Layla Moran MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Last Friday, I visited Sherwood Pharmacy in Abingdon. Ben, who owns it, told me that local pharmacies stand ready to help. In fact, they are more than keen to help, but there are two things that he needs from the Government. First, there needs to be a real push for GPs to refer people to pharmacies, in particular for vaccinations, so that we are not collecting patients in one already overstretched part of the system and they can do what they do best. Secondly, there needs to be a general plea to the public that they can go to their pharmacies for those things. I note that in her statement the Minister did not mention pharmacies once. Let us be honest, this question is not going to do it either. How do we ensure that the message—“Go to your pharmacy and get vaccinated, you can do it faster there”—gets out there this winter?

• 16 Dec 2024 · English Devolution · Hansard source

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  Of the 42 councils across the country that have increased social homes, four are in Oxfordshire. South Oxfordshire district council has doubled the number of social homes it has delivered over the last 10 years. Meanwhile, Oxford city council next door has halved its number. There are district councils that are doing incredible work, so why should they face finding themselves lumped in with underperforming councils? Surely, rather than having a distracting reorganisation, proper devolution to those councils that are doing well is the way to deliver for local people.

• 16 Dec 2024 · United Front Work Department · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that it is not just the big schemes that need consideration, but the small ones too? Elite capture can happen at higher education and infrastructure level. Peking University HSBC business school in Oxford wants to expand. The local planning authority narrowly passed the proposal. I asked the previous Government to call it in, but just last week this Government approved the scheme. That is a mistake. The economic benefit will go primarily to the Chinese Communist party. Will the Minister’s Department ask the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to look again at the scheme? What resilience is he offering local planning authorities on such matters?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about international law. Does he agree that the judgment that we all need to look at is the ICJ advisory opinion on the occupation? The Government are working through the process of understanding what it means—including, potentially, in respect of banning illegal settlement goods—but what is taking them so long? Our reputation has suffered hugely as a result of such prevarication, particularly from the last Government, and it is now up to this Government to repair it.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is entirely right that, within Palestine, recognition is seen as a prerequisite for what might come next. It is not a replacement and is not top-down. That is deeply felt—in fact, it was promised to the Palestinian people when my great-grandfather was alive. Does my hon. Friend also recognise that, alongside a state, there need to be viable, democratic elections? They would be made much easier if everyone in Palestine were allowed to vote in them. That is what stopped the last ones happening: people were not.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  That Bill is really important; I have tabled a similar Bill every single year that I have been in Parliament. One thing I find remarkable about certain speeches from Members in this debate is that Palestinian voices seem to be rather missing, forgotten or, in this case, erased. Will the hon. Gentleman look at what has happened in the House longer ago than just this year? We have been having decades-long fights, on a cross-party basis, and most of us have been trying to do that. Let us continue in that vein.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Is it not the case that the review itself was drawn very narrowly, focusing just on Gaza, and did not look at the west bank? We know that there are violations and other issues in the west bank, and that they are getting worse and worse. Will the Government consider increasing the scope of their review to include the west bank, and perhaps conducting it again, given that everything is under review? I rather suspect that more than 30 export licences might be suspended if the west bank were included.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Rural Cycling Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  The Minister has moved on to the “how”, but I wonder whether it is worth reflecting for slightly longer on the “why”. With my Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee hat on, I wonder whether he noted that the chief medical officer’s annual report last year on an ageing society mentioned cycling 13 times, in the context of meeting the needs of an ageing population. He might also have noted that rural areas age faster than urban areas because of demographic shifts. And he might also have noted that in the 2022 annual report, cycling was mentioned 88 times in the context of air pollution. I note that the Government’s life mission is for people to live “well for longer.” To what extent is the Minister’s Department planning to be part of the delivery of that mission, and how is he making that happen?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Rural Cycling Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. He talked about connecting villages. In Oxford West and Abingdon we have Botley and Eynsham, which are both growing in population, but whenever designs are put forward, they are often missing the pots of money. Even though we tried to get a design linked to the expansion of the A40, we were told that we could not, because if we did, that bid would fail. That is entirely the opposite of what we would expect from a modal shift. Does my hon. Friend agree that the funding pots available and how they connect are at odds with what the Government say they want to do, particularly regarding a modal shift towards biking and other forms of active travel?

