Monica Harding MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2026 · Israel: E1 Zone Expansion · Hansard source

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  Well, here we are again. The Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Government’s historic decision to recognise the state of Palestine, which we have long called for. We have welcomed more recent statements of intent, including just 10 days ago in this House, but such statements are utterly hollow without action, especially when we know that the Israeli security cabinet’s stated aim is to make a future Palestinian state unviable. We have asked these questions before, but we will ask them again. When will the Government put forward a clear plan to halt and reverse the illegal expansion into East Jerusalem and the west bank? When will they respond to the 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice? When will they introduce a package of sanctions including fines for any UK firms that bid for contracts for settlement construction in E1 or anywhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territories? Will they expand that to cover any UK financial institution that finances or facilitates UK companies’ involvement in construction or other services? When will the UK move fast to ban all UK trade in goods and services with illegal Israeli settlements?

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

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  Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Princess Alice hospice in my constituency on celebrating its 40th anniversary this year? Over the past 40 years, it has cared for tens of thousands of people and has been a staple for local families at their most vulnerable. Only 20% of its funding comes from statutory NHS funding, with the rest mainly coming from selling woolly jumpers; as a result, it is able to meet only one third of the local need. Access to palliative care will come under scrutiny once again in the autumn. Will the Leader of the House make time to address sustainable funding for palliative care to ensure that provision for all is available?

• 25 Jun 2026 · Sudan · Hansard source

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  The International Development Committee heard from a war crimes investigator that the UK Government failed to act on repeated warnings of the looming genocidal massacre in El Fasher because their foreign policy had been captured by the United Arab Emirates. He claimed that the FCDO prioritised its economic security and diplomatic relationships with the UAE above preventing the intentional starvation, forced displacement and genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians. The New York Times reported that Sheikh Mansour, Vice President of the UAE and owner of Man City, played a central role in arming the RSF. Given the UAE’s manifold interests in the UK, the public would expect the Government to call that out and act. Will they do so now? Will the Government amend the Independent Football Regulator’s remit to give it power to investigate and sanction football club owners suspected of involvement in human rights abuses? We are warned that El Obeid is facing a similar onslaught imminently, so will the Government finally, in their role as penholder at the UN Security Council, move to take consequential action against the UAE and any state arming belligerents in Sudan?

• 22 Jun 2026 · G7 Summit · Hansard source

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  We have been waiting for the UK-EU reset for two years, and today we have just more warm words after the UK-EU reset summit was postponed because the Labour party has decided to change its leader. On the anniversary of the Brexit referendum, when we are all poorer and our economy has taken a 6% to 8% hit because of it, what assurance can the Deputy Prime Minister give this House that the next Prime Minister will be bolder than this one and will actually positively reset the relationship with Europe, supporting our calls to join the customs union and the single market?

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Bill’s offences are broad enough to inadvertently criminalise routine humanitarian operations, which could pose a significant problem for non-governmental organisations operating in countries where state institutions or public bodies could become designated bodies. Although safeguards for humanitarian operations are in the explanatory notes, they are not in the Bill. Will the Secretary of State think about putting those into the Bill?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The world has failed Sudan. We know that the international fact-finding mission has noted evidence of a genocide following the fall of El Fasher. What is the UK doing as penholder at the UN to ensure that the belligerents responsible are being held to account, as well as the state actors aiding and abetting them?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Thames Water · Hansard source

