Jess Brown-Fuller MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Infant Feeding · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that these women have often been embedded in their communities for many years, helping women to raise their babies, and that they go on to do marvellous things in the community. The majority of those who stop breastfeeding early wanted to breastfeed for longer, but did not receive the help they needed to resolve problems, all of which could be addressed with support from trained health workers, skilled peer supporters or specialist help in hospital, at home or in the community. The World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative report highlights the absence of national policy and governance in England. The devolved nations have pulled ahead on this front, with Scotland publishing a strategic framework, Wales having had an action plan since 2019 and Northern Ireland currently finalising its strategy. Support needs to be baked into policy and legislation because communities cannot do this alone. It being so early in this Parliament, the Government have all the opportunities to act. I was delighted to see today’s announcement of a review of the parental leave and pay system, and I hope that infant feeding will play into the considerations of better support for parents on maternity and paternity leave. Health visitor teams have also dwindled over recent years, and an estimated 54,000 GP appointments could be saved every year if a professional feeding service was available in every community. Any strategy must be properly funded and integrated with current programmes across communities and healthcare settings, such as family hubs and Start for Life, which should themselves be expanded, particularly Start for Life, which is funded only in half of England’s local authorities. Some councils are choosing to make this an area to improve on, and I am pleased to see my local authority—West Sussex county council—include the early years as part of its health strategy for the next five years, even without the Start for Life funding, which it does not receive. I would like to use an example of a mother who got in touch just last week to share her story. She had a traumatic birth with unexpected interventions. Her baby was quickly fed formula by hospital staff. The pump kit did not work in the hospital, and no meaningful help was available. She wants to feed her baby herself. She looked online when she got home to find help nearby, but there was nothing less than an hour away by car. She is struggling with which formula to use and does not understand the differences between them. She does not know other women with babies. She is feeling lost and isolated. Social media is full of conflicting advice, so she has gone out of the area for paid support, which she cannot afford on maternity pay, to help her try to regain a sense of reality. I am sure this lady’s story is the same for parents across the country. If the reasons I have highlighted are not compelling enough, maybe the economic impact is. UK research back in 2012 on the costs of four diseases showed that even reaching moderate breastfeeding levels could save the NHS millions, and that the implementation of proven breastfeeding support systems would pay for itself within a year. For babies, breastfeeding strengthens the immune system and significantly reduces the risk of infections, obesity, asthma and long-term conditions, such as type 2 diabetes. For the mother, breastfeeding lowers the risk of breast and ovarian cancers and cardiovascular disease, and supports post-natal mental health. I could say much more, but instead I will move to my asks of this Government. When will the Government make their decision on whether they will accept the 11 recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority? Will the Minister consider following the devolved nations and introduce a comprehensive national infant feeding strategy to end the postcode lottery and provide support to all parents in their feeding journeys? Can we expect to see something about infant feeding in the upcoming NHS 10-year plan? Finally, there is little about breastfeeding in most health professionals training, but primary care has successfully integrated assisted roles into services such as pharmacists and social prescribers. Could the same model be extended to lactation consultants? I would like to finish by thanking all those tireless activists and campaigners who have been fighting for all women to have support, guidance and trusted information when they begin motherhood. I will not risk trying to name them all as I will no doubt miss some, but a special thank you goes to the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative steering group, First Steps Nutrition Trust and the former hon. Member for Glasgow Central who chaired the APPG before the general election.