• 3 Dec 2024 · International Day of Persons with Disabilities · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my friend, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), on securing this important debate. Keith, a constituent of mine, is a member of My Life My Choice, a self-advocacy group in Oxfordshire. Its job is to bring the voices of disabled people to MPs and into Parliament, so that they are part of the debate. He wanted me to advocate on his behalf for high-quality adult social care. That allowed him to play the fullest part he could in our community. The Minister would be welcome to come to Oxfordshire to meet him. It would mean the world to the group. What does he have to say to Keith about adult social care?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  These are conversations that I want to keep happening, but I say to those who are making the argument about the process and asking how we can make that better, what does a Bill that addresses assisted dying that they might vote for look like? If the answer is that there is none, let us be honest about that. I want to end by giving a tiny amount of my time to someone who is in the Gallery today. Tracey, I cannot see you right now, but thank you for coming. I said to Tracey, my constituent, when we met that I would allow some of her words to be spoken today. Tracey was 58 when she was diagnosed with incurable stage 4 breast cancer, which spread to become a brain tumour in 2023. It was successfully removed, but Tracey lives every day knowing that her cancer is likely to return. These are the words Tracey wants us to hear: “Despite this prognosis I can honestly say that I am a happy person now. I feel lucky to have made it to 60. There is just one black cloud on the horizon for me, and it is the way that I will die. I am terrified that I will suffer a long, painful death. If I knew I had the choice to have a good death, these worries would disappear. Please change the law so I can live what life I have left, safe in the knowledge that I have a choice about how and when I die. If you do this, I will be able to live even more happily today knowing that I do not need to worry about the prospect of a cruel and painful death.” I will end by saying that there are sincerely held views being heard today. Let this be this Parliament that ensures, regardless of how we vote today, that we give people a good death.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  There needs to be a debate around palliative care. My concern is that we have not had any firm commitments from Government, other than woolly words, about how they are actually going to tackle the issue, and that a royal commission will push it into the long grass. I say to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who is in his place, that the gauntlet has been thrown down. If he wants someone like me to not vote for the Bill moving forward, he needs to do two things: he needs to put firm commitments on palliative care on the table and resolve them within the next one or two years, and then, afterwards, commit to bringing back a Bill like this one in Government time. Without those firm commitments, I will continue to make the case for wanting to see progress.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman might want to raise that issue in Committee, at a later stage. However, it is important for hon. Members to appreciate that they can vote yes today, and vote no later. I want to come on to palliative care, which is really important. The message from the sector, patients and their families is crystal clear: palliative care is not good enough and we must do better.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) on bringing the Bill. I commend her for the tone she has set in shepherding the debate and, indeed, I commend Members across the House with sincerely held views for the way we have done this so far—I hope it will continue. Most things we do in this place have some bearing on life and death, but it is rare we discuss those concepts in their most visceral and direct forms. As a nation, we do not talk about death nearly enough, especially while we are well, but it happens to us all, so I welcome the chance to enable better conversations not just in this place together, but in people’s own minds for themselves. No matter how anyone votes today, I hope that we can all agree that this debate is a profound and proud moment for our democracy. To that end, I want to be up front: I will be voting for the Bill today, because I want this conversation to continue. To those arguing the moral grounds and making the point that we are crossing the Rubicon, I sincerely respect their views. These are moral judgments. There will be Members who are making the moral case, and I want to hear them. But I urge those MPs who might be minded to vote for the Bill on principle, but are worried about the details—how we might change a word, the role of clinicians or MPs, or whatever it may be—to reconsider the question they are asking themselves today. This is Second Reading. The media are asking all of us, “Are you for or against the Bill?”, but I urge hon. Members to think about the question differently. The question I will be answering today is, “Do I want to keep talking about the issues in the Bill?” I am asking myself if I want to keep grappling with the detail until I get to Third Reading, when I might reserve the right to vote no. They can decide the answer to that question for themselves.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  In the spirit of cross-party working, I want to congratulate Members on the Conservative Benches for deciding, when the former Prime Minister put this policy forward, that it was a priority. It shows how important it is that No. 10 gets behind this kind of thing, and I hope we learn that lesson for the Government’s missions. I gently say, however, that it is not just the evil tobacco lobby that has concerns about the age escalator. I completely agree with everything that the Secretary of State says, but if smoking is that much of an issue, why are we not just banning it for those under an age of, say, 25? That would have been another way to go. What is the thinking behind an age escalator, as opposed to a ban for those under a particular age so that people do not need new ID every time?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State give way?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  Residents of south Abingdon have already been flooded twice this year, and tonight there is another warning. I cannot imagine what they must be feeling. When I visited them in September, they reported feeling very alone. They had been promised a flood defence, and then the Environment Agency said that it was not value for money; they had been promised sandbanks, which then did not show up. When we asked the EA today whether it would be on the ground, it told us that it could not send enough people—not because it did not have the staff or the money, but because not enough of them had completed a workplace assessment and training on how not to be assaulted by angry residents. Of course staff safety is everything and Environment Agency workers deserve our thanks, but surely an element of common sense needs to be applied. Surely the best way to help angry residents is to be there and help them in their hour of need.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants · Hansard source