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  My constituents are facing an average water bill of £658 a year, yet Thames Water continues to fail them. Sewage has poured into the River Mole, which runs through my constituency. The rec next to the Esher treatment works, where children play, has had sewage in it. I told the House last week that there was sewage outside the local primary school in Thames Ditton, as well as in the middle of the village. Will the Government get a grip on this regulatory and state failure, put the company into special administration, and create a public interest company that serves my constituents properly?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  My brother-in-law Pip Harding, who is with us in the Public Gallery today, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in March 2024 and given nine months to live. He is still here today, thank God—looking amazing—because he received treatment that cost a huge amount of money, which was crowdfunded. That highlights a very uncomfortable truth in our society: the treatment is there and available, but only for those who can crowdfund or afford it. I will not go through the challenges, because I know the Minister is well aware of them, but I will talk about the needs. We need clear national accountability for improving brain tumour outcomes. We need sustained and protected investment in brain tumour research so that the funding finally reflects the devastating impact of this disease. We need brain cancer care to be recognised as genuinely time-critical, because while tumours can progress in weeks, the system responds in years. We need a truly national brain cancer clinical trials pipeline, and we need the routine collection and storage of fresh frozen tumour tissue for all brain cancer patients. For families facing diagnosis today, the cost of delay is measured not in statistics, but in lives. The science is advancing. The clinicians are ready. Patients and families are demanding action. The challenge for all of us now is to ensure that the pace of policy finally matches the pace of the disease. Will the Minister set out how the Government will deliver on these priorities: clear accountability, greater research investment, improved access to clinical trials, routine access to genomic testing and tissue preservation, and better outcomes for brain tumour patients by the end of this Parliament? How will Parliament be able to hold the Government accountable for delivering them? If the system cannot match the pace of brain cancer, it will continue to fail and “terminal” will remain the outcome. We must move from “terminal” to “treatable”, so other families can have the second chance that we have now had with our Pip.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that what is needed right now is leadership, and that the large number of MPs in this Chamber today are looking towards the Minister and urging her to lead on this issue?

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

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  I welcome the ban, and I know that thousands of other parents of the frontier generation—the children who were born after the advent of Facebook in 2004—will be welcoming it too. However, as the Secretary of State has said, children get around bans, and there are also children over the age of 16 who will be vulnerable. What will the Government do to introduce legally enforceable safety by design duties on tech companies to ensure that all kids—even those who slip through the net—are safe?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Defence Investment Plan · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, at the glorious Princess Alice hospice summer fete in my constituency, I met Glen, a Royal Navy veteran whose last deployment was aboard HMS Broadsword. He said to me, “What are they doing to the Royal Navy? I want you to represent me and tell them that they need to sort it out”, so I am telling them to sort it out. Why are our Government ducking the responsible decisions to fund the defence investment plan properly, and why are they disregarding the Liberal Democrat proposals to fund it through defence bonds—raising up to £20 billion over two years—so that Glen and other vets can be proud rather than despairing of the services that they used to serve so well?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  They 100% do care and that is why we should support new clause 1. It would also help if constituents could access the railway in the first place. Investment in making our stations accessible for all need to be at the very heart of the programme of rail reform. Hersham and Hinchley Wood stations are completely without step-free access, while Walton, Claygate, Esher and Thames Ditton only have partial step-free access. That is why I tabled new clause 60, requiring Great British Railways to undertake and publish an assessment of the accessibility barriers at Hersham and Hinchley Wood stations. I am also pleased to support new clause 2, which does the same, requiring the Secretary of State to publish an accessibility strategy for the railway network. That brings me to Hersham station, because accessibility failures there sit alongside something much more fundamental, which new clause 3 would address. Hersham supports around 700,000 passengers every year in one of the busiest rail corridors in the country, in a constituency that contributes more to the Exchequer than any other constituency outside London. Thousands of people pass through the station every week to run businesses, create jobs and drive economic growth. The state of that station is an affront to every single one of them. It is an eyesore: ramshackle and neglected, mould climbs the fence lines, the paintwork is peeling and the station sits under exposed corrugated iron roofing. More seriously, both platforms were built in the 1960s using materials that were only ever intended to be temporary. More than half a century later, they are still there. Groups of schoolchildren step off the train and put their feet through the platform. Constituents have repeatedly raised safety concerns. The stairs visibly move beneath their feet. These passengers are not asking for luxury; they are asking for a station that is safe. There is nothing in the Bill that will give my residents in Hersham a station that they can be proud of. I therefore urge the Minister to look seriously at new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage, which would establish a tomorrow’s railway fund, enabling local authorities to bid for funding for new stations, infrastructure and feasibility studies. This is exactly the kind of mechanism that stations and wealth creators in Hersham need. All my constituents are asking for are trains that run on time, stations they can actually get into and infrastructure that is safe to use. Performance, accessibility and condition are not separate issues. They are three sides of the same failure and the Bill must address all three. I urge the Minister to accept the amendments and show that Great British Railways will finally deliver a railway worthy of the people who depend on it every day.

