Josh Fenton-Glynn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  In one fell swoop, this measure will take 100,000 children out of poverty. In my constituency, 2,500 children will benefit. Fighting poverty is in the Labour party’s DNA, but with over 4.5 million children left in poverty by the Conservative party, which has not turned up for the statement, will the Minister please assure me that we will not stop there and that there will be meaningful change through the child poverty strategy this autumn?

• 28 Apr 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The last Government left SEND education throughout the country in crisis. The National Audit Office found that there was no consistent improvement in outcomes from 2019 onwards. I saw that at first hand when I met Calder Valley parents of SEND children at Highbury School in Rastrick, where I saw committed parents and teachers struggling with a failed system. What will my right hon. Friend do to fix the mess that the last Government made of the system?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Like the shadow Secretary of State, I will be running the London marathon on Sunday. I mention that because people do not run marathons by making excuses, yet when we hear from SNP Members about skills, growth, health and universities, the excuse is always either immigration policy or a lack of devolution. If there is always an excuse for their failure, they will not achieve anything. That is why we need a serious debate about how we will get more people into Scotland.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak about a Bill that will increase research funding focused on more effective treatments for rarer forms of cancer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for introducing the Bill. Like many in this House, I rise today because I have lost a family member to a rare cancer, and I also rise as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee. In the last Parliament, the Committee conducted a Future Cancer inquiry, which recommended that “the UK should be leading on driving up international action to tackle the poor outcomes for the least survivable and least common cancers. “ This Bill will do that—but, as I say, my reason for speaking in this debate is much more personal. On 20 January this year, my brother Alex English passed away from high-grade acinic cell carcinoma, a form of salivary gland cancer. I tell his story to highlight what we can win, because this Bill can give families the gift of more time with the special people they love. Increasingly, more common cancers are treatable or are illnesses that people can live with, but on rare cancers we still have a way to go, and without focus we will not get any further. There are more than 700 diagnoses of various forms of salivary gland cancer each year, but my search for related terms in Hansard finds only two mentions in this Chamber in the past 30 years—my hon. Friend has just made the third. One of those mentions was from me, following my brother’s death. That is why we need more focus. In evidence to that Select Committee inquiry, Cancer52 noted that, while they represent 47% of diagnoses of less common cancers, rare cancers account for 55% of deaths. Members across this House have our own cancer journeys—ourselves, our friends or our loved ones—and I want to talk about my brother’s journey. Not all cancer journeys have the outcome that we want, and even with this Bill we will still lose some people, but more investment into research for rare cancers can give us something crucial: time. I would do anything for more time with my brother. If you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk for a minute about the person who Alex was. The most important thing about Alex was not how he died; it was how he lived and the mark he left on the world. He fit a lot into 53 years. A lot of us think that our elder siblings are rock stars, but in my brother’s case that was literally true. The band he joined at university, called Pure, toured with bands like Soundgarden and reached the top 10 in Japan. I have always been tremendously proud to call him my brother. I was proud of the horse-drawn narrowboat company he ran in Hebden Bridge, which forms part of many people’s happy childhood memories, and of his subsequent time at the National Trust, where he helped properties to become profitable, worked to restore nature and worked with local authorities. His last major project was creating woodlands near Lunt, in Liverpool. But most of all, I was proud of the person he was. He was always funny—he had a surreal wit. He was unfailingly kind and the sort of non-toxic model of masculinity that the world needs more of. I remember the humour and love in the best man’s speech he gave for me, and I will never not be sorry that I have written eulogies for my brother but never a best man’s speech. While preparing for Christmas in 2023, I got a call from Alex and he asked if I had a minute to talk, which was unlike him, because he would not generally be over-serious. He said he had a lump on the side of his face that was, in his words, unsightly but not overly concerning. It might have been cancer, but there are a number of other things that it could have been, and if it was cancer, it was likely to be a very treatable form. He instructed me to be aware of it but not make a big deal of it, because, typically, he did not want to worry our mum. Later, it transpired that it was acinic cell carcinoma, but the prognosis was good and they were going to operate. The cancer continued to grow. His operation took 14 hours. The thing about Alex’s tumour is that the version of the illness he had was high grade, which meant that it mutated faster. It is something that has only been identified in about 100 cases, and which no doubt could have been identified earlier had we known more about cancers like his. Last spring, in my mum’s garden, during a hushed conversation with a different family member to the side, they told me that Alex might only have 18 months to live. I hugged my two-year-old son, who was playing in the garden unaware, because I was trying not to make a big deal of it—but sometimes you need to hug someone. Every update got worse, until I took a day off during the election campaign to visit him at the Christie hospital because his lung had collapsed. Then, because it is never a straight line, his health improved. He got to sit up there in the Gallery to watch my maiden speech in Parliament. We went to a Pixies concert together at the Piece Hall in Halifax. Then he got worse, Madam Deputy Speaker, and on Christmas Eve last year he was hospitalised again. When he returned home, we knew he was coming home to die. I cannot say enough about his wonderful friends, particularly Matt and Sarah, and my incredible family, who cared for him at the end. All of us would have spent more time at his bedside if we could, because time with people you love is a privilege. That is what this Bill is about: giving people more time with those they love, perhaps even a full lifetime together. In cases where the cancer is worse and it cannot be treated or cured, it is about giving people more time, better health and an understanding of the journey that they are on. It is about giving people more special moments, be it a Pixies concert or reading a story to a child—Alex read the best stories—and time to organise what you leave behind. People who develop cancers that are rare still matter, and they still deserve more time. The work to help people like Alex in the future must start today. The Government have a renewed emphasis on tackling rare cancers, in memory of the sister of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) and of Tessa Jowell, and for countless other campaigners, including those in the Gallery. What we need is focus and determination to respond quickly. I thank the House for indulging me today. Let us be that world leader that is so desperately needed in tackling rare cancers. Let us give families special time with those they love the most. Let us pass this Bill.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill · Hansard source