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  Last week I attended a memorial service for the people of Gaza with families of Palestinian origin here in the UK—I believe the Minister has met some of those representatives. We heard from a woman called Kitam, who described how, overnight, she lost 48 members of her family. As she walked back and sat behind me, she broke down in sobs as she remembered so painfully that day. She deserves justice. The issuing of a warrant is not justice. There is still a process to go through and a trial to be had. Is it not right that, whatever the court, those outcomes are adhered to? May I press him on the ruling of the ICJ advisory opinion on the occupation? That ruling is at the core of this: it should mean that we do much more than just meeting those families and sharing in their pain.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Primary Care: Patient Access · Hansard source

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  Last week, I visited Summertown health centre. Staff there implored me to say to the Government that the issue is not just more money—we welcome the £100 million that has been allocated for capital investment in primary care—but the snarled-up process at integrated care board level and getting investment to the right places quickly. What will the Secretary of State’s Government do to ensure ICBs deliver that money to where it is needed, and fast?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  I welcome the gusto with which the Secretary of State approaches her work, and in particular her motto, which is “Move fast and fix things.” Has she spoken to Network Rail recently? Its motto seems to be “Move slow and break things”, at least in Oxford, given the way it has mismanaged the Oxford train station upgrade. For the second Christmas in a row, businesses along the Botley Road will not be open. We have a meeting later this week with those businesses, and I have asked for a meeting with the Rail Minister, but he seems too busy. Would the Secretary of State give me just a moment of her time, so that I can work with her on how we can move forward? This is not acceptable, is it?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way on the issue of flooding. Anyone would welcome more money, which is desperately needed, but will he comment on the flooding formula? Many inland communities flood, but the Environment Agency continues to say that there is nothing it can do, because the flooding formula says it is not worth doing anything. Frequent flooding of smaller communities matters, too. Is the Department looking at that?

