Julie Minns MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am delighted that Cumberland council is to partner with Carlisle College and the Story construction group to renovate the old keeper’s lodge in Bitts Park in my constituency. The college’s construction students will gain invaluable experience of working on a live construction site, there will be no cost to the council, and a much-loved building will be brought back into public use. Does the Leader of the House agree that this partnership model could be adopted elsewhere to bring back other much-loved buildings, and will he join me in thanking council officer Stephen Dunn, whose brainchild this project was?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Social Media Ban for Under-16s · Hansard source

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  Last Friday, I joined pupils at St Bede’s Roman Catholic primary school for their internet safety assembly. Thanks to their headteacher’s regular internet safety assemblies, St Bede’s children are now well versed in the subject. Does the Secretary of State agree that today’s announcement will support the work of many schools and teachers, and send a clear message to big tech that it must now match that commitment?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Water Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important and timely debate. Although we have heard about the dangers of open water and the importance of water safety in the summer months, it is also important to recognise that the winter months bring their own risks. One of the ponds in my Carlisle constituency regularly freezes over during the winter months, which is important to remember. I am a cold-water swimmer, so I am very familiar with this subject. I know only too well the dangers of open water, the attendant risk of cold-water shock and the perilous after-drop that occurs when the body’s core temperature continues to fall even after exiting the water. I mostly swim in my county’s beautiful lakes. I have, however, been known to swim in the River Eden, which runs through our great border city, and I am not alone. Tragically, this time three years ago, three young Carlisle boys got into difficulty while swimming in the River Eden. Two of the boys lost their lives. I extend my continued sympathy to their families for their heartbreaking loss. A member of the public, Luke Marwood, risked his life to rescue the third boy and was deservedly awarded a medal for his bravery. I pay tribute to Luke for his remarkable courage. We should not need such tragedies to remind us of the dangers of water and of the importance of young people learning not only how to swim, but how to stay safe and survive in cold and dangerous water—flip, float, live. I praise the work of North Cumbria Search and Rescue, which works with groups such as the Scouts and Beavers to teach cold water and open water safety in my constituency. I also commend Cumberland council for installing throw lines at key points along our city’s three river—and, to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) about affordability, I commend the council for introducing swimming for 10p during half-terms at a number of our local swimming pools. Key stage 2 swimming is, of course, a statutory part of the curriculum, and schools are expected to teach water safety. Nevertheless, given the relatively limited pool time available for key stage 2, I ask the Minister whether we should now be giving greater emphasis to water safety education rather than the technicalities of learning to swim, and whether a minimum statutory standard for water safety instruction could be established. As our summers become hotter, more and more people will choose to swim in rivers and lakes and on our coastline. The RNLI estimates that almost 49 million people will visit the coast this summer. With that in mind, and given the dangers we have heard about today, I believe it would be timely and right to review the current approach to swimming and water safety education.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As the current Youth Parliament draws to the end of its term, can I put on record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker, for your continued support of our Youth Parliament? Earlier this week, I met Bobby Forbes, who is Cumbria’s Member of Youth Parliament. Yesterday, the Select Committee that he chairs published a report on reform of personal, social, health and economic education. As this Government are rightly extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds, could the Leader of the House please explain to us as Members of this Parliament how we could discuss the recommendations of the Youth Select Committee’s report?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Defence Skills · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his answer. He will be aware that my constituency was home to Europe’s largest munitions factory during the first world war, a legacy that lives on in MOD Longtown. When the Minister confirms that my constituency of Carlisle will be one of the locations for the six new munitions factories the Government are looking to build, what support will the Government provide to ensure that it is local people who will be able to take up the jobs at that new munitions factory?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Defence Skills · Hansard source

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  8. What plans he has to increase defence skills.

