Munira Wilson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Feb 2026 · Inner-London Local Authorities: Funding · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Dr Murrison. The debate moved more quickly than I had anticipated. I thank the Minister for giving way despite my late arrival. I have a lot of sympathy with the Government’s aims; we all want to tackle deprivation and poverty. In my borough, the London borough of Richmond, we are going to see £29 million of cuts over the next three years, which will stretch to £46 million by year 4. That means a huge cliff edge, and at the moment the Government are refusing to provide any transitional protection. I recognise that Richmond is largely a wealthy borough, but we have significant pockets of deprivation and very needy residents, particularly young and older vulnerable residents. Despite a maximum council tax hike and efficiency savings, we will see cuts to the most vulnerable. Will the Minister finally agree to meet with me, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and the leader of our council to talk about how we can put transitional provisions in place? She has refused to do that so far. [ Interruption. ] She seems perplexed, but her latest letter refused a meeting with us, so I am asking her again, in the spirit of cross-party working, if she will meet us to discuss this.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Brain Tumour Survival Rates · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making a very powerful speech, and I pay tribute to her for all her efforts in this area. I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with glioblastoma last summer, who has been through surgery and radiotherapy, and who is now in a clinical trial at the Royal Marsden hospital—I am not sure if it is the trial to which the hon. Lady refers. May I ask her about a different drug, vorasidenib, which is licensed in the UK for low-grade gliomas? Two residents in my constituency, who are in their 20s, desperately need this drug. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is still considering whether it should be available on the NHS. Will the hon. Lady join me in urging the Minister to engage with NHS England and NICE to make sure that Servier makes the drug available, so that these young patients can continue to live their lives?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Nurseries and Early Years Providers: CCTV · Hansard source

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  I know we are talking about CCTV, but another important thing that the Australian Government have just introduced is a register for early years providers, so that perpetrators can be stopped from going on to hurt other young victims, as happened in the Twickenham Green nursery case of Roksana Lecka. Will the Minister and her Government also look at having a register for early years practitioners in the UK?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Nurseries and Early Years Providers: CCTV · Hansard source

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  I want to publicly thank the Minister for attending a roundtable with the parents of Twickenham Green nursery victims last year. The perpetrator is to be deported tomorrow, and many of those parents feel that justice has not been served, but the best justice would be to make sure that such a case does not happen again, so I welcome the panel. Will the Minister assure me and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), who represents the parents of baby Gigi Meehan, that we can feed into that panel on behalf of those parents to make sure that their concerns and views are heard, and that we have learned the lessons from the CCTV pilot rollout in Australia?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Victim Support Services: Funding · Hansard source

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  Supporting victims of heinous crimes such as child abuse is paramount. Aside from support services, clear communication and transparency is key, yet the parents of the 21 babies abused by Roksana Lecka at the Riverside nursery in Twickenham Green were given less than a week’s notice that she would be deported to Poland this Thursday. They have been given no information about whether Lecka will continue to serve the rest of her eight-year sentence or whether she will walk free after just four months in a UK prison. They fear that if left unsupervised, she will harm many more children. Can the Minister tell the House what the release terms are for Lecka? Those parents deserve answers.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Defence Spending: 2030 Target · Hansard source

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  I appreciate what the Defence Secretary has just said, but with President Trump attempting to tear apart the international alliances that have kept us safe for decades, and with Putin waging war in Ukraine for almost four years, the world is changing fast. We need to come together as patriots to decide how we can best invest in the defence of our country as quickly as possible. Can I press him again to convene cross-party talks on how we can reach 3% of GDP on defence quickly, and will he ensure that defence bonds are part of the solution?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Defence Spending: 2030 Target · Hansard source

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  22. If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of holding cross-party talks on reaching 3% defence spending by 2030.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  As well as the uncertainty caused by the extension from five to 10 years of the qualifying period for ILR, many families in my constituency have contacted me with another concern: where, at the moment, one parent stays at home to look after the children, if they are forced to go out to work in order to meet the £12,500 minimum threshold for permanent residence, they will face massive childcare costs. Does my hon. Friend agree that they are right to be concerned?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Local Authority Children’s Services · Hansard source