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  Before I entered this place, I worked on poverty for the Child Poverty Action Group, Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty. Back in 2010, there was cross-party consensus that we should end child poverty. Gordon Brown referred to it as his guiding mission. Should we return to that time?

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Antisocial behaviour ruins lives. On Friday, I held an event at the Field Lane estate in Calder Valley, the first in a series of events across my constituency to listen to members of the community about antisocial behaviour, and their stories were heartbreaking. Families are being terrorised by problem residents, children are scared to go to school and residents fear for their property and personal safety. All the while, people have no trust that making reports to the police will bring an end to the fear their families are facing. Sadly, this lack of trust became all too common a feature in communities under the last Government. They know that, no matter how many reports they make or how much evidence they have, the police will either not turn up or turn up late and then not take people seriously, after the last Government hollowed out our policing services.

• 10 Mar 2025 · School Building Programmes · Hansard source

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  18. What recent progress she has made on school building programmes.

• 10 Mar 2025 · School Building Programmes · Hansard source

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  Cross Lane primary school, Shade primary school, Brooksbank school, Calder high school, Todmorden high school and Walsden Saint Peter’s Church of England primary school are among 11 Calder Valley schools to be rebuilt under this Government, where the last Government failed. Will the Minister confirm that under this Government no children will be left learning in classrooms that are not fit for purpose?

• 25 Feb 2025 · Maternity Services · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate. I should note at the start my officership in the APPG for infant feeding and the APPG on single-parent families. Women’s health is often an already under-prioritised area of our health system, with the UK found to have the largest female health gap in the G20, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) noted earlier. Women are falling through the gaps, which have been made worse by the past 14 years of austerity and reorganisations in the health system. The situation facing midwifery and maternity services is even more dire. As a member of the Health and Social Care Committee I have met the Royal College of Midwives, which made clear its worries about the need for better investment in midwifery and maternity services, and its concerns about safe staffing levels in a workforce facing crisis. Those real concerns are borne out by the national review of maternity services, which found that 47% of services were rated as requiring improvement on safety grounds. That is not to say there are not bright spots of positivity, and I have nothing but praise for the work of Calderdale’s maternity services, which were fantastic and supportive at the births of both my children. However, the national picture is one of services that are stretched and midwives who are working extra hours to plug the gaps. At the end of last year, figures showed that more midwives than before have left the profession after five years or less. The story across the health service is, sadly, consistent, and that is the result of pressure in an NHS that Lord Darzi warned was on life support. That is why the NHS 10-year plan is even more vital and timely. It gives us not only a real opportunity to begin undoing 14 years of damage to our health service, but the chance to rebalance our health system and focus on different priorities that have been long neglected, be that maternity services or mental health. Women who access maternity services often do so at a time when they feel most vulnerable, and it is important that those services are there to protect them at that time.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  Stories of children arriving for lessons hungry are far too common in my constituency and across the country, and the issue was exacerbated by the massive rise in child poverty under the last Government. Because of the actions of this Labour Government, however, my constituency will see pilots in Cornholme junior, infant and nursery school, Scout Road academy, Elland Church of England junior, infant and nursery school, and Luddenden Church of England school. Will the Minister confirm that the child poverty strategy, when it is delivered, will build on that and make the scandal of children missing meals a thing of the past?