• 12 Mar 2026 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source

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  We have had an excellent debate, with so many brilliant contributions, but I would like to single out three in particular. The hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer) made a brilliant maiden speech. I am sure she will continue to make many colourful and inspiring contributions in her years ahead in this place, and it is always a joy to welcome another northern woman to the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) should pick whatever lane she would like—I will gladly follow. The important thing is that she keeps driving ahead. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) reminded us that whatever our differences, we always have more in common than that which divides us. Madam Deputy Speaker, you were not in the Chair for her remarks, when she talked about strike action by women, but I caution the three Deputy Speakers not to go on strike, as I really dread to think what would happen to this place—with the greatest respect to Mr Speaker. I put on record my thanks to my senior caseworker Megan Redhead who week in, week out strives to deliver great results and improve the lives of the people of Carlisle. In the last couple of weeks, she has achieved the most remarkable outcome for one woman in Carlisle in particular. It is my privilege in this International Women’s Day debate to speak about another remarkable woman: Angela Burdett-Coutts, an overlooked figure from the Victorian era whose compassion, generosity and determination helped shape modern philanthropy. She was a woman who embodied “Give to Gain”. She was born on 21 April 1814 in Piccadilly, the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett and Sophia Coutts. She inherited not only her family’s name but, in 1837, her grandfather Thomas Coutts’s immense banking fortune, making her one of the wealthiest women in England. Burdett-Coutts, deeply influenced by leading social reformers including Charles Dickens, with whom she collaborated for many years, dedicated her fortune to education and tackling poverty and social injustice, earning her the name “Queen of the Poor”. Her philanthropy was extraordinary in its breadth: she helped to fund ragged schools, built model housing in the east end and developed the Columbia Market to bring wholesome but affordable food to the poor. She co-founded innovative projects such as the Urania Cottage, a home for vulnerable and homeless women seeking a new start in life. In 1884, Burdett-Coutts co-founded the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which later became the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She championed the protection of animals, becoming president of the ladies’ committee of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and commissioned the fountain and commemorative statue of Greyfriars Bobby. Her humanitarianism reached far beyond Britain, endowing bishoprics in Cape Town, Adelaide and British Columbia. Back home, she funded drinking fountains and animal troughs right across London. She also financed Charles Babbage’s early computing efforts and contributed significantly to hospitals and churches. I first came across Angela Burdett-Coutts when I discovered that she had funded the building of St Stephen’s church in Carlisle in 1864. Having learned that she had financed the new St Stephen’s church in Westminster—just a stone’s throw from this place—the then Bishop of Carlisle wrote to her to inquire whether she would fund the building of a new church in one of Carlisle’s poorest areas, Wapping. Not only did she agree, and personally select the stained glass for the church, but she gifted a peal of eight bells, which on the church’s demolition in the 1960s were installed in the new St Elisabeth’s church in Harraby, where they remain to this day. In 1871, Queen Victoria recognised Angela Burdett-Coutts’s immense contributions by granting her a peerage, making Baroness Burdett-Coutts one of the few women of her era to receive such an honour in her own right. Like all female pioneers, Angela Burdett-Coutts was unafraid to challenge convention. Possessing considerable wealth, she was beset by suitors. Many men proposed marriage to Miss Coutts, and she declined all of them. She did, however, propose marriage to her friend and adviser the Duke of Wellington when he was 79 and she was 33; he gently declined her. But that was nothing to the scandal her eventual marriage caused. When she was 66, she married a 29-year-old American, William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett. In doing so, she not only caused an outrage in Victorian society, but she triggered a clause in the will of her grandfather’s second wife, which stipulated that she must marry an Englishman, and in doing so lost much of her multimillion pound fortune. Since discovering Angela Burdett-Coutts, I have mused not just on how her stories like Angela’s deserve to be more widely known, but on how we should celebrate the female philanthropists and changemakers who did so much for people and wider society. So in closing, I invite you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister and all colleagues from across House to support not simply a statue or a plaque to female changemakers, but to support an audible celebration, featuring the Coutts bell from St Stephen’s church Carlisle, in a new national monument to the social change that women like Angela Burdett-Coutts and so many who we have heard about today have made possible.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Student Loan Repayment Plans · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and he has set out comprehensively the issues that we look to the Government to examine. Does he agree that the Government have begun to take very welcome steps in reforming student finance, in particular the changes to the plan 5 loan system? We are looking for the same consideration when it comes to plan 2 loans.