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  It is a familiar story, and I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I am getting an indication from the Chair that I am already overrunning, so I will try to cut my last points short. The Minister is aware that I have long campaigned on kinship care. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill takes welcome steps forward, but there is much further to go. As he knows, putting a child with a family member in the short term is not just better for their long-term outcomes; it would save local authorities around 50% of the cost of putting them in care, even if they gave kinship carers allowances on a par with foster carers. That has to be an urgent cost-saving intervention. The Minister must also restore the adoption and special guardianship support fund grants, as we heard so clearly from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), who talked about the long-term impact. I will conclude by quoting the Minister’s own words at him. In his review, he stated: “How we care for our children is nothing short of a reflection of our values as a country.” We have heard today that we are falling short on that. We stand ready to work across parties to ensure that his vision becomes reality.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Local Authority Children’s Services · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) for securing this important debate and for his tireless dedication to ensuring that what happened to Sara Sharif never, ever happens to another child again. We have heard a range of contributions today, and I want to start by saying that children’s services in local authorities across the country play a vital, statutory role in ensuring that all children, including the most vulnerable, receive the support and education that every child deserves and needs. Like the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), I pay tribute to those working on the frontline, who are often overworked, underpaid and under-thanked. They deserve our thanks, notwithstanding the systemic and structural failures. As many hon. Members said, many local authorities face deep funding challenges. For some local authorities, that is exacerbated by what has been called the fair funding review. I fear we will see short-term decisions that ultimately cost the taxpayer more in the long run. The Liberal Democrats have always argued that we should see spending on supporting our children as an investment in our future—our society’s future and our economy’s future. I will return to funding, but I now turn to where my hon. Friend the Member for Woking started. I listened to his powerful words about Sara’s story with tears in my eyes, and I was reminded that I felt similarly in May 2022, when the then Education Secretary—one Nadhim Zahawi—gave a statement in the main Chamber following the brutal deaths of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. As is always the case after such horrendous stories, we said, “Never again,” and he promised that lessons would be learned. When the Children’s Commissioner gave evidence to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee last year, she said: “Every time a child dies, we give exactly the same set of recommendations, including better multi-agency working and better join-up, yet time and again”— including after Victoria Climbié, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Sara Sharif— “we find ourselves saying the same things.” — [ Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 44, Q94.] The Government must take action, and I welcome the fact that they are taking a number of steps in the right direction—I am very happy to acknowledge that. Last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and I met Professor Alexis Jay to discuss the findings of her review into child sexual abuse. She impressed upon me two points: the importance of a child protection authority and the importance of data sharing. I am grateful that the Minister has now announced a child protection authority, and I hope he will set out a bit more on the timelines and implementation. On data sharing, which was so critical in Sara’s case, I welcome some of the measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, not least the introduction of a single unique identifier. The Liberal Democrats strongly support that because we believe that proper data sharing between services will improve child safeguarding. I hope the Government will continue to address some of the concerns that have been raised about privacy and data sharing, given the Government’s record at times of data loss and being hacked. I raised with the Home Secretary a few weeks ago my fear that there are people outside this place who are scaremongering and suggesting that this is digital ID for children, when actually it is about how we safeguard children, provide better services, and commission better services and research to support them. Another measure in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently in the other place, is the children not in school register. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking said, the Liberal Democrats have long supported such a register, so that vulnerable children do not disappear from the system. However, during the passage of the Bill we have repeatedly set out our concerns about the amount of information that has to be collected for that register. This is not just about the impact and intrusion on families; even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, in oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee, was circumspect about the amount of detailed information that home-educating parents will be expected to supply. I have talked to councillors and local government officials, and they are worried about the huge burden this will put on local authorities in meeting their new duties. If the Government are going to put these duties on local authorities, funding needs to follow, so that they are properly resourced to collect the data and implement the register. That brings me back to funding. As we have heard, underfunding is a consistent theme in children’s services. I talked about children being an investment. Unfortunately, politics is such that Governments think in electoral cycles. The return on an investment in a young child is often not seen for 15 or 20 years, so it is very hard to make the case for that investment to the Treasury. The Minister has my sympathy and support in that. In his independent review of children’s social care, the Minister said: “What we have currently is a system increasingly skewed to crisis intervention, with outcomes for children that continue to be unacceptably poor and costs that continue to rise.” I recognise that the Government announced a children’s social care prevention grant last year, but I am afraid that money pales into insignificance when we hear so starkly today from my hon. Friends, many of whom represent rural constituencies that are seeing deep funding cuts through the reallocation of local government funding following the fair funding review, that the most vulnerable will lose out. It is not just rural areas, but London constituencies, too. Government Members often say to me, “You represent an affluent area.” Yes, on the whole I do, but that does not mean that deprivation, need and vulnerable children do not exist. My local authority in Richmond is one of the worst hit in the country—it will lose about £47 million of Government funding over the next four years—and it is those vulnerable children who will miss out. The pots of funding the Government are making available for children’s services are welcome, but when we offset that against the losses, we are going to see children suffer. It is a real shame that we are seeing this money taken away in London, because between 2010 and 2023, London boroughs saw an 11% reduction in the number of looked-after children, while England as a whole experienced a 30% increase. The changes to the children and young people’s services formula in London risk undoing the very good work we have seen London boroughs do to give our children the best start in life. Obviously, I will always argue for more money to be spent on children’s services, but I recognise that there is not a magic money tree, and we face a difficult fiscal situation, not least as a result of the previous Conservative Government. There are ways that savings can be made. Early intervention is one of them, and I know the Minister is very supportive of that approach. There are a number of great measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, such as family group decision making. I ask the Minister to look at the amendments tabled in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness Tyler, who wants to ensure that local authorities have a duty to support parents after a child is taken away from them, so that they not only overcome the trauma and grief but make a lasting change. The data shows that half of newborns in care proceedings are born to mothers who have already been through proceedings with another child. We need to take action early to prevent the same thing from happening again. A number of Labour and Liberal Democrat Members have talked about the eye-watering cost of private social care providers and fostering agencies, which are bleeding local authorities dry. I welcome the backstop power in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill for the Government to put a profit cap on children’s social care providers. I urge the Minister, as I have again and again: please extend the profit cap to private special schools, which are also bleeding our local authorities dry. When one school charges more than £100,000 a year in fees plus transport, while state-maintained alternatives do it for £25,000 for the same cohort, that is an obvious place that the Government can save money. The answer is capital investment in state-run specialist provision, in the same way that it is in state-run children’s care homes. I know the Government have already started on that, but they need to go further.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. Given that the Chancellor has just confirmed that today’s U-turn will support only our hard-pressed local pubs, what message does she have for independent restaurants and coffee shops, such as Bones in Twickenham, that are struggling to survive, let alone grow?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Commonhold and Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  I welcome many of the Government’s announcements today. Across Twickenham, I hear regularly from leaseholders who suffer when service charges are jacked up without any notice or transparency, often for spurious maintenance issues. I note that the Minister has said that he does not want to cap service charges and that help will be on the way at some point, but he has refused to put a timeline on that. Why does he not use this Bill as a golden opportunity to bring forward Lord Best’s recommendations on having a property regulator that can look at this area in a nuanced and sensible way?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  The White Paper states, on page 24: “To build trust and increase accessibility, officers will also maintain a visible presence in local hubs, schools and community spaces”. May I ask the Home Secretary how that vision marries with the fact that in London, under the Met’s “tough choices” programme, we are about to see the closure of the Twickenham police station front counter? We have already lost our specialist schools team and we have lost our specialist parks police, including those in Bushy Park in my constituency. Does this not show that the Home Secretary can make as many reforms to structures as she likes, but if they are not resourced properly, our constituents will not see the community policing that she is promising?