• 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.

• 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.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. While she has personal and constituency experience, this issue is a national crisis for people with SEND. That is due in no small part to the huge rise in the number of people with EHCPs over the last few years. In 2018-19 in Calderdale, where Calder Valley sits, 1,068 children had EHCPs. In the last year, 1,761 children did. That is the start of this problem. We then have the transport plans, which are put together at the last minute. That means that we end up with September stress for SEND parents, who are trying to create a stable school environment for their kids but who find out only at the last minute when they are coming in. On that point, I pay tribute to all SEND parents, who work an extra job in looking after their children, and to some of the charities that do brilliant work in supporting them, including Unique Ways in Calder Valley, which is a fantastic charity. I recently heard a particularly distressing story about SEND provision in Calder Valley. Two children had their epilepsy triggered by stress, and their parents and teachers struggled to provide the support that they needed.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Men’s Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, and for the way it has been conducted at the end of quite a long day. I have been a proud champion of the White Ribbon campaign for many years—it is based in my constituency. Key to that campaign is the idea that it starts with men taking responsibility for how they and their friends act. In this place, our job is to legislate. Does my hon. Friend agree that part of that job is ensuring that we get education right? At the moment, the education system does not do enough to address this, and we can see that in the results. UK Feminista stats show that almost four in 10 girls who go to mixed schools have been sexually harassed while at school. That is not acceptable. Children cannot learn if they are in fear. Human beings should have the right to live without fear. That is what I want to see in this country, in our education system and throughout society.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Three women a week commit suicide because of male violence against women, two women a week are killed by their current or former partners, and nearly four in 10 girls attending mixed schools have experienced some form of sexual harassment. In the year to March, there were 11,000 complaints about violence against women and girls on public transport. White Ribbon Day, which we marked earlier in the week, sends the clear message that dealing with this starts with men and the education of men. Given that it is clearly a cross-Government issue, may we have a debate in Government time on cross-Government solutions?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Stop School Cuts campaign website estimates the combined school cuts since 2010 in Thirsk and Malton, the shadow Minister’s constituency, as more than £70,000. Will he point to where in the public record he has spoken out about that?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  One of the first things the coalition Government voted to do was to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme, which impacted schools in my constituency including Calder high school, Brooksbank and Todmorden high school. Will the hon. Lady reflect on whether that was a mistake by her party and whether it has prevented state schools from being able to provide for more students?

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  I am proud to have gone to Calder high school in my constituency—the first purpose-built comprehensive school in the north of England. The history of that school and its teachers are fantastic, but the building is not. After years of under-investment in the capital programme and the shameful cancelling of Building Schools for the Future, the building is crumbling. The same can be said for Brooksbank school and Todmorden high school, which are also in Calder Valley. All of them would have been scheduled for a rebuild sooner, had the Government not cancelled Building Schools for the Future. In the state sector, the problem is not just that the buildings are on their knees; there is also the issue of everything inside the buildings. At the start of the previous Government’s austerity programme, we heard about teachers going without items, or buying them with their own money—glue sticks, books and so on. Now when I talk to headteachers, they talk about going without teachers and support assistants, who are so vital for children’s needs. We can judge a Government, or indeed an Opposition, by their priorities. Frankly, the fact that the first Opposition day debate on education focuses on the 7% of students who go to private schools shows where this Opposition’s priorities are. If they had held a debate on SEND, I would have welcomed it, because SEND provision has been left in crisis. In Calder Valley, I can point to multiple examples of parents for whom advocating for their child has become a second job—and that is just those who have the resources to do so. Ahead of this debate, I asked headteachers what their priorities for education would be. One, who did not want to be named, said: “Any therapeutic service is no longer easily accessible. No educational psychologists, no speech and language therapist access for the increasing number of pupils who can’t access the curriculum.” We need to focus on the next generation in state schools—in all schools. That should be our priority. If I asked my constituents in Calder Valley what they think £1.5 billion should be spent on—that is the value of this tax break—it would not be the 7% of children who go to private schools.