• 10 Jun 2026 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 10 Jun 2026 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise in support of new clause 1, on the passengers’ charter, new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), and my own new clause 60, which addresses reliability, accessibility and refurbishment. All seven of my railway stations in Esher and Walton are under the stewardship of South Western Railway, making our constituency one of the first to experience the transition to public ownership, and there are significant reliability challenges. The latest performance figures show that, in March, 3% of all services were cancelled and only 65% of services arrived on time, meaning more than one in three trains fail to arrive when passengers expected them to.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Water Companies · Hansard source

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  For more than a decade my constituent Holly, of Ferry Road in Thames Ditton, has watched Thames Water clean up raw sewage from her street, only to be told that the system is not fit for purpose, with nothing ever being fixed. In last week’s heavy rain, human waste flooded two homes and spread to the local primary school. Thames Water’s proposed solution is to wash it straight back into the river, which is unacceptable. This comes on the back of higher bills. Is it not time that the Government put Thames Water on a sustainable footing under special administration, so that it can at last invest in infrastructure, and Holly’s nightmare can end?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  At the G7 Digital Ministers meeting, it was reported that the US and the UK watered down stronger protections for children presented by France. My constituents, as evidenced by more than 2,000 emails I have received on online harms, want stronger protections. Will the Minister assure us that on online safety he and the Prime Minister have the interests of children in my constituency at heart, rather than the interests of the US and big tech? If so, why did the UK resist mandatory protection frameworks?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Cuba: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  Trump’s reckless blockade is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis facing Cubans. It is the latest iteration of his “might is right” approach to global diplomacy, with devastating impacts. Four months in, Cubans are facing a backlog of 96,000 pending surgeries. There are 1 million people without reliable drinking water, empty petrol stations and a deadly summer heatwave. UN experts are formally condemning the blockade as “energy starvation”— a coercive tool that is being used against civilians. With fresh sanctions imposed on Thursday, the situation will only get worse. Given that Raúl Castro is now indicted, the parallels with Venezuela, where Trump used an indictment as a precursor to forcible regime change, are impossible to ignore. What conversations have the Government had with the US Administration about the blockade? Will the Minister provide an assessment of what will happen next, including of the possibility of military incursions? As Spain and Canada organise emergency aid shipments, will the Government review our aid contribution?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lebanon: Israel Defence Forces Operations · Hansard source

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  It has become routine for Donald Trump to declare a ceasefire when none exists, and in Lebanon the President’s claim that fighting has ceased is a dangerous fantasy. Under direction from the Israeli Security Cabinet, the IDF is expanding its illegal military operations in southern Lebanon. Israeli forces occupy more territory in Lebanon now than at any point since the start of the century. Hundreds of shattered communities have been left in their wake, with more than 3,000 Lebanese killed and 1 million displaced. This looks far too much like the IDF’s operation in Gaza. Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel would expand its control to 70% of that territory, breaching the ceasefire there. There can be no doubt that these actions have breached international law, and they are likely to constitute war crimes. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to target Israel with missiles and drones. Its violence has led to the displacement of Israeli citizens from across northern Israel and is completely unacceptable. There can be no place for that terror organisation in the region. No part of this resembles a ceasefire. We need to see concerted action from the international community, including the UK Government, to bring this cycle of violence to an end. Do the Government support the need for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon? Are the Government pressing the Israeli Security Cabinet to stop its illegal offensive and occupation in Lebanon? Will the Government stop all arms sales to Israel and sanction Netanyahu, alongside the extremist members of his cabinet? Have the Government made any progress with partners to advance multilateral plans for the disarming of Hezbollah? There is no military solution to the Lebanon crisis. The only path forward is a Lebanese political settlement that ensures Hezbollah’s disbandment and full state sovereignty over all its territory.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lebanon: Israel Defence Forces Operations · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question) : To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to make a statement on the Israel Defence Forces’ operations in Lebanon.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Community Pharmacies · Hansard source