• 26 Jun 2025 · IVF Egg Donation: Young Women · Hansard source

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  That is exactly why the hon. Member for Strangford brought forward this debate, and we share his concerns that any attempt to create a market for egg donation could lead to perverse outcomes. Advertising for egg donors to come forward should reflect that, stressing the benefits to others rather than attempting to frame compensation as a primary motivation to donate. We must ensure that women donating eggs do so willingly, not out of financial necessity, and are provided with appropriate support throughout the process. It is right that the donors clinic is required by law to offer counselling, but the Government should investigate whether additional steps are needed to ensure proper medical regulation of that counselling, beyond what is already provided by the Professional Standards Authority. Is the Minister satisfied that the Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority are adequately resourced and have sufficient capacity to uphold essential regulations in this area? I will briefly touch on an equally complex and emotionally charged topic: surrogacy and legal parenthood from the point of birth. For the sake of the child, the surrogate and the legal parents, the matter needs to be handled with great sensitivity. The Liberal Democrats believe that all potential cases regarding legal parenthood of a new baby must ensure that the wellbeing of all involved is balanced and respected. There are, understandably, concerns about financial incentives for surrogates. For example, the Law Commission found that there is a lack of clarity about what payments can be made by the intended parents to the surrogate, which makes the law difficult to apply in practice. We believe that any proposed legislation should be published and subject to scrutiny before any changes to current practice are made. So many lives around the world have been transformed by the miracle that is IVF, but there remains much work to be done to address the inequalities in NHS provision, end the postcode lottery, and ensure that lesbian couples have access to IVF fairly. We must also ensure that donors are not unduly influenced by exploitative marketing, and we hope the Government will take action following the debate to investigate that.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 12 Mar 2025 · Housing Development Planning: Water Companies · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing today’s important and timely debate on an issue that is critical for my constituents in Chichester and for people up and down the country. The challenges facing our water infrastructure are well documented, and waste water treatment works across the country have been operating well beyond their capacity for years, with serious consequences. During the general election, I knocked on the door of a lady in my constituency called Alison, who I had not seen in many years. She is a wheelchair user, and she told me how delighted she was to have been moved to a new social home. She had lived there happily for two and a half years until a new development was built in the field just next door. Suddenly her toilets no longer flushed, and she had no access to her wet room. When she spoke to her water company about sewage rising up in her toilet, it recommended that she go to the local pub to use its facilities. That is totally unacceptable for Alison and for every single constituent facing such situations. When our systems become overwhelmed, storm overflows and sewage spills pollute our rivers, harbours and coastline—failures that are visible nationwide. Water companies have a duty not only to provide clean water, but to manage waste water safely and effectively. Yet the system has been failing for many years. In my constituency alone, there were 990 recorded sewage spills last year, which lasted over 17,000 hours.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Maternity Services · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the case of Dan and Fiona. I was lucky enough to have them give up their time to share their heartbreaking story with me. They are at the forefront of the fight for an independent inquiry in Leeds. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that he would look at whether there is cause for an investigation but those families are still waiting to find out if that will go ahead. I met with families like Dan and Fiona to ensure that the questions I ask the Minister today are the questions that those families would ask if they had the opportunity. I cannot begin to imagine how exhausting it is to relive the moments that their lives changed forever, over and over again, in the pursuit of better outcomes for the next family. I will include a number of their questions to the Minister in my closing remarks, but I reflect that the families who were able to share their experiences with me were, overwhelmingly, white, middle class, often highly educated and that many had medical backgrounds or academic careers before going through this trauma. Lord Darzi’s report found that black women are almost three times as likely to die in childbirth as white women and that neonatal mortality in the most deprived areas is more than double that in the least deprived. Who speaks up for those families? Who ensures transparency and accountability for those with a fundamental distrust of the medical profession, or those who have learning disabilities, or English as their second language, because those people are not supported in navigating the complex systems that are in place? Negligence claims in obstetrics account for just 13% of the volume of litigation received by NHS Resolution in 2023-24 but cost over £1 billion every year—nearly 60% of the total cost of clinical negligence claims. Beyond financial costs, those failures carry a devastating human toll. If we truly invest in our maternity services, in both professionals and facilities, more than money is saved; lives are saved. In conclusion, I would like to ask the following questions of the Minister. First, the previous Government were supportive of the Ockenden review, and