must be held to account. I do not identify as a young person any more—my children definitely do not identify me as a young person—but I see it on my algorithms. I actively seek out body-positive profiles and yet what appears on my feed is people telling me that I can lose weight in 28 days, or shape myself for summer. Our young people see this all too often and think it is the norm. We as Liberal Democrats believe that addressing the crisis requires a bold and evidence-led strategy. That means building specialist support into the NHS, not as a niche service but as a fundamental part of mental health care. It means embedding early intervention through mental health hubs in every community, so that young people can access help long before they reach crisis point. We are calling for mental health check-ups or a mental health MOT at key points in people’s lives, when they are most vulnerable to developing serious illnesses. We believe every school should have a dedicated mental health professional so that children can get support early and in a familiar environment, without stigma or delay. Lastly, we must also recognise the crucial role of families. Unpaid carers, parents, siblings, partners and children are often left to navigate a fragmented and under-resourced system alone. As the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) mentioned, the Government must work with and not against carers to expand the support they need and deserve. No parent should have to fight for their child to be taken seriously. I saw that fight in my own patch of Chichester, where a mother had to leave work for two hours every day to go to her child’s school to sit in a room with them so that they were supported to eat their lunch. The school could not facilitate a member of staff to sit with that child, who was tackling a very serious eating disorder but who was desperate to stay in school. Campaigners like Hope Virgo have done an extraordinary job of raising awareness, but it should not always fall to campaigners and grieving families to fill the gaps left by Government inaction. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Bath in calling for the exploration of an eating disorder national strategy. This is a national crisis and it is costing lives. The Government must listen to those on the frontlines—patients, carers, clinicians and campaigners. They are not calling for sympathy. They just want action, and we owe it to them to respond.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  The Chichester-based charity My Sisters’ House gave vital wraparound trauma-informed support to 28 women in 2015. Last year, it supported more than 1,700 women. The charity has raised the ongoing issue of cross-allegations, whereby abusers are falsely accusing their victims as a means of keeping the control and the emotional abuse going. What steps is the Home Secretary taking with the Justice Secretary to ensure that the system properly recognises this form of continued abuse and protects victims from being retraumatised?