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  Boots closed its pharmacy in Thames Ditton in 2024. An application was put in for another one, but it was decided following a pharmaceutical needs assessment that the need was met by the chemist. However, elderly residents have a 20-minute-plus walk to get to the chemist, and the high street around it has pretty much collapsed. Does the hon. Member agree that, beyond macro PNA figures, local circumstances are relevant?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Community Pharmacies · Hansard source

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  Accessibility is paramount. The costs that are pushed on to pharmacists mean that they cannot remain sustainable and that they resist opening pharmacies in smaller places, because it will take away business from them. Therefore, those pressures take away accessibility, which is needed.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Draft Syria (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Minister’s comments on the anniversary of Jo Cox’s murder and her friendship to the people of Syria? Once again, her spirit is very much alive, in that we have more in common than that which divides us. The Liberal Democrats recognise the power that lifting sanctions can have to enable the rebuilding of Syria following a decade of civil war and the collapse of the brutal Assad regime. However, it is vital that the new transitional Syrian Government under President al-Sharaa affirms their commitment to political inclusion and religious and sectarian tolerance. They must take concrete steps to promote and protect the rights of minority groups and to ensure that they are represented in the new Administration. The Liberal Democrats therefore call on the UK Government to outline an explicit strategy supporting the promotion of political inclusion and the protection of minorities in Syria and how that will be linked to any future lifting of sanctions.

• 21 May 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I know that many colleagues, like me, are frustrated by the Government’s lack of action to secure progress of a two-state solution. The UK is rightly committed to the disarmament of Hamas and Hezbollah. Those terror groups cannot be allowed to continue destabilising the region, but it is not clear that concrete action is being taken to deliver that. Can the Minister tell me how the Government are co-ordinating international efforts to disarm and disband both groups? Our influence over proscribed groups is less than over a state we call an ally. That is why Liberal Democrats have been so critical of the Minister’s failure to hold the Israeli Security Cabinet to account for its extremist actions. I was disgusted by the footage of the far-right Minister, Ben-Gvir, degrading detainees from the Global Samud Flotilla. This was after celebrating his birthday with a cake emblazoned with a noose, following the passage of a death penalty law targeting Palestinians. It was right that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office called in the Israeli chargé d'affaires to register our condemnation, but it is far from sufficient. In the west bank, settler violence and expansion accelerates. At the start of June, tenders will be delivered for the construction in the E1 area, a move that could kill the chance of a contiguous Palestinian state. In Gaza, Israeli forces push forward their yellow line, inch by inch. The entry of aid continues to be impeded by restrictive measures, while the humanitarian catastrophe only worsens and journalists are still blocked from entering. In southern Lebanon, the Israeli Defence Force demolishes Lebanese houses and entire villages—an abhorrent and illegal operation. Across those issues, the Government’s muted response and dysfunction can be summarised in a single example: the decision to cut the FCDO’s unit for the monitoring of international law breaches across Israel and Palestine. Can the Minister set out what steps the Government will take if the E1 project continues? Will the Minister ban all UK trade with illegal settlements, reverse cuts to the FCDO’s monitoring unit and press the Israeli Government to allow journalists access to Gaza so that they can collect what evidence may remain of war crimes committed there?

• 21 May 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Would the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Walton and Hersham football club in my constituency? They have secured promotion to the national league south for the first time in their history—an extraordinary fourth promotion in just six seasons. At a time of concern about young people’s mental health and online harms, which I know the House will debate in future, can he provide time for a debate about supporting grassroots football clubs and sports clubs? They are a diversion away from online harms and for better mental health, as Walton and Hersham show so well.

• 21 May 2026 · Humble Address: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  A Downing Street spokesperson is currently saying that a further tranche of files relating to the appointment are to be published at a future date, which is different from what the Minister is saying at the Dispatch Box. Perhaps he could clarify.