previous health Ministers had made assurances that maternity services were going to get the support they desperately needed. I know the Secretary of State for Health is supportive of the Ockenden review and has met many bereaved parents since the general election. He has assured those parents that fixing maternity is a priority for the Government, and that actions would be outlined publicly before Christmas 2024. He came back shortly after Christmas saying they needed more time. That response is now two months overdue. Can the Minister assure me that those families will hear an update in the near future? Do the Government support all the Ockenden report’s immediate and essential actions arising from the review into the Shrewsbury and Telford trust? How will the Government ensure that all integrated care boards and trusts across the UK implement all the actions? What support will be provided to the trusts to achieve that, and prevent a postcode lottery of maternity care? If those IEAs are implemented, what will be the Government’s measure of success? We currently have no national data regarding preventable deaths. It is the charitable sector that has determined that more than 800 baby deaths a year could have been prevented. One of the IEAs is a long-term plan to secure a safe maternity workforce and improve training. Can we expect to see maternity care professionals, including neonatologists, obstetricians and anaesthetists, included alongside midwifery colleagues in the refresh of the 10-year workforce plan for the NHS? An overriding theme in my conversations with bereaved parents was the CQC’s hesitancy to prosecute. Cases were often supported in the first instance, but families were then informed, just days before the three-year statute of limitations expired, that the CQC would no longer be seeking a prosecution, with the families having no time to appeal that decision. Does the Minister believe that a three-year statute of limitations is appropriate when families dealing with bereavement are often not even considering a case in the first 12 months? Does the Minister have any concerns about the CQC’s ability as a regulator? Or does she agree with the parents that there is a reluctance to prosecute by the leadership of CQC when there have been failures in patient care? Does the Minister support calls from Sands and Tommy’s charities for all triage phonelines to be recorded, as currently they are not? Finally, parents repeatedly reported to me that the bereavement care they received felt like a tick-box exercise, with a lot of focus on the mother and a lack of communication and support for the father, when both have suffered that bereavement. Does the Minister agree that communication could be vastly improved across maternity services in all cases, so that both parents have the opportunity to understand what happened in those most vulnerable hours? I would like to finish by thanking every Member who has come to talk about this important issue. I also thank Donna Ockenden and all who contributed to the creation of the review. My greatest thanks go to all the families who gave up their time to share their stories with me, reminding me that those babies were people, not statistics. They are loved, they are missed, and they deserved better.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for securing today’s important debate. I think we can agree across the House that this debate is really about the workers, and the disproportionate effect that outsourcing has on some—especially those in the BAME community, as the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned. Time and again, we have seen examples of Government Departments outsourcing their obligations to others who have failed to fulfil their duties, representing poor value for money for the public. Examples of such systemic failures include procurement issues in the NHS, poor accommodation standards in the military, and failing, poorly designed programmes for tutoring in English schools. In 2022-23, the public sector spent around £326 billion—29% of its total spending—buying goods and services from the private sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) reflected, that creates monopolies in the private sector, so support in the public sector is totally eroded and it is unable to provide those services any more. As the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) said, this means that a third of taxpayer money is now being spent on outsourcing. In the light of those figures, we must ensure that public procurement processes do not undermine confidence in our institutions, especially following years of a Conservative Government that caused significant damage to public trust in politics and public institutions. Let me give an example of the lack of accountability that the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth talked about. With local authorities reneging on their responsibilities to manage new roads, land management companies such as FirstPort come in and charge excessive fees to homeowners. Politicians of all parties—the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats—have hauled that company in to say, “You are treating your householders poorly,” but how do we actually hold them to account if they are a private company providing a private service? Nothing will change unless we bring the service back in house. During the covid pandemic, there were clear failures in procurement processes, particularly through the use of VIP lanes for Government contracts. That led to £9 billion being wasted on personal protective equipment that had to be written off, and £2.6 billion being spent on items deemed not suitable for the NHS, which accounted for one in 10 items purchased overall. It is imperative that robust rules are in place to guarantee that vital public spending is conducted effectively, efficiently and transparently, and that scandals like the misuse of VIP lanes will be avoided. There are huge opportunities in the NHS to get this right. The Government should investigate the merits of national commissioning and procurement of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-approved digital technology, devices