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

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  The challenges facing the NHS are no secret. In my new role as Chair of the Select Committee, I have begun to meet key stakeholders. The list of things that we need to consider is enormous. I pay credit to those who stood for the Committee, and welcome those who made it on. I understand that Conservative members have been chosen, but I do not yet know who they are—I ask them to forgive me if they are here. I look forward to cracking on. I will start by highlighting to Ministers a few of the reports by the previous Committee, which I urge them to look at. One is on dentistry and another on pharmacies —and they are from 2023 and 2024, so they are extremely current. There is a note of frustration in the dentistry report as it points out that it makes the same recommendations that the Committee had made 15 years prior. I hope that this Government will take our Committee’s recommendations extremely seriously. Such cross-party recommendations are made thoughtfully—we are here to help. Today, I will focus on the GP crisis. Another Committee report from October 2022, for which I take no credit—it was done by the previous Committee, so credit should go to its previous Chairs and members—points out what we already know: GPs are overstretched and patients are frustrated. The British Medical Association reports that a single GP now manages an average of 2,282 patients, a significant increase on 2015 figures. I know that there are even more acute numbers across the country. That has led to longer waiting times and difficulty in accessing care. One of my constituents wrote to me about his wife, who was struggling to book a GP appointment. The surgery does not even take phone calls—or at least that was what she thought. It opens an online form for a few minutes at 8 am, and as soon as the appointments are gone, it closes the form. We then called the practice, which pointed out that patients could ring, although it seems that that message is not getting across to those patients. That experience is being felt across the country, but I do not blame the GPs, because they are trying their very best. The Royal College of General Practitioners found that over 40% of GPs might leave within the next five years, with stress being a key factor, and the crisis in general practice affects the entire NHS. When patients cannot see a GP, they often turn to A&E, worsening pressures on emergency departments. GPs play a vital role in managing long-term conditions and co-ordinating social care at both ends of that flow of patients. Without a functioning general practice system, the entire healthcare ecosystem suffers. So what can be done? The Committee made four main proposals, which I hope Ministers will include in their 10-year plan. First, we need to urgently increase the number of fully qualified GPs in the system. That means more than just training them: retention is also key. Secondly, we must embrace and improve digital health solutions, undertaking a full review of all primary care IT systems from the point of view of clinicians and patients. We also have to accept that for some people, digital just does not work.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on the previous Committee. The GPs I have spoken to point to that report as describing what they would like to see done, so all credit is due to the ideas that have come out of it. The third area I wish to mention is prevention, which is at the heart of the Darzi report. That report makes it clear that focusing on prevention and early intervention will relieve pressure on the NHS in the long run. Finally, I want to talk about continuity of care, which was a key theme—indeed, an entire chapter—in the Darzi report. It makes it clear that seeing the same GP over a long period leads to fewer hospital visits, lower mortality and less cost to the NHS. This is not about some sort of nostalgic harking back to the way things used to be: if we want to solve what is, in my view, the biggest thesis question in the NHS today—the productivity issue—we need to be looking at interventions such as that. Continuity of care within GP practices, understanding the whole person and the whole family, is one of the ways the report identified of making GPs’ time more productive. The challenges are immense, but not insurmountable. We owe it to our healthcare professionals and, most importantly, the patients to fix this crisis, and I look forward to working collaboratively with my new Committee members to help the Government do so.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Gaza and Lebanon · Hansard source

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  Mohamed is a consultant NHS surgeon—in fact, he was mine when I was in hospital with sepsis just a few months ago. His parents are in the Jabalia refugee camp. They are elderly. His father has no colon, and his mother has diabetes. They cannot move, and there is nowhere safe for them to move. If they tried to move, he tells me that everything is being shot by drones and bodies are strewn in the street. Will the Minister impress upon the Israeli Government that Mohamed’s parents, the sick, the elderly and those who have stayed to care for them are not legitimate targets of war, no matter how many times they might have been told to move? Furthermore, if arrest warrants are issued for Netanyahu, as has been trailed, will this Government support it?

• 15 Oct 2024 · Patient Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  What we measure is often what we end up improving, and one of the great assets of Lord Darzi’s report is the technical annex with its 330 analyses. It is incredibly useful; it is a baseline. Will the Secretary of State make sure that it is updated yearly?