Lee Pitcher MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Nov 2024 · Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. There is a whole world of innovation out there, involving companies such as Apple and Microsoft, and we need to embrace that and find a way to channel it into everyday society and use. As I was saying, it is great to have those technologies, but having them out there is not enough. We need to find a way for people to know about them and use them. The amazing work of organisations such as the RNIB, Guide Dogs, and the Partially Sighted Society in my area of Doncaster is just incredible. They make us aware of what can be done at home and at work through the use of technology. The challenge for us, and for the 2 million Julies out there in the UK, is how to amplify the work of those organisations to improve employment support for blind and partially sighted people even more, to help employers to understand the technologies and processes that give opportunities for all and allow everyone to thrive. I ask the Minister how he might raise awareness of AI use in the workplace to support adjustments to maximise those opportunities. I finish with this: I ask you, Dr Huq, to imagine Julie on that slope for the first time, carefully traversing the snow, the ice and the undulations with her white cane, then ditching that cane for ski poles, and hurtling down the mountainside with skill, talent and ability. The “Wow!” that you see on our children’s faces says it all. She is a role model and an inspiration. Anything is achievable with determination and the right support and resources. Let us make sure that everyone gets the opportunity to apply those abilities at home, when travelling to and from work, and at work. I want to see a world where that “Wow!” is visible every day in the workplace.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support · Hansard source

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  It is great to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on securing this hugely important debate. I speak today from personal experience. My lovely wife has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition that has no cure or treatment. Julie has reached the stage where she uses a white cane and eventually, like her mum and uncle, she will probably need a guide dog to assist her. Those who watch “Strictly” may know that retinitis pigmentosa is the condition that comedian Chris McCausland has. Like Chris, Julie is an inspiration, not a gimmick, having recently learned to ski blind. Julie has never let her disability define her; instead, she excels with the abilities that she does have. What we have learned together over 30 years, as our careers have progressed, is how those abilities can allow her to thrive, and I have to say that her workplaces have been enormously supportive of her. I will focus on the use of technology and the importance of awareness, because the use of artificial intelligence is a game changer. Apps such as Seeing AI can narrate the world around the user. It harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world, and describes nearby people, texts and objects. In the world of work, it supports people to identify colleagues and helps to facilitate a team culture. As long as those colleagues do not take offence at being taken for a 55-year-old man, as happened to me when the camera was held up to my face—I am in my mid-40s—it is an absolute gem of a research project. Maximising the use of existing functionality is also important and remarkably useful. Adobe will read out pages of text, and people can ask ChatGPT to find those texts with a simple verbal instruction. My one ask is that when people use hashtags, they should use a capital letter for each new word because that ensures that the hashtag makes sense when read out. The ability to work from home has opened up a world of opportunity, as meetings and conferences can be accessed from an environment that does not require travel. Although I often witness the kindness of the majority of people when Julie travels on buses or the underground to visit me or work in London, I also witness people who just barge into her as she gets on to an escalator slowly, or who tut because they cannot get past her. I get upset by that. Julie takes no notice because it has become her norm. There is a broader need in society for people to better understand disabilities, and that starts with education and awareness in school. Will the Minister speak to the relevant Education Minister about how that can be raised as part of the curriculum review? Future transport technology is also exciting. It may be that when we travel in future, we will jump into our own driverless vehicles and travel to our destinations. When Julie and I visited San Francisco, we saw a driverless taxi for the first time. At the moment, that can be a scary thought, culturally, but it offers a different kind of hope for travel independence in the future, and we should start to embrace what is out there across the globe. It is great to have all those technologies and the ability to work from anywhere in any part of the world. It is also great to hear that the world is changing.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Food Banks · Hansard source

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  I have seen extraordinary work and inspiring volunteers at the DN7 food bank, the Isle of Axholme Foodshare Project, Hatfield’s Pre-loved Uniform Bank and the Hygiene Bank Doncaster. Does the hon. Member agree that although their work is amazing, we do not want to see those banks grow on our high streets or even exist in the first place?

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

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  Last week marked another significant milestone for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, as Mayor Ros Jones announced that a preferred bid to reopen and operate Doncaster Sheffield airport had been identified; the aim is to reinstate passenger flights by spring 2026. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating all those involved in reaching this crucial stage, and will she support my request to the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority to prioritise the approval of the necessary airspace as soon as it is required?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. Will the Minister have discussions with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on how pavement design and layout can be improved to enhance navigability for blind and visually impaired people?