and diagnostics, much like is currently done for medicines. There are fantastic examples of integrated care boards using commissioned services that have improved patient experience and created a more joined-up health pathway, but we do not see those best-practice models rolled out across the whole of our healthcare service, because of the fragmented approach to procurement, with individual ICBs doing their own commissioning. Far from restricting choice for local NHS trusts, cutting the cost of new tech and digital services could make them available for the first time in areas where they currently are not available. Care boards often have to commission such innovations and services from companies separately, causing a far greater overall cost. As many Members have said today, we have no evidence that commissioning services out actually saves the public sector any money at all. The NHS has huge buying power and the Government should make the most of it to improve patient treatment. Commissioning based on NICE guidelines could also help clinicians to better determine which devices or digital innovations work best for their patients. Something that is often missed when we talk about outsourcing is that frontline services in healthcare are already all outsourced. Nobody working in the frontline of our healthcare professions is employed directly by the NHS. Our general practitioners, pharmacists, dentists and audiologists are all outsourced; they are all part of private companies. I recently saw the real effect of that, when a GP federation that provided doctors across my constituency and the wider area fell apart. Suddenly, lots of doctors who, as far as they were concerned, worked for the NHS were out of work with no recompense. We know that we have a crisis and that we need doctors on the frontline providing general practice services, but when that private company collapsed, there was nothing available for those doctors, even though they had always felt that they were part of the NHS. The Liberal Democrats also really want to improve the standard of Ministry of Defence housing by reviewing outsourced housing and maintenance contracts, which have represented poor value for money, leading to inadequate accommodation for our service personnel. The facilities are often outsourced, too, as the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) said. The Thorney Island barracks in my constituency have long called for improvements to accommodation and infrastructure facilities, so I was glad to hear about plans for new accommodation to be constructed there later this year. However, too many of our service personnel across the country have to put up with homes leaking sewage, inadequate rooms for their families and a lack of basic information about when improvements will be forthcoming. The MOD has historically failed to get good value for money from its management of contracts for service family accommodation, which it leases from Annington Property Ltd. In the 1990s, the Conservative Government sold off MOD accommodation to Annington, which made £550 million in profit in 2021, but the MOD is still responsible for the upkeep of the properties, with five maintenance contracts worth £640 million being established in 2022. We welcome the Government’s commitment to reviewing outsourced services through public interest tests to prevent a recurrence of scandals such as the PPE debacle and the challenges faced in MOD housing provision, but it is essential that outsourcing occurs with full transparency from Government Departments, to ensure that deals struck represent good value for money for the public and are not handouts to “VIPs” without a proper process in place. The Liberal Democrats would also ensure that Ministers received annual training to prevent further scandals about standards, and we would enshrine the ministerial code in legislation. We will continue to call for measures that strengthen tests to prevent misuse of public funds, in order to rebuild trust in our institutions.

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for introducing this important debate on our first day back after Christmas. I also thank all hon. Members from across the House who have contributed to the debate, and specifically the hon. Members for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) and for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), who always bring really valuable contributions because of their background and current professions; it is very much appreciated when talking about the NHS. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire highlighted in her opening remarks that backlogs are not just about NHS waiting lists, but that there are also problems with mental health backlogs, handover delays, A&E waits, poor access to dentistry, GP appointments, cancer treatment waiting times and staff that are being driven from the NHS because they cannot provide the care they want to give. Our healthcare system remains the No. 1 issue that I am contacted about. It is not unreasonable for my constituents and people across the country to expect to receive the care they need when and where they need it. I doubt there are many people who have not been affected or know somebody who has been affected by NHS backlogs. Indeed my dad struggled for months to get a face-to-face GP appointment for what he believed was a return of a hiatus hernia. By the time he saw his GP and was referred, the oesophageal cancer that he had was so progressed that palliative care was the only option for him and he passed away shortly after being diagnosed in 2021. When I asked my constituents to get in touch with examples of personal experiences of the NHS backlogs, I was inundated with emails from people across Chichester, and I will share some of those with the House. I have Jane, who was at high risk of bowel cancer due to living with ulcerative colitis. She is meant to see her consultant every six months but has not had an appointment since 2019, despite her GP trying on her behalf on multiple occasions. She has no idea if the polyps discovered in 2017 have turned cancerous and is living in constant fear of her health deteriorating further. Ian