• 19 Jan 2026 · SEND: High-quality School Places · Hansard source

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  Shortly before Christmas, the Secretary of State announced to the media, rather than the House, welcome capital investment in specialist provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, children for whom mainstream provision is simply not appropriate. However, digging into the small print, that included the forced cancellation of 18 free special schools and the jeopardising of a further 59, despite two thirds of state special schools being at or over capacity. With children being sent many miles away to privately run provision that is costing taxpayers eye-watering sums in transport and fees, why does she not give all local councils both the resources and the flexibility to decide whether they should go ahead with a special school in their area, because councils know what is best for the families in their areas, not Whitehall?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The evidence is undeniable: social media and the addictive algorithms that feed it are harming our children’s physical and mental health and impacting their sleep and their concentration and behaviour at school. With parents, children themselves and teachers crying out for change, and with cross-party consensus growing on this issue, will the Secretary of State work across Government, instead of launching a consultation, to ban under-16s from harmful social media through a film-style age rating system and approach the 42 children’s charities and experts—

• 15 Jan 2026 · Gambling Harms: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) on his extremely knowledgeable and passionate opening speech. All the contributions that we have heard today have been based on a huge amount of knowledge, experience of constituents and personal connections. I am really grateful to colleagues; I have learned a lot from them. Gambling clearly poses a serious threat to the wellbeing of our children and young people across the country. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is a very serious public health issue that needs tackling. As he said, some of the harm is indirect: adults in the family may be involved in problem gambling. Two thirds of people who gamble are in some degree of debt, and there are 400 gambling-related suicides per year, so gambling has devastating consequences for families and knock-on impacts on mental and physical health, education, employment and crime. On indirect harms, I was shocked to read in the Gambling Commission’s November 2025 report that three in five young people had some experience of gambling, and that half had gambled in the past 12 months. Much of that takes place through arcade gambling but, as we have heard today, online gambling is a growing problem. It includes traditional gambling sites and games with loot boxes, which encourage gambling-type behaviour that sometimes puts our children on a trajectory to full-blown gambling in later life. I am sure hon. Members have read or heard about the shocking story of a 16-year-old who, in 2022, lost thousands of pounds online in just a few weeks after seeing adverts at a football game—we have heard a lot about football advertising today—and setting up an account in his father’s name. We are becoming increasingly aware of the addictive nature of social media and of how addictive algorithms are being harnessed to prey on and profit from children’s vulnerabilities in many different ways—not just gambling. The Gambling Commission’s 2025 survey found that young people are more likely to be exposed to gambling-related advertisements weekly online than they are offline. Thirty-one per cent of young people who saw gambling-related content on social media reported that influencers had advertising gambling-related content to them. Concerningly, online gambling-related adverts give the impression that it is possible to make a lot of money quickly, while failing to portray the harms that gambling can cause. Given that, according to Action for Children, one in five children say that they worry about their family’s financial situation, it is particularly cruel to prey on children’s vulnerabilities in that way. The knowledge that children and young people are regularly being encouraged to engage in risky behaviour with potentially devastating consequences clearly demonstrates the need for protection for children and young people, who are not aware of the dangers. Indeed, three in four children say that they want more to be done to reduce the amount of gambling advertising and content that they see. GambleAware’s recent report found that seven in 10 children agree that it is difficult to avoid gambling advertising and content. When asked what they would say to those who produced the gambling ads, one child said that they felt that gambling operators and advertisers were “grooming children into thinking gambling is exciting and fun and win lots of money. You”— the advertisers— “need to put the dangers and the loss of money on adverts”. Given that gambling causes psychological distress, financial and social difficulties, and even addiction, it is clear that we need to reform the system to protect our young people. The Liberal Democrats have long been calling for reforms to protect people from gambling harms. We very much welcomed the Government’s decision to double the remote gaming duty—a policy that we have long been calling for—but we believe that further decisive action is needed to combat the harms caused by problem gambling. We call on the Government to curb the impact of gambling advertising, marketing and sponsorship, including by ending inducements, direct marketing, gambling marketing and sponsorships at sports events, and pre-watershed gambling advertising. They should also introduce clear and enforceable restrictions on content marketing, particularly on social media, create a statutory independent gambling ombudsman with real power to protect consumers and resolve complaints, and replace the current self-regulation of gambling advertising with independent and enforceable regulation. Given the role in this scourge that is played by social media and its harmful content and addictive algorithms, as well as harmful gaming, there is now growing cross-party consensus that Government need to take decisive action much more broadly to protect our children from online harms, of which gambling is only one. I hope that not just the Minister today but Ministers across Departments will listen to representations and proposals from both sides of the House to ensure that we protect our children and young people from addiction, because we need to do that if we are serious about giving them every opportunity to thrive and fulfil their full potential.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcements. She rightly set out the abhorrent and criminal nature of the content being created through Grok. As well as being subjected to that abuse, our children are being exposed to harmful content not just on X, but on many social media platforms—together with AI chatbots that never sleep, doomscrolling and addictive gaming. Children and young people, and their parents, are crying out for further action. I implore the Secretary of State to finally consider raising the digital age of data consent to stop big tech companies profiteering from our children’s attention. She opposed that when we proposed it last year for the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, but next week we will have another chance in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently in the other place.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. The Secretary of State will be aware that the so-called fair funding settlement will leave my council of Richmond upon Thames some £29 million worse off over the next three years. It will leave our most vulnerable residents, including children with complex needs and elderly people, facing cuts in critical services, even if the council raises council tax by 5%. Will he extend the transitional period?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  Isleworth Crown court, which is one of the closest courts to my constituency, closed down five of its 14 courtrooms last year because of maintenance issues and because of the cap on sitting days put in place by the previous Conservative Government and only partially lifted by this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as addressing all the maintenance issues and the system inefficiency, we could, if we increased the number of court sitting days and addressed the workforce issues, preserve this fundamental right to a jury trial for all?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Flood Defences: Twickenham · Hansard source