• 12 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. In my constituency there are nearly 1,500 members of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the superb decision made in the Budget to return the investment of the reserve to them. I understand that this will mean a 32% rise in their weekly pension. Can the Minister confirm that this is correct?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Can Members imagine what it is like for someone to not be able to see, hearing water flooding into their home, not knowing where it is coming from, fearing how deep it might get, with no idea where the next escape route might be in the house? Can they imagine being a child who has previously become homeless due to flooding and lost their most treasured possessions, for whom just hearing a raindrop outside triggers their post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares? Can they imagine being a farmer whose entire crop is lost to the impact of flooding? Can they imagine being a carer for a child on dialysis, knowing that when it rains they could soon be dealing with pumping out contaminated water from their own home while their child is having treatment? For many, these situations are not unimaginable; it is their reality. That is not a surprise when flooding is the most recorded natural disaster on this planet. In 2023, 176 flood disasters were recorded across the world, a similar number to the year before, both of which are significantly higher than the average of 86 recorded in the 1990s. One third of our planet is prone to flooding, and over five million people here in the UK live or work in flood-risk areas. Flooding is also a huge economic problem, as we have heard today. According to work by the Risky Cities project, Arup and other partners, the single biggest shock or stress that can affect the economy of 60% of the Rockefeller Foundation 100 resilient cities across the world is flooding. However, it is not just too much water; we are increasingly seeing the impact of too little water, or drought, and too dirty water, or pollution, impacting our rural and urban communities. Water knows no boundaries, whether geographical, political or topographical. That is particularly challenging in countries such as ours where we have tried to make sense of the natural world and environment by creating frameworks and therefore putting boundaries in place. Water is complex. In many parts of the country, we could walk a kilometre alongside a watercourse and anywhere along that stretch someone might be impacted by flooding. The same water can pass along a river managed by the Environment Agency, into a culverted area managed by the local authority, through a farmer’s field with riparian ownership, back to the EA, into an internal drainage board-maintained ditch, through a water company pumping station, back to a sustainable urban drainage pond managed by the local authority, and so on. In that short stretch between here and Westminster bridge, we could have several hand-offs and handovers of that ownership of an asset by half a dozen authorities. To be frank, if we ask any of my residents who I visited recently in Westwoodside in Axholme, a rural area, or the River Idle Flood Action Group in Bawtry, they will tell us that they do not care who owns the water, they just want that water out of their homes, out of their gardens, and out of their business premises. In fact, they do not want it even to get to the stage where it comes in in the first place. The same water management principle applies to cleanliness, whether water is impacted from diffuse sources like the run-off from land, combined sewer overflows, trade waste, septic tanks or misconnections. The ammonia, E. coli, enterococci, nitrates and metals that impact our ditches, dykes, rivers and oceans come from many sources owned by many individuals and organisations. We all have a massive part to play in cleaning up watercourses, and the fact remains that we need to manage water across the whole catchment; that requires system thinking and it requires our rural communities. A catchment approach is imperative in managing water across the whole water cycle and in leadership, both role model and visionary. Role model leadership involves acting now. We have seen how this Government have focused and taken swift action through the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will start to tackle part of the challenge, setting up the flood taskforce, providing £60 million in the Budget for flood-related work with the agricultural community, and the biggest agricultural budget in history for sustainable farming. Visionary leadership involves looking at long-term planning for resilience to flooding through adaptation and mitigation. It is the kind of vision that considers innovation through sustainable urban drainage and nature-based solutions, working with the land to create flood adaptation while improving soil effectiveness, reducing carbon and finding new commercial opportunities. I have seen examples that deliver a combination of these things, like farmers in Yorkshire planting pop-up rainforests. That visionary leadership should also consider education, new skills, behaviour change towards partnering and close working across all agencies. It is because of all the above that I welcome the Government’s action regarding the independent water commission, which will be the largest review of the sector since privatisation. Nobody knows the land better than those who manage it, so I urge the Minister to continue to work closely with our landowners. Nobody is more passionate about the environment than our younger generations, so I urge the Minister to continue to work well with our Education Department around Skills England and the new opportunities for our rural areas. Nobody has more passion locally than our communities, who want to see improvements on their doorsteps. So may I finally urge our Minister to consider how to best work and co-create with our community groups—

• 5 Nov 2024 · Single Justice Procedure · Hansard source

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  5. What steps her Department is taking to improve the single justice procedure.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Single Justice Procedure · Hansard source

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  Earlier this year, a decision by the chief magistrate overturned the use of SJP for rail fines, potentially nullifying and requiring the refunding of as many as 74,000 fines. In the past few days it has been reported that LNER has brought similar prosecutions under SJP without supplying any evidence at all. I make no assumption about the guilt or innocence of anyone involved in those prosecutions, but justice must be open, clear and fair. It is unfair to expect people to engage with a process without it being clear what evidence has been laid against them. Will the Minister confirm that her Department will keep those principles at the heart of all our justice practices, including SJPs?