got in touch after waiting over a year to receive a scan after he experienced extreme chest pain. The scan revealed heart disease, but the lack of any follow-up appointments has left him anxious and uncertain about his health. I will also mention a good friend of mine, Rylee, who noticed irregular bruising and a physical change on the back of their leg in 2021 and was finding it harder to walk. After visiting the GP, who sent an urgent referral to the hospital, Rylee waited for months only to discover when chasing the hospital that the referral had gone to the wrong place. They then got added to the waiting list and were told the wait would be between 40 and 50 weeks. We are four years on from the initial changes to Rylee’s leg, and they are finally being treated by leading specialists as Rylee can no longer walk unaided. Amputation of their leg is now being considered. If Rylee had been seen within the expected window of an urgent referral, they would not be facing the prospect of losing their leg in their mid-20s. These are just a few examples of what is a much larger picture of the NHS, with caring and compassionate staff working within it who are overstretched and overburdened and, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, who cannot provide the care they desperately want to because of a system that cannot meet the demand. The Liberal Democrats recognise that this is an inherited problem; indeed, the key NHS waiting times standards have not been met for some years. The number of patients waiting longer than four hours in A&E rose consistently between 2015 and 2020. The 62-day waiting time for standard cancer treatment has not been met in recent years, and the consultant-led treatment target in England of 18 weeks has not been met in 2016. The last Conservative Government left emergency care in a deep crisis. The Darzi review stated that 800 working days were lost every day to handover delays in 2024. Last winter, ambulances across England collectively spent a total of 112 years waiting outside hospitals to hand patients over. In 2024, more than 1 million patients faced waits of more than 12 hours in A&E. The Liberal Democrats welcome new investment in the NHS, but instead of spending money firefighting crisis after crisis, we would invest to save taxpayers’ money in the long run. We would do that by investing in the front door and the back door: in primary care, with GPs and dentists, and by reforming social care. Some of my constituents would like it noted that they will not be counted on any statistics regarding backlogs, because they cannot get a GP appointment to even get on the backlog list. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for everyone to have the right to see their GP within seven days, or 24 hours if it is urgent, with a 24/7 booking system to end the 8 am phone-call lottery to get an appointment. We would also ensure that everybody over the age of 70 and those with a long-term condition have access to a named GP. We would fix the back door and address the social care crisis now, rather than spending another three years commissioning a report that will find out what we already know: social care is in urgent need of reform. The Darzi review showed that inadequate social care accounts for 13% of hospital bed occupancy, meaning that people who desperately want to get home cannot because of the lack of social care packages available and that others deteriorate at home, because they cannot access the social care they need. In the past year, more than half of all requests for social care were unsuccessful. We would strengthen our emergency services to reduce excessive handover delays by increasing the number of staffed hospital beds and calling for a qualified clinician in every A&E waiting room to ensure that any deteriorating conditions are picked up on to prevent tragic avoidable incidents. I once again thank the hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire for bringing forward this incredibly important debate, and I thank those Members who contributed to a conversation that matters to my constituents in Chichester and to people across the country.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Future of Farming · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that it is a series of things, compounded on top of each other, making our farmers feel totally let down. They felt ignored by the Conservative Government for years. When Labour stood on a manifesto pledge of change, farmers did not think this would be the change they were promised. Farmers in Chichester and across the UK deserve better. They are critical to our food supply, environment and rural way of life. I urge the Government: please stop undermining them and start supporting them. Let us work together to ensure that farming remains a thriving and sustainable pillar of our nation for generations to come. I call on the Government to look at the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto pledges, such as a £1 billion increase in the farming budget to support sustainable agriculture, the renegotiation of our trade agreements to protect British farmers from being undercut by imports failing to meet UK standards, and a reinstatement of the capital grants scheme to support environmentally friendly farming practices. I am aware that many Members want to speak, so I will leave it there.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Infant Formula Regulations · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for bringing forward this important debate and allowing me to intervene briefly. A recent Competition and Markets Authority report highlighted the insufficient marketing regulations in the formula industry, which enable brands to exploit vulnerable parents by presenting their products as distinct or superior, despite all formulas being required to meet the same nutritional standards, whether the box costs £7 or £14. Does he agree that an NHS-branded formula in plain packaging could be considered? It could be sold at cost price. That would give those families who choose not to, or who cannot, breastfeed confidence that their decision is best for their child, regardless of the cost.

