Munira Wilson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Dec 2025 · Camden Nursery Sexual Abuse Case · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement, and for the briefing that officials provided to me. The details of this case are harrowing and deeply disturbing, and my first thoughts are with the families affected. I sincerely hope that they are getting all the support and care they need. Sadly, however, this latest heinous case is part of a distressing pattern that is emerging in early years settings across the country, in which safeguarding practices have not been followed or are proving insufficient to prevent babies and young children from coming to harm. Less than three months ago, Roksana Lecka was jailed for eight years on 21 counts of child cruelty relating to her time working at Riverside nursery, Twickenham Green, in my constituency. Just last year, another nursery worker was jailed for manslaughter following the tragic death of Gigi Meehan in Cheadle. The BBC’s “Panorama” has exposed a worrying level of abuse and neglect in nurseries across the country. The Secretary of State rightly says that lessons will be learned from the Camden case, but it is clear that we already urgently need to strengthen safeguarding in early years settings. The safeguarding panel review in the Twickenham Green case and the parents of the children affected have clearly set out three broad areas for change. The first is transparency around who is working in our early years settings, what qualifications and what training they have, and their history and vetting. What consideration has the Secretary of State given to an early years practitioner register, of the kind that Australia has recently proposed? The second area for change is monitoring. In the Twickenham Green and Gigi Meehan cases, CCTV was vital in securing convictions, and it might have led to Chan being caught sooner. I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today, but will she seriously consider mandating CCTV in nurseries, and making it a requirement for management to regularly review footage, and for Ofsted to routinely check footage at inspections? The third is accountability. The Vincent Chan and Twickenham Green cases involved nursery chains. Will the Secretary of State set out a timeline for when Ofsted will start corporate inspections of nursery chains, and will she ensure that when serious safeguarding issues are found in one setting, inspections are triggered across the chain? No parent heading off to work should have to worry about whether their child is safe, but our most vulnerable are repeatedly being let down. The Secretary of State rightly said that keeping children safe is one of the most important duties in our society. Ministers urgently need to act to keep children safe, and we stand ready to work with them.

• 4 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Residents across Twickenham, Teddington, the Hamptons and Whitton are sick to the back teeth with South Western Railway repeatedly cancelling, delaying and putting on short trains. The service to every station in my constituency has become appreciably worse since nationalisation, despite promises to the contrary from Ministers, with local residents missing out on work, medical appointments and education. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the performance of SWR?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  David Laws was not in government for the last decade of Conservative Governments; he was there for the first five years and he did some excellent things, not least introducing the pupil premium. I would say, however, that Conservative Governments left us with crumbling schools that are unable to hire specialist teachers, a crisis in special educational needs provision, and a huge problem with persistent absence. Given those major issues in our education system, I am not quite sure why the Government have chosen to tinker with academies and governance arrangements as their priority for education policy, when there is limited evidence to suggest that a mixed economy of governance arrangements in our school system is posing a major problem. With the promised schools White Paper hopefully being revealed in the new year, although I think it has been delayed twice already, there is a question as to whether part 2 of the Bill was somewhat premature. I am increasingly wondering whether the Government feel the same way, given that the Bill keeps being delayed in the other place. By the time the Bill returns to the House of Commons, it will have been well over a year since it was first introduced. When the Bill Committee consulted education leaders in January, the one strong message that came through was about how the Government went about drafting part 2 of the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross set out, it was done with limited consultation and showed a lack of coherent vision for the school system; there was no White Paper and no consultation of those on the frontline or in leadership positions across the sector. That lack of coherent vision and joined-up thinking seems to be a recurring theme for this Labour Government. They introduced free breakfast clubs, but they are not funding them properly. They have capped the number of school uniform items to three, but that will actually risk further inflating prices for hard-pressed families. They have proposed broadening the curriculum, which is something we welcome, and the Bill will make that statutory for all academies, but they have failed to set out the funds or a plan to recruit the necessary teachers to deliver it. During the Bill’s passage, they voted against Liberal Democrat proposals to widen eligibility for free school meals, but they subsequently decided to copy the policy and announced that they will introduce it next year. Throughout the passage of the Bill, the Liberal Democrats have sought to engage constructively with the Government by tabling amendments and new clauses that aim to improve the Bill and to address some of the concerns raised by the petition that we are discussing today. Given that the Government have already copied at least one of our policies, I hope that the new Minister, who is here today, might listen to some other good ideas in my speech and in the other place. There is a real fear that this legislation, which is seeking to safeguard children who go missing from education, will over-police home educators, most of whom are doing a great job. I have been very clear at every stage of the Bill—I think there was cross-party support for this—that the Liberal Democrats strongly support having a register of children not in school to ensure that vulnerable children do not simply disappear from the system. We also strongly support the right of parents to choose to home educate, where that is the best option for their child. In oral evidence to the Bill Committee, however, even