• 5 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  The number of dentists is obviously extremely important, but that is just part of what goes into the equation. In rural constituencies such as mine, access to healthcare services is heavily dependent on frequent, reliable services—in particular, bus services. Does the hon. Lady agree that if people are to access dental services, we need to ensure that those reliable, frequent public services are back in place?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Pride of Rossington awards, where I met many talented and amazing constituents who, every day, give back to their community by the bucketload. I was thrilled to learn that five remarkable athletes from Andy Crittenden’s martial arts centre in Rossington—Heidi, Joe, Millie, Ella and Millie-Leigh—will be competing in the WKC world championships this week. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating all the entrants and winners of the Pride of Rossington awards, and in wishing our athletes from Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme the very best of luck in the world championships?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Roadworks: Journey Times · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Roger, and I thank the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) for securing this important debate. In this debate, I want to highlight the fact that cars are not the only vehicles affected by roadworks. Bus services are just as severely impacted, if not more so. Bus networks and timetables are highly sensitive to disruption. They can rarely change routes to avoid the impact of roadworks. A point of disruption that might result in a five-minute delay for a car will have a repeated and accumulating effect on a bus service over the course of a day, adding mounting disruption each time the bus service runs its route, until the whole timetable can just fall apart, along with the plans of the bus passengers. Working to a timetable makes it extremely challenging for service users to adjust their journey plans when things happen in this way. Fixed capacities mean that even if people try to catch an earlier bus, they may well find that it is full. Delays on bus routes can have knock-on effects for transfers to other services or modes of transport, adding even more chaos and frustration to people’s journeys. To give a recent example that affected my constituents in Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, one route experienced a 5% drop in service use due to roadworks, even though two additional buses had been added to alleviate the disruption. Although a 5% drop might seem minor, over the course of just a few weeks it translates to hundreds and potentially thousands of missed journeys, and the additional cost of putting on extra buses, combined with the loss in the number of fares, can have an impact on the funding of other services. In another case, a bus service was subject to a 10% reduction in punctuality for weeks while roadworks persisted. I have heard of constituents who now walk an hour each day to use their nearest train station, rather than stopping for the bus right outside their door because they fear delays, cancellations and not getting to their appointments on time. Although it may be an option for some people to walk three miles a day there and back, many people, particularly the elderly, the disabled and those with small children, simply cannot add a three-mile trek to their journey. We all know the frustration of sitting in traffic and the stress of watching the clock tick by as we get closer and closer to the start-time for work, knowing that we are going to be late. There is not much that can make sitting there in that situation more pleasant and allow people some comfort, but there is the thought that at least once the works are done, they are done. The problem is that such hope is quickly dashed, because a month later the same road is dug up again, as the hon. Member for Broxbourne has said. Roads need to be repaired; no one disputes that. Utility companies need to lay new pipes and gain access to their infrastructure; no one disputes that. However, when a road is resurfaced one month and then dug up again two months later for the installation of new cables, and new pipes go in a few months after that, it is easy to see why people become frustrated. What is hugely important is how we get greater co-ordination between local authorities and utility companies. What we all want to see is frequent and reliable bus travel, so let us work together to make that happen for my constituents in Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme and for people right across our country.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last week, I had the pleasure of welcoming amazing students from Hayfield and Hill House schools to Parliament on educational visits. In the same week, I was immensely proud that New College Doncaster, in Auckley, was awarded centre of excellence status by the Leadership Skills Foundation, and that Hayfield school was found to rank among the top 15 schools in South Yorkshire. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Hayfield and New College on these blooming brilliant achievements, and will she encourage schools across the country to take advantage of the excellent educational visits we offer here in Parliament?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Rough Sleeping · Hansard source

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  Although I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point—data may not have been gathered before—there has been a 134% increase in homelessness in Yorkshire and the Humber since 2010. Does he not agree that the strategies put in place by the previous Government have not worked? There is now a need to review them and for the new Government to introduce the things we have talked about: homes for veterans and places where people can go as soon as they are in trouble. That would provide the support they require for their addictions and mental health.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Rough Sleeping · Hansard source

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  In Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, we have amazing community groups that support, through relationships and connectivity, those who live with or are recovering from addiction to alcohol or drugs. As part of our futures strategy, is there an opportunity to learn from things like the Recovery Games, which happens every year in Hatfield? Tens of thousands of people come along who have formerly lived with drug and alcohol abuse, in the knowledge that there is a community out there who can support them and give them the determination and resilience to thrive.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Police Accountability · Hansard source

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  An armed robbery was reported at our new Thorne banking hub last week; I send my warmest thoughts to the staff who endured that terrible event. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the officers who responded to the situation? Does she also agree that public confidence in policing will grow with more patrols in neighbourhoods in the future?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Criminal Justice System: Capacity · Hansard source

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  I have a number of prisons in my constituency, so I was particularly concerned to read about Serco’s failures on tagging. What is the Secretary of State doing to hold it to account?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Rossington Main Ladies football club created a slice of history last weekend by qualifying for the first round proper of the Adobe women’s FA cup. Will the Minister join me in congratulating captain Steph Prescott and the team, and wish them good luck against Accrington Stanley—who are they?—in the first round in November?