• 12 Nov 2024 · National Youth Strategy · Hansard source

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  I am pleased that the Secretary of State’s statement talked of widening the Creative Careers programme. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for performing arts education and a proud graduate of Chichester University with a creative degree, I am living proof that a creative degree can take people many places, including Parliament. I am sure the Culture Secretary agrees that the narrow nature of the English baccalaureate is reducing the take-up of creative qualifications among our young people. How soon can we expect reform in that area?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Living Standards · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the Treasury was pleased to receive £1.5 billion in a windfall tax from Octopus Energy. Would the Chancellor consider using that money to reinstate the winter fuel allowance for one year until the Treasury has had the opportunity to find a better system of means-testing, so that my vulnerable residents and pensioners in Chichester are not falling off a cliff edge this winter?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for securing today’s timely debate, on a day when the Secretary of State has made a statement in the House to announce an independent water commission. As I said during his statement earlier, the promise to fundamentally transform our water industry and clean up our waterways for good is welcomed and celebrated across the House. Our lakes and rivers are national treasures, yet water company executives have been degrading these resources to protect their own profits and shareholders, even while the companies themselves are drowning in debt. The water system in England is at breaking point and water companies are not being held accountable for one of the worst environmental crises in the UK—the dumping of sewage into our rivers and lakes, and along our coastline. My hon. Friend said in his opening remarks that Ofwat has fined four or five water companies billions of pounds, but currently it has not collected a penny. The damage done by these water companies is nowhere more apparent than in Chichester harbour, which is a site of special scientific interest and a national landscape but it is in unfavourable and declining condition, and desperately needs ambition to protect it. The British public pay those companies not only to provide us with clean water but to ensure that there are safe and clean processes for waste water and sewage, while protecting our environment. Storm overflows are supposed to be exceptional, not the norm. During my election campaign, on the doorsteps I saw a real passion among constituents for addressing the problem of water pollution and sewage dumping. It has been a pleasure to meet passionate environmental campaigners across the constituency, such as Friends of the Ems and the group carrying out citizen science on the River Lavant. The Ems and the Lavant are both precious chalk streams. The UK is lagging far behind other European countries in water quality and the safety of our waterways, and our polluted rivers and lakes are becoming an anomaly. At the time of privatisation, water companies were debt-free. However, over the past 35 years, as inflation and interest rates have risen, the debt burden on UK water companies, including Southern Water which serves my constituency, has grown significantly, in particular because much of that debt is linked to the retail price index. Borrowings across the sector now total about £68 billion and yet, during the same period, water companies have paid at least £78 billion in dividends to shareholders. Earlier this month, an investor presentation posted on Southern Water’s website revealed that the company is seeking to borrow up to £4 billion from investors to offset £3.8 billion in debt over the next five years. In addition, the company has proposed a staggering 73% increase in household bills over the same period. To mitigate its debt, Southern Water is planning large-scale investment in the Havant Thicket reservoir, which would introduce recycled waste water into a spring-fed drinking water supply through a process called reverse osmosis. The process has never been used for drinking water in the UK before, and is typically found in severely water-stressed landlocked countries. Although the south-east has been designated officially as water-stressed, and we need to see reform to reduce abstraction on rivers such as the Ems, smaller and more environmentally sustainable solutions are available, but they are not being explored, because they cannot be offset against the company’s debt.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  Today marks the first Liberal Democrat Opposition day in this House for 15 years, and we have dedicated it to the topics that are fundamental to constituents up and down the country: carers, the provision of care, and the NHS. As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on hospitals and primary care, it is my honour to close today’s debate and to pay tribute to the many excellent contributions from my hon. Friends and hon. Members across the House. I commend my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Ian Roome), for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley), and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) for their passionate tributes to their constituencies in their maiden speeches. I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), and