Kerry McCarthy MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 21 Jan 2026 · Animal Welfare Strategy for England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, as always, Ms Lewell. I am tempted to join the discussion about non-stun slaughter, but I will not, other than to say that my understanding is that the derogation to allow it is meant to cater to domestic populations, yet we are exporting quite a lot. Not allowing animals killed in that way to be exported would be one way to significantly reduce the numbers. I very much welcome the animal welfare strategy. There is lots of good stuff in it, and things that some of us who have been around for a long time have been pushing for for many years. I would like a bit more clarity from the Minister on the timescales and when these measures are likely to come into effect. Will legislation be needed? Will there be one overarching animal welfare Bill—primary legislation—or can we do things by statutory instrument? Will the Government look to private Members’ Bills? That was something that the previous Government used to try to kick issues into the long grass; they were nervous about bringing forward anything more substantial because they thought that we would try to ban trail hunting. We tried to tack that on, so they farmed off individual, discrete private Members’ Bills to their Back Benchers instead, and even those did not get over the line for the most part. Also, how will progress be monitored? Can we have a regular statement to Parliament? I am a little concerned by how much is going out to consultation. I have had a briefing from the NFU, which I have read carefully. I appreciate the financial pressures on the farming sector, and I know that colleagues will talk about things like the sexing of the 40 million to 45 million male chicks that are slaughtered each year within a day of their birth. There are systemic issues with how much farmers are paid for their food and how much we are prepared to pay for it, but we should not use the argument about the financial pressure on farmers to move away from doing what is right in terms of ethical animal welfare practices. I look at things very much from the perspective of trying to avoid a shift towards ever more intensive industrialised farming. We know that the poultry industry, for example, is huge: over 1 billion meat chickens are bred every year. We know the impact on our water supplies and air quality from what are more like factories than farms. There is very little profit to be made from that. On the dairy sector, one of my concerns is how the strategy links up with moves to reduce emissions from livestock. The Climate Change Committee recommended reducing herd sizes to about 80%, but the Government talk about increasing production as a way of compensating for that. As I understand it, a beef suckler cow naturally produces about 4 litres of milk a day, and at the moment a dairy cow produces about 28 litres a day. If we are talking about increasing production and getting ever more milk out of a cow—treating them like machines rather than sentient animals—that will be of real concern to me, so I would like to know how that will be dealt with. My final point is about octopus farming. The sentience of decapods and cephalopods was recognised, after quite a battle, in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, but cephalopod molluscs, which include octopus, have not been brought into the scope of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. There are measures abroad, in the United States in particular, to ban octopus farming. I am very concerned about plans for an octopus farm in the Canary Islands. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s stance on that?

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  In the last few weeks, I have visited two alternative learning projects in my constituency. One is the Wheels Project, which gets children working on restoring cars. The other is Enemy of Boredom, which is a brilliant thing, getting children video gaming while learning at the same time. What is amazing is that they do only half a day a week there, but it transforms their experience of mainstream education. They are much better when they get back to the classroom, because they have had focused attention on something they love doing. Does my hon. Friend agree that we ought to do more of that?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure · Hansard source

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  I hope the Minister will join me in congratulating Bristol East’s Lost and Grounded Brewers, which has just appeared on the list of the eight best breweries in Britain in The Times . He may recall that just before the Budget, I brought another Bristol East brewery, Left Handed Giant, to meet him and other Ministers at No. 11, where it made very clear the pressures facing the hospitality sector. Can he give me assurances that, as a first step, we need to sort out the revaluation shambles? Can he also ensure that the consideration of a differential rate of VAT, as we see in so many other countries on the continent, is also on the Treasury’s radar?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Arctic Security · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Prime Minister’s strong response, and the assurances that we have heard from the Foreign Secretary today. She has rightly made it clear that Donald Trump’s claims to need to possess Greenland for security reasons are complete and utter nonsense. The United States already has access. The Foreign Secretary spoke of a multilateral approach to Arctic security; there is also the critical minerals element, which I suspect has a great deal to do with Donald Trump’s interest in the country. What are we doing to adopt a similar multilateral approach to critical minerals, as we seek to divest ourselves of reliance on China?

• 15 Jan 2026 · Food Inflation · Hansard source

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  On Friday, I visited the Coexist Community Kitchen in my constituency, which does amazing work to get the community in. It runs cookery classes, is accessible and has affordable and healthy food, and sometimes it is free. Quite a lot of people go there on social prescriptions. On the issue of cross-departmental working, does my hon. Friend agree that is not enough for the health service just to issue prescriptions? It needs to support community kitchens so that they can do the cookery classes and make the food available. There needs to be institutional support, as well as the prescribing end of it.

• 15 Jan 2026 · Food Inflation · Hansard source

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  I echo what the Minister said about Frank Field. Quite a long time ago now, he approached me about setting up Feeding Bristol as an offshoot of Feeding Britain. Feeding Bristol has gone from strength to strength, particularly with its holiday hunger programme, which provided tens of thousands of meals for children who would otherwise have gone hungry during the school holidays. We all owe Frank a debt of gratitude for that.

• 15 Jan 2026 · Food Inflation · Hansard source

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  It is always easy to criticise regulation, but we often find that regulations are introduced for very real reasons, whether that is protecting public health, animal welfare and so on. Will the hon. Member tell us which of the regulations and requirements she has listed ought to be dropped?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Universities: Statutory Duty of Care · Hansard source

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  It is not adequate for us to have to rely on a determination that someone is suffering from a disability because of mental health issues. In some cases, there will be a history, engagement and a diagnosis of a disorder, but in many others, it could be that the student suddenly feels themselves to be in that situation. There is not always a long pathway to suicide; it could be triggered by a particular event. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that relying on the Equality Act is not adequate in the cases of these students?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Universities: Statutory Duty of Care · Hansard source

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  As a Bristol MP, I very much appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend has taken up the case on behalf of Natasha’s parents. I have had conversations with the University of Bristol about Natasha’s case, and also with the University of the West of England. One issue that comes up is where parents fit in, because students have a right to tell the university that they do not want their parents involved. They are treated as adults in that respect, which can put universities in quite a difficult position if they feel that the parents ought to know what is going on. What thought has my hon. Friend given to that aspect?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  My first job after graduating was in a magistrates court, which was just making the transition from writing court records in a huge ledger by hand to computerisation; I appreciate that it has modernised an awful lot since then. Let me pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) about the impact of persistent drug dealing on local communities. One of the things being piloted in Bristol is an intensive supervision court. We know that a huge number of crimes are committed by people with persistent drug addictions, so if we can divert them from the criminal justice system it will help to free up our courts. Can the Minister say a little about what we are doing to roll out that programme?