• 5 Feb 2026 · National Cancer Plan · Hansard source

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  The reality is that if someone lives in a big city with access to a university teaching hospital, their access to cancer treatment will be different from those who live in a town or small city like Carlisle, where we face challenges in recruiting and retaining specialist consultants. Does the Minister agree that this plan, combined with the pioneering approach to training doctors at the new Pears Cumbria School of Medicine, will begin to fix those inequalities that my constituents experience?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I would like to place on record my interest as the mother of an NHS nurse. It is a privilege to speak in today’s debate and to do so on behalf of my Carlisle constituency, which I am proud to say has recently taken a transformative step with regard to medical training, with the opening of the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine. This new graduate school of medicine is being jointly pioneered by Imperial College London and the University of Cumbria, and I put on record my thanks to Professor Martin Lupton, Professor Mary Morrell and Professor Brian Webster-Henderson, whose vision the medical school is, and to Sir Trevor Pears and the Pears Foundation, whose generosity has made their vision a reality. As with the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill before us today, the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine purposefully prioritises home-grown talent. The school also seeks applications from students from non-traditional backgrounds, encouraging applications from groups that are less well represented in medicine. As part of the school’s commitment to widening access, the four-year graduate programme has no GCSE or A-level requirements. The reason for this approach is simple: it provides the best chance, year in, year out and generation after generation, for Carlisle and Cumbria to produce our own doctors. These doctors will often come from the surrounding communities and, in part because of where they are trained, will be deeply committed to the local area and its people. In geographically remote areas such as ours, the ability to train and retain our own doctors is critical. It matters enormously. Cumbria faces some of the most entrenched health inequalities in the country. We have struggled for years with recruitment and retention across both primary and secondary care, and our hospital trust relies heavily on locums. We know all too well that the traditional model of medical education, centred on large metropolitan teaching hospitals, simply does not produce or attract the workforce that rural areas such as mine need. That brings me back to the Bill before us today. The Government are right to prioritise UK graduates for foundation and specialty training places. The Bill represents a significant and welcome step towards restoring confidence in the training pipeline, addressing the growing mismatch between the number of medical graduates and the number of available posts, and ensuring that those who have invested years of training in our NHS are not left without a route on which to progress. It is a sensible, fair-minded reform that will bring much-needed stability to a system that has been under real strain. For Carlisle and Cumbria, however, the issue is not only who gets priority but where the training posts are located. At present, although foundation training can be delivered locally, it can be delivered only where accredited F1 and F2 posts exist. In Cumbria, the number of those posts is limited. The North Cumbria integrated care trust is able to provide places for some foundation trainees, and others will find F1 and F2 posts in primary and community care settings, but further accredited places will be required at foundation level. I ask the Minister to explain, in her response, not just how the new powers will prioritise UK medical graduates and members of the priority group, but how the powers might be used to widen the availability of accredited F1 and F2 posts in areas such as Cumbria, where there is a shortage of doctors. Even if we successfully retain Pears medical school doctors in Cumbria for their foundation programme training, the risk of losing them when they come to their specialty training programme is even greater, because doctors will overwhelmingly choose to settle near to where they complete their training, particularly their specialist training, and Cumbria will never be able to provide every specialty training pathway within the county to retain our home-grown talent. We simply do not have the population size or the case mix to deliver all specialisms in our trusts. However, that does not mean that we cannot design a system that keeps trainees connected to Cumbria throughout their training. I therefore urge the Minister to consider how the regulation-making powers granted by the Bill can address that issue. Pears medical school believes that a new approach to specialist training is the way forward. I recently wrote to the Secretary of State seeking a meeting between him and representatives of the medical school to explore that approach, and I very much hope that he will soon accept that meeting. I also ask Ministers to consider seriously how specialty training can be structured so that trainees who complete F2 in Cumbria are supported to remain based in the region, even if their specialist rotations take them elsewhere for short periods. That could mean funded return-to-base arrangements, rotational models anchored in Cumbria, or formal partnerships between specialist centres in UK cities and community providers in Cumbria. In other words, we need a training pathway that allows people to specialise with Cumbria, not away from it, because if we allow the system to pull trainees out of Carlisle at the very moment they are beginning to put down roots, we will simply recreate and repeat the cycle that has left rural areas like mine short of doctors for too long. The Pears Cumbria School of Medicine is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the medical workforce in Cumbria, but it will fully succeed only if training programmes are aligned with its purpose. In welcoming the Bill, I urge Ministers to ensure that its implementation meets the requirements and needs of remote communities. Prioritisation is important, but place matters too.