for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), who bring such valuable knowledge to the Chamber during debates on healthcare. Our NHS was once the envy of the world. The care, compassion and accessibility that it offered were unparalleled. Sadly, after years of Conservative mismanagement, our NHS and care sector are in crisis. Every day, thousands of patients face agonisingly long waits, often in terrible pain, while trying to see a GP or get an appointment with a dentist. Lord Darzi’s report highlights the fact that primary care services are heavily underfunded, which is leading to unnecessary hospital admissions. There are clear economic benefits to investing more in primary care. With the first Budget of the new Government due to come to the House soon, I remind the Chancellor that every £1 spent in primary care is estimated to save £10 in urgent and secondary care. In my constituency of Chichester, people are deeply worried about accessing GPs, a concern echoed throughout the general election campaign and reflected in my surgery appointments with residents. The public’s trust in the NHS has been eroded due to the consequences of poor Conservative management. As my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) pointed out, the Conservative Government promised 6,000 more GPs in 2019, but instead GP numbers have fallen by almost 500 and GP practice funding has been cut by £350 million in real terms since 2019. Healthcare is not a luxury; it is a necessity. As Liberal Democrats, we believe everyone should have a legal right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours if it is urgent, so we would pledge to recruit 8,000 more GPs to deliver on this promise. We also want those over 70 and those with long-term conditions to have access to a named GP, ensuring continuity of care, which helps to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. As the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), mentioned, continuity of care is vital for patient trust and staff morale. This is not the first time I have mentioned this in the Chamber to the Secretary of State, but the collapse of a not-for-profit GP federation serving Chichester and the south coast last month was a stark reminder of the system’s fragility. Patients’ appointments were cancelled, services were threatened and 130 staff were left unpaid. The collapse was due to the erosion of contract values with primary care networks and NHS Sussex. When GPs are sitting in my surgery telling me they want to work but they cannot, with no reassurance that they will be paid for the work that they have done, something has gone terribly wrong. Dental care is another critical area within primary care. We have heard today about dental deserts across the country. During this afternoon’s debate, I began trying to list every Member who mentioned their dental desert and I gave up. It was shocking to hear the statistics and the harrowing case studies from across the House. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a dental rescue package that includes investment in more dental appointments, reforming the broken NHS dental contract and using flexible commissioning to meet patient needs. Workforce planning for health and social care must also be written into law, ensuring that we have enough dentists to meet demand. Lastly, we must reverse the Conservatives’ cuts to public health grants, in order to support preventive dental care, including oral health programmes and promoting healthy eating choices, which will reduce the pressure on our NHS dental services. The Government have an opportunity to turn around a decade of Conservative chaos and mismanagement of our precious NHS and to give primary care the attention and focus it deserves, and we will work constructively with them to ensure that patients in Chichester and across the country get the care that they deserve.

• 30 Jul 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is wonderful to see you take your place in the Chair. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh (David Burton-Sampson), who spoke passionately about his constituency and about embracing all that we have in common rather than that which divides us. It was interesting to hear that he lives in the seventh sunniest place. I look forward to coming back to that point later in my speech. It is an honour to address the Chamber as the newly elected Member of Parliament for the beautiful Chichester constituency. The constituency underwent some boundary changes for this general election, so I would like to start by thanking the two predecessors who represented the residents I now serve. Gillian Keegan was the MP for Chichester from 2017, and was the first female MP to represent the constituency. She served as Secretary of State for Education and proudly championed apprenticeships, and the opportunity that her own apprenticeship afforded her, after growing up in Knowsley in Liverpool and leaving school at 16. She was well liked by the Conservative party and across the House, and, although our politics are different, I wish her well in her future endeavours. I also wish to pay tribute to Nick Gibb, the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton from 1997. Both Bersted and Pagham residents mentioned to me on the doorstep during the last few months that he was a popular MP who had served his constituents well, which no doubt added to their frustration when they realised that they were moving to be part of the Chichester constituency, when their hearts belonged with Bognor Regis. I would like to take this opportunity to reassure those residents that my love for the area in which I have grown up knows no bounds. I say to residents from Bersted to Bosham, Selsey to Southbourne, Westbourne to the Witterings, Fishbourne to Funtington, and all the other areas that did not fit within my poor attempt at alliteration: I will champion you all. Madam Deputy Speaker, today is the final day in the Chamber before recess. I have no doubt that MPs will be rushing back to their constituencies to spend every possible moment there, but if they do manage to steal away for a long weekend, then I relish the opportunity to be a tour guide for a brief moment and tell them why a weekend in Chichester is a weekend well spent. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) has already laid claim to the glory of representing the sunniest town in the UK, Chichester boasts the high accolade of being the sunniest city, with just under 2,000 hours of sunshine per year—and that is not the only way in which this glorious city punches above its weight. Hon. Members will not be short of things to do, with beautiful coastline, sailing opportunities at Bosham, Dell Quay, Itchenor and Birdham and the sandy beach of West Wittering, as well as a plethora of cultural offerings, from the internationally renowned Chichester Festival theatre to the Pallant House and Oxmarket galleries, the Novium museum and Fishbourne Roman palace, and even a spot of racing—both cars and horses—at the Goodwood racecourse. They could easily spend an afternoon soaking up the history of the city surrounded by Roman walls, immersed in nature at Pagham harbour or Medmerry reserve, or following the River Lavant, a precious chalk stream. I would not be forgiven, especially by the head of department, if I did not mention the excellent University of Chichester, where I had the pleasure of obtaining my degree. We are also the birthplace of notable figures such as the astronaut Tim Peake and the singer-songwriter Tom Odell, and we are home to Kate Winslet and authors Greg and Kate Mosse. You can understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, why my very special constituency is a desirable location for those looking to relocate. It is an area with so much to offer. However, with the majority of the district sitting within the South Downs national park, 100% of the housing allocation is built on only 20% of the land, with a lack of infrastructure surrounding those developments and residents reporting a real struggle to get a doctor’s appointment, sign up with an NHS dentist, find school places that can meet their children’s needs or simply travel from A to B through the traffic on the A27. As we are a low-lying coastal plain, many communities are also subjected to relentless flooding following developments on floodplains and a lack of maintenance on the rife. I am sure that those in the Chamber will appreciate how important water quality is to many industries, including tourism, fishing, water sports and sailing. It therefore pains me to say that some of the most active storm overflows are in my constituency and that Chichester harbour, which is a site of special scientific interest, has been downgraded to an unfavourable declining condition. The River Lavant has warning signs along its bed, encouraging residents to wash their hands if they come into contact with the water, and those who enjoy cold water swimming in our water are weighing up its health benefits against how regularly they become ill from doing so. Trust in our water companies and the regulator is at an all-time low. The Liberal Democrats have called for measures to address an issue that is a blight on constituencies such as mine. The average house price in Chichester is an eye-watering £455,000, and residents regularly express dismay at their increasing rents and mortgages after the disastrous mini-Budget. They are trying to make progress in their lives, but are being pulled back under the immense strain of increasing cost pressures. I welcome the Budget Responsibility Bill, which commits to responsible economic governance to go towards ensuring that what we saw in the last Parliament never happens again. Finally, I pay tribute to those who supported me to be here, standing in this Chamber addressing my colleagues. I thank my wonderful husband Dean, my son Oliver and my daughter Bethany for their understanding and support, which has spanned far longer than this campaign. They are my inspiration, and I am fighting for their future as well as that of every child in this country. I also thank my mum, who joins us in the Gallery—I am not going to look at her; I have just realised I cannot. She had been so looking forward to retiring in May this year, only to be thrust days later into a general election campaign, knocking on doors with me, delivering leaflets and being my childcare. She was fully behind me in trying to achieve the unachievable, because Chichester had had a Conservative MP since 1868, except for a brief spell in 1923 when it flirted with Liberalism for just 12 months. On 4 July, residents went to the polling stations and voted for change, whether they were traditional Conservative voters or Labour and Green voters lending me their support. We made political history that night. I recognise the weight of responsibility on my shoulders to do every single one of those people proud and to represent the area in which I had the pleasure of growing up. It is a privilege and an honour. I will fight for my special patch of our great country every day.