Josh Fenton-Glynn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Feb 2025 · Domestic Violence Prevention Services · Hansard source

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  1. What assessment she has made with Cabinet colleagues of the accessibility of domestic violence prevention services for women.

• 4 Feb 2025 · National Cancer Plan · Hansard source

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  I welcome this plan. I note that it was a recommendation from the Health and Social Care Committee in the last Parliament, and, as a member of that Committee, I hope that it sets a precedent. Two weeks ago I lost my brother, Alex English, to high-grade acinic cell carcinoma. While I pay tribute to all those who gave him care, can the Minister confirm that we will look at rare cancers and make sure that we research some of them and find treatments?

• 3 Feb 2025 · AstraZeneca · Hansard source

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  Despite AstraZeneca’s decision, the UK biotech industry almost doubled last year to £3.4 billion, but it was concentrated in just a few companies. Will the Minister commit to looking at some of the trial research rules to enable smaller companies to work better with NHS trusts so that start-ups and local firms can prosper?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Calderdale council took the innovative step of giving foster carers a council tax break, which has been incredibly effective in recruiting foster carers. Would this and other such ideas be a good way to get more people into the system?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q13. This Government are committed to using the criminal justice system to tackle violence against women and girls, but when an abuser can use a child custody battle to continue their abuse, as has happened in the case of one of my constituents, it is clear that we need to raise the issue in the civil courts too. Will the Prime Minister please look at ending the absurd assumption that a domestic abuser’s involvement in a child’s live is advantageous to their welfare?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Northern Gaza · Hansard source

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  The situation in northern Gaza is grave, with no functioning hospitals, medical centres destroyed and more than 1,000 medical personnel killed, injured or detained. The UK representative to the UN made it clear that that is unacceptable. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that Israel abides by its responsibility under international law to protect medical staff and access to healthcare?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Care Quality Commission · Hansard source

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  7. Whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of improvements made to the Care Quality Commission.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Care Quality Commission · Hansard source

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  It is inarguable that the CQC needs improvement. Many who run care services in local authorities have little confidence in its performance. Does my hon. Friend agree that we could go some way to improving how it is viewed by looking at the use of single-word assessments, which create undue stress for social services leads? They were raised by the Dash review as insufficient to support local authorities to improve, promoting box-ticking over real improvement and giving little information to members of the public on the quality of social services provision.

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  I welcome this debate. Another winter and there are more severe backlogs—the causes are structural and predictable. The shadow of what Lord Darzi found weighs heavy on this debate, with 14,000 unnecessary deaths in A&E each year, waiting times for over-65s in emergency care having more than doubled to seven hours, and over 100,000 under-threes waiting more than six hours to be seen in 2023. Each one of those numbers is a devastated family, a patient at greater risk, or a patient enduring that long, nervous wait. This winter, my local hospital trust has seen average bed occupancy rates hit 98.5%. At one point in mid-December, only three out of 715 beds were free to use. The crisis in our NHS that my constituents in Calder Valley face is not the result of a lack of work by our NHS staff—I hope everyone in this House can join me in paying tribute to those hard-working staff. Instead, this crisis has come about because of bad policy choices and warnings repeatedly ignored. In his report and when he came to the Health and Social Care Committee, Lord Darzi made it absolutely clear that the root cause of the problem is the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which was pushed through without precedent or preparation by the coalition Government amid repeated warnings from healthcare professionals. This disaster proves that to move forward, we have to learn from why bad health policy gets made: because of a focus on ideology over practicality, on efficiency savings over real improvements, and on treatment over prevention and later-life care. We must also learn that to rebuild our NHS we cannot be top-down, but must build on a foundation of decent social and community care that is close to home and respects the skills of those who work throughout the system. That brings me to my next point, which is about social care. The scale of the crisis in the NHS means that it will not be fixed overnight—indeed, the Secretary of State talks about a 10-year plan—but we know that problems are solved easier and earlier if patients are treated closer to home. Yet the failure to plan health and social care together over the past 14 years means that more than one in 10 NHS hospital beds are filled by people who simply do not have the right care.

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  In fact, the better care fund works best in West Yorkshire when it works to hasten people’s journey out of hospital, and that sounds like a very good example. In my own local hospital trust, the figure for people on the transfer of care list is even higher: 20% of beds are taken up by people who could be treated at home. That is almost 150 patients in hospital rather than getting social care where they need to be. Even well-run trusts are finding the wait for transfer of care too great, proving again that we cannot fix our health service without fixing 14 years of Tory mismanagement or without fixing social care. In closing, while this Government face problems not of our own creation, we must still learn from what has gone before. In this regard, I absolutely welcome the announcement on progress in social care today, but I gently express to the Minister, as I did to the Health Secretary at his Committee appearance, that we need to see action on the ground solving our social care crisis earlier than 2028. In 2023, the National Audit Office told us that nearly four in 10 directors of adult social services were worried about meeting their statutory obligations. On top of that, we have a provider crisis because of this instability. The electorate gave this Government a term of five years to take bold steps to reverse the crisis in our NHS. They rejected the previous Government because they wasted each of their terms over 14 years of failure to enact a solution on social care, leaving people in hospital instead of being able to receive care among family and friends. I look forward to this Government acting on that mandate.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Health and Adult Social Care Reform · Hansard source