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  4. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of flood defences in Twickenham constituency.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Flood Defences: Twickenham · Hansard source

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  Happy Christmas to you and all your staff, Mr Speaker. Recently, out of the blue, the Environment Agency’s flood risk map was updated to include an extra 3,800 homes in Teddington in my constituency at flood risk. There has been zero engagement with residents or elected representatives, and this is causing a lot of alarm and concern about how people and their homes can be protected. It has an impact on insurance premiums and those buying and selling homes in the area. What assurances can the Minister give my constituents about engagement in future and, more importantly, what mitigations and protections are being put in place?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State is extolling the virtues of nationalisation. South Western Railway, which serves my constituents across Teddington, Twickenham, Hampton and Whitton, was nationalised earlier this year. We have only seen the service get worse and worse, with delays, cancellations and short-form trains leading to overcrowding. When can my constituents expect a better service as a result of her policies?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and the appointment of Baroness Longfield, who will be an excellent chair. When I met Professor Jay at the start of the year to talk about her inquiry, she impressed two points on me: the importance of a child protection authority, and the importance of data sharing. Earlier this year, the safeguarding Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), announced the establishment of a child protection authority. Will the Home Secretary update the House on progress in establishing that authority? On data sharing, the Liberal Democrats have supported the Government’s legislation to create a single unique identifier. Unfortunately, people outside this place are suggesting that it is the precursor to digital identification for children, and that the Government use children’s data inappropriately. Will the Home Secretary reassure parents and carers that the Government will guard children’s data with the utmost security, and will use it only to keep children safe, and to improve services for them?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Child Poverty Strategy · Hansard source

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  Every child, no matter their background, deserves the opportunity to flourish and fulfil their potential. The Liberal Democrats welcome any and all efforts to reduce the number of children in poverty, because we believe that investing in our children and young people is one of the most important investments a Government can make. That is why we welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement at the Budget that the Government will lift the cap on universal credit for families with more than two children. It was a cruel policy put in place by George Osborne and the Conservatives when they were left to their own devices in government. This strategy includes a smorgasbord of existing proposals, but it is very light on any new measures that we urgently need to tackle the scourge of child poverty. Even the Government’s own numbers suggest that the strategy will leave nearly 4 million children stuck in poverty. The Government need to go further. The Secretary of State could start by properly funding the very welcome expansion in free school meals and, crucially, automatically enrolling children on to the scheme, so that no child slips through the cracks and misses out on a hot, healthy meal. The Education Secretary could also set a cap on the cost of branded school uniform, so that hard-pressed parents do not have to suffer over-inflated prices as a result of her short-sighted policy to cap the number of branded uniform items. We know that one of the biggest determinants of outcomes is housing. Like many other London MPs, I regularly see families in my surgery who are suffering the devastating consequences of being shoved into temporary accommodation many miles away from their schools and wider family. If the Government are serious about ending the use of B&B accommodation, they must focus on building social housing. We need to build 150,000 social homes every year in order that local people can genuinely afford to live in their area, with local services to meet their needs. Finally, the Secretary of State rightly pointed out the long-term costs of material poverty. The same can be true of those children suffering a poverty of love and care. That is why her failure to reverse the cuts she imposed earlier this year to the adoption and special guardianship support fund by finding just £25 million—a drop in the ocean of Government spending—is so egregious and short-sighted. Why will she not think again, to ensure that our most vulnerable children can access the therapy they desperately need to have a best second chance in life?