• 22 Jan 2026 · International Day of Education · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making a powerful point about the number of children who are outside of the classroom globally and the impact that has, but it also happens in our own country. I recently visited the Gillford Centre pupil referral unit in my constituency. It does phenomenal work and, unlike other schools, the hallmark of its success is pupils leaving and going back into mainstream education. Does the hon. Lady agree that pupil referral units like the Gillford Centre make a huge contribution to closing the opportunity gap that we know exists abroad and at home?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Jane Austen · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this debate. To take a quote from my favourite Austen novel, “Persuasion”: “I wish nature had made such hearts…more common”. I am also delighted to see the Minister in his place, not least because it has prompted me to consider which of Austen’s clergymen the Minister might best embody. He will be relieved to know I have discounted Edmund Bertram and Edward Ferrars, but I think we might be able to agree that he embodies Henry Tilney from “Northanger Abbey”, with his quick wit. I cannot claim a constituency link to Jane Austen, but I would draw members attention to a doctoral researcher at the University of Cumbria, headquartered in my constituency, whose doctoral research explores Jane Austen’s depiction of walking as a form of resistance by her heroines—and it is her heroines that I wish to talk about in my brief remarks. She is a creator of heroines who have stood the test of time. In an era where women were often confined by social norms, Austen gave us characters who dared to think, to feel and to act with independence and integrity. Those characteristics were embodied by my own A-level English teacher, Mrs Nutley, who steered us through the social pretensions and moral hypocrisy laid bare in “Mansfield Park” and unlocked in me a love of Jane Austen. I come from a working-class family. Our home was modest, my parents hard working and, while storybooks were read to me as a child, the books on our shelves in my adolescence were dictionaries and encyclopaedias, not novels. Therefore, I owe a debt of thanks to my English teachers at Trinity school, Carlisle, for opening up a world of Austen, Dickens, Hardy, the Brontës and—perhaps less enjoyably—James Joyce. However, literature does not have to adhere to Joyce’s experimentalism to be good, and I would argue that the strength of Austen’s work, and what we learn from it, lies in the gentle subtlety of her drawn characters. Her heroines are not perfect; they stumble, they err and they learn. That is precisely what makes them extraordinary. Elizabeth Bennet, with her wit and courage, reminds us that self-respect is non-negotiable. She refuses to marry for convenience, choosing instead to marry for love and equality. Elinor Dashwood, calm and rational, teaches us the strength of quiet resilience, while her sister Marianne embodies the beauty and the peril of unguarded passion. Then there is Emma Woodhouse, clever and confident, whose journey from vanity to humility shows that growth is the true mark of greatness. My favourite is Anne Elliot, whose quiet endurance and steadfast heart reveal that patience and hope can triumph over time and circumstance. In my favourite passage, she moves Captain Wentworth to declare: “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.” By the way, if anyone is looking for an Austen to watch over the Christmas period, I strongly commend the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of “Persuasion”. Austen’s heroines are not rebels in the loud sense. They do not storm barricades or shout slogans. Their rebellion is subtle, yet profound. They insist on being true to themselves in a world that often demands compromise. They value love, but never at the cost of dignity. They seek happiness, but never by surrendering principle. In praising these women, we praise Austen’s vision—a vision that still speaks to us today. Her heroines remind us that strength comes in many forms: in wit, in kindness, in perseverance and the in courage to choose one’s own path. Those are heroines I feel we need now more than ever.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Grassroots Cricket Clubs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point about indoor cricket, which is particularly vital in Cumbria because our weather requires slightly more cover-ups than cover drives. I recently learned that, through the Super 1s programme, Cumbria Cricket is now offering table cricket to young disabled people in a number of schools such as James Rennie school and Richard Rose central academy in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Lord’s Taverners funding that makes that possible is absolutely vital to ensuring that the game of cricket is inclusive at a grassroots level?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Children with SEND: Mainstream Schools · Hansard source

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  I recently held two events, with professionals and with families, on the subject of SEND in my Carlisle constituency. Their concerns are very much backed up by figures that show that Cumberland is spending less per pupil on those with education, health and care plans, and that there are fewer specialist education places in and around Carlisle and north Cumbria than the rest of the country. Can the Minister tell me how I can work with the Department for Education to increase the number of specialist education places in my constituency?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member touches on an important point about culture, which is borne out by my own experience as the parent of a neurodivergent child whose secondary school education was made all the more traumatic by a profound lack of understanding and training among the teachers in the school. It was also borne out on Saturday when I held an event in my constituency: sadly, too many comments from parents were about the responses that they had received from staff in schools. Does the hon. Member agree that we absolutely must take the opportunity to get the culture right in our mainstream schools?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Further Education Institutions · Hansard source

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  Beaumont college in my constituency provides excellent specialist education for young people transitioning from a specialist school into adulthood. Does my hon. Friend believe that part of that funding must be available for colleges such as Beaumont so that we can support young people with special educational needs and disabilities?