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  I welcome the commission, which hopefully will lead to some certainty on the future of social care. However, a 2023 National Audit Office report found that 17% of local authority directors of social services were concerned about their ability to meet statutory obligations last year, and a further 18% are concerned about their ability this year. I have concerns about what will be done to fix the immediate crisis in social care. Will my right hon. Friend outline what he will do to guarantee the sustainability of our care system now, while we await the further structural reforms that we dearly need?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Budget: Family Farms · Hansard source

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  Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. Our hard-working farmers across Calder Valley want to earn a living from farming, not use their land to avoid tax. After 14 years of neglect by the last Government, which undercut farmers in trade deals, the sector is, however, becoming increasingly unprofitable. I welcome the Labour Government’s new deal for farmers and the 25-year road map to making farming profitable again. Can the Secretary of State assure me that Calder Valley farmers will get their fair share in this new deal and in the new improved countryside stewardship higher-tier scheme next year?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Hospice Funding · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the amazing staff at Overgate hospice in my constituency should be focused this Christmas on caring for their patients and not on funding? Will she confirm that this funding allows them to do so? Also, in April I will be running the London marathon for the Overgate hospice’s big build appeal. Will the Minister sponsor me?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Rural Crime · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. Representing a rural constituency, I am aware of the ongoing problem of agricultural vehicle theft. In Calder Valley, vehicle crime counts for one in every 20 crimes committed. The Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, passed by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) as a private Member’s Bill, was restricted to the re-sale of specified equipment. However, 18 months since it received Royal Assent, the statutory instrument needed for it to be enacted has yet to be laid. Will my hon. Friend act where the previous Government did not?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Rural Crime · Hansard source

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  2. What steps she is taking to help ensure increased prosecution rates for rural crime.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Last week, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS foundation trust’s bed occupancy was at 99.6%. Some 20.1% of those beds, because of the failure of social healthcare and community care, were taken up by people who could be treated elsewhere. All I want for Christmas is a reassurance that, next Christmas and next winter, social care will be on a more secure footing.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  I welcome the money for homelessness in today’s statement. Evidence increasingly suggests that prevention works in homelessness. Calderdale is one of three local authorities working with Crisis to pilot a system of early prevention. In six months, that has already led to a 20% reduction in people using temporary accommodation. Will the Minister look at that work and commit to championing what works?

• 17 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the problems in the social care market. However—this is a point I have made before—a lot of that is owing to the fact that nothing has been done since Andrew Dilnot’s report in 2011. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could point to where he has spoken out about that in the past.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I welcome this legislation and this debate. Nothing typifies this Government’s job of cleaning up the mess left after 14 years of the last lot than the need to clean sewage out of our rivers. The need in Yorkshire is greater than in many other places. Yorkshire Water holds one of the worst records for sewage discharges among water companies. Last year, it spilled sewage into rivers across our region 464,056 times. Of those, a staggering 4,125 discharges were into the River Calder, which runs through my Calder Valley constituency, making it one of the most dumped-in rivers in the country. Both numbers had increased since the previous year, yet Nicola Shaw, the chief executive of Yorkshire Water, took home just over £1 million in remuneration, £300,000 of which was a bonus. To put that in context, she earned £2.22 per sewage spill into a Yorkshire river last year. If that is a reward for good performance, one dreads to think what poor performance looks like. In Calder Valley, and across the country, we have had enough, and this Bill rightly reflects that. This Bill gives us an opportunity to hold water bosses and their companies to account, not only through fines and clear regulations but through measures that will allow the criminal prosecution of irresponsible bosses. I welcome this Bill, but I also recognise that it is just a start, an opening step to get our water system back on track. As we continue with our whole-system review, I hope Ministers will also look at the broader impact of water companies, including the cavalier way in which they dig up our roads for weeks on end. Indeed, a road in Hebden Bridge and Todmorden has been dug up to mend a sewer, but businesses are suffering while little work is done over the weekend. More pertinently, in Calder Valley early results from studies by Yorkshire Water into what it can do to alleviate flooding show that in areas like mine, water companies and their assets have a real impact on flooding, so I hope my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will consider looking at the broader role of water companies. In closing, after 14 years of Tory failure polluting rivers across Calder Valley, I am proud to support the Bill and end the sewage scandal. We are serious about our environment, getting our country back on track and cleaning up the mess left by the Opposition.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to hear the right hon. Lady championing her party’s record on the environment. Her colleagues are somewhat less confident, given that only 12.5% of the parliamentary Conservative party have bothered to show up to the debate. Is that because they are ashamed or because they do not have the same confidence as she does in their record on the environment and pollution?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend tell me about her local aviary life?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  The numbers are from the House of Commons Library.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister talks about talking to schools. I have spoken to schools in my constituency for many years, and I am sure he has spoken to the schools in his. The “School Cuts” website tells us that North West Norfolk has seen a £2.2 million cut in its state schools since 2010. Perhaps he could point to the record where he spoke out against those cuts.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  Norfolk county council, which covers the area that the shadow Minister represents, has a housing waiting list of 1,341 homes sought. That is up 400 since he was elected in 2019. If the new clauses are about reviewing the impact of actions, perhaps he could take a moment to review the impact of the last Government’s actions, which saw the housing waiting list increase in his constituency?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  My constituents would be surprised that there is no tax exemption on tampons, which are used by close to 50% of society, yet there is a tax exemption for VAT on private schools, which are used by less than 5% of the country. Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is a mark of the priorities of Conservative Members that they are so quiet about the former but not the latter?