• 15 Oct 2024 · NHS Dental Contracting Framework · Hansard source

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  9. What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the NHS dental contracting framework.

• 15 Oct 2024 · NHS Dental Contracting Framework · Hansard source

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  The horror stories I hear in my constituency are just awful: from the mum on the Isle of Axholme who could not find an NHS dentist after five years and who carries out her own treatment on her son, to a gentleman in Doncaster East whose teeth are crumbling due to illness, causing him horrendous pain, and who cannot get an appointment. The Government’s pledge to provide more emergency appointments is great, but I know that it will take time to rebuild dentistry. Can the Minister reassure me that people in my constituency will be given the priority they deserve?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and over the last few months I have seen how Bawtry has turned the town pink, with 70 organisations coming together to raise awareness of this really important topic. In fact, I think the last time I saw as many bras on display was when I was a young kid of about seven years old and shopping with my mum and sister, and took the wrong turn in Marks and Spencer. Would the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Bawtry and those 70 organisations on raising awareness of this massively important issue, and of the importance of noting and identifying the symptoms of breast cancer early?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Mental Health Support · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Mental Health Support · Hansard source

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  My cousin died from suicide two years ago. We have talked about a lot of facts and figures today, and we have talked a bit about heart, but I can absolutely tell the hon. Member that a family never recovers from that. My auntie and uncle will never recover from the fact that they lost their child before they themselves went. All a person can do in that situation is put their energy into something positive, and that is about how to help people going forwards. One of the big things is absolutely those charities that support people, such as the Jackson Hope Foundation. I have gone along and spoken there myself even this last Friday, and I talked about some of my experiences in Parliament really openly and freely. It is a safe place. There are 16 men there talking unbelievably openly about how they feel, and it makes such a difference. I want to ensure that going forwards, whatever we do, learning from those groups feeds into our plans and strategies because it makes all the difference to people.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Hatfield Town cricket club in my constituency on its 150th anniversary? At the recent anniversary celebration, many residents asked me about my commitment as their MP to reopening Doncaster Sheffield airport. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will continue to work with me, Mayor Ros and Doncaster city council and others to support progress with its reopening?

• 10 Sept 2024 · COP29: UK Priorities · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this debate. I refer Members to my declarations of interests in respect of my former career. Our world is facing dramatic change. Too little water, too much water, or water that is too dirty leads to floods, droughts and pollution in our rivers, streams, ditches, dikes, seas and oceans. Not too long ago, I did some work with the Rockefeller Foundation, Arup, the Stockholm International Water Institute and the University of Massachusetts, and with wonderful projects such as Living With Water. We looked at the 100 resilient cities around the world and found that for 60% of them the biggest shock or stress that could impact them at any one time was having too much or too little water—droughts or flood. Of course, it is not just about the economy: it is about animals and people as well. The great legend that is Sir David Attenborough tells us that right now our animals are dying out at 100 times the normal evolutionary rates of extinction. When it comes to people, I think about some of the research I have seen. When children who have experienced flooding go to sleep hearing rain outside, they no longer dream about the wonderful things that could happen to them the next day, and playing with their friends in the playground—they have nightmares. That means they cannot sleep and sometimes then cannot go to school the next morning. During those nightmares they think about how they could lose not just their possessions but their mum and others as well. That is the kind of impact that climate change and flooding can have on us as people. I spoke as a keynote speaker at COP26 and at the World Water Congress in the lead-up to COP27. I talked about how we need to think about a future that is all about co-creation—working with communities, families and schools to think about the future. We need to think about how we turn the world’s greatest threat into the world’s biggest opportunity, because that is what it is, and we see rays of light in every area of the country right now. For example, in my constituency of Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, we have in Keadby the largest inland wind farm, owned by SSE, which I went to see the other day, and we have innovative carbon capture ideas. We also have youth parliaments and student councils, made up of passionate children who want to make a difference to our world, which is just amazing. We need to harness that passion. I even have residents writing to me who want me to come and work with them in places such as Westwoodside to try to solve some of their key flooding issues. Now is absolutely the time to act; now is the time when we need to work with children and communities, because we need to create a sustainable future together. COP29 should not be called an opportunity: it is a must-do place to take action. It is a place where we can work together and co-create at a local, national and global level. We in this country can do that as leaders to facilitate a much better, cleaner and greener future for everybody.