the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was circumspect about the vast amount of detailed information that the Bill will expect home educating parents to supply. That level of detail risks becoming intrusive and unnecessary. Many home educators choose to home educate their children not because they want to but because they feel forced to. There is a crisis in our special needs system, and so much special needs provision just does not meet the needs of those children, forcing many parents to give up work so that they can home educate their child. By virtue of their child’s need, parents tend to be much more flexible in how they home educate, but the very onerous reporting mechanisms will interfere with the flexibility that parents need to provide for their children. I tabled various amendments to try to pare back the burdensome nature of the register, as set out in the Bill. One amendment called for, at the very least, a review of the register’s impact on home educators to be carried out within six months, to ensure that only reporting requirements that are strictly necessary for safeguarding purposes are retained. We also tabled an amendment that would have removed the requirement for parents and carers of children in special schools to secure local authority consent to home educate. Furthermore, we proposed that home educated children should not be excluded from national examinations because of financial or capacity constraints. Sadly, the Government voted down all our amendments, but I encourage the new Minister to give serious consideration to relevant amendments tabled in the other place, because we must do more if we genuinely want to extend opportunity to every child. Our SEND system is letting down many children, and it is allowing a number of organisations with bad intentions to exploit the market failure in the system. I am talking about private-equity-run special school providers, which are making exorbitant profits, as they have with children’s homes. They are exploiting the lack of provision to hold local authorities and parents to ransom. The latest revelation in the Budget is that the Government will absorb the costs of SEND provision from local authorities, and the projected £6 billion black hole only strengthens the need to start capping the profits of private special schools. The Bill already makes provision to cap the profits of the same companies that are running children’s care homes and fostering agencies, so I again ask the Minister to consider introducing the measure so that no child is left waiting because of a lack of resource, given that local authorities are being bled dry. While I am talking about children being left waiting, I encourage the Minister to look at another Liberal Democrat proposal to automatically enrol every eligible child for free school meals, so that no one misses out on a hot, healthy meal. Durham county council, under its previous Liberal Democrat-led administration, auto-enrolled 2,500 children, whose schools benefited from an additional £3 million in pupil premium funding. It is not too late for the Minister to improve the Bill, which I do not believe needs to be withdrawn wholesale. Instead, with the help of the other place, it can be amended so that there is a strong foundation to improve safeguarding for our children and strengthen provision for them in our schools.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I strongly support the Government’s objective of driving down the cost of branded uniform for families. Will the Minister look at the proposals that the Liberal Democrat tabled in Committee and on Report? We suggested that, instead of capping the number of items, we cap the cost, which would then be reviewed in line with inflation every year. That way, we would help to bring down the cost, because if we reduce the number of items, suppliers will just push up their prices, as they are selling fewer items. They might charge £100 for a blazer instead of £50. Our proposal would free schools to set their own uniform policy and let the market do its job by driving down prices for families.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Barker. I thank the Petitions Committee for granting this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for so ably opening the debate. I pay tribute to the approximately 166,500 people who have signed this petition, including the 184 in my constituency. There is much in this Bill that many of us can agree on, especially in part 1. During its passage there was cross-party support for the measures in part 1 to ensure that the Government go further in safeguarding and promoting the wellbeing of our children. Part 1 also includes the proposals for a single unique identifier, and I say to hon. Members concerned about it that I do not think it is the precursor to digital ID for our children. If hon. Members look at Professor Jay’s report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, one of the biggest issues in the system—as I heard when I met her earlier this year—is the lack of data sharing between different service providers, such as health, the police and social services. Some of the young women and girls who were victims of grooming gangs across the country were regularly turning up in hospitals with sexually transmitted diseases, but that data was not being married up with what the police and social services were seeing. If data had been better shared, those issues might have been picked up. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports a single unique identifier for the same reason. I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) that there are concerns about data sharing, data security and privacy that need to be tackled, and they were explored in detail in the Bill Committee, particularly by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Whether it is the NHS number or a different single unique identifier, however, it is an important provision for safeguarding our children and ensuring that we can better research their needs and commission services to meet them. As a number of Members have mentioned, part 2 of the Bill feels a bit muddled, particularly the clauses that deal with academies, and in a number of cases it puts the cart before the horse. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire looks back at the last decade of Conservative Governments with rose-tinted glasses, but I gently remind him—

• 1 Dec 2025 · Evacuation Chairs: Schools and Colleges · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alec. I start by thanking all the people—over 104,000 in total—who have signed this petition, including 65 people in my own constituency of Twickenham. They are the primary reason why we are debating this important issue. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for his speech. It was hard to disagree with a single word of it. However, I particularly thank and pay tribute to 16-year-old Lucas for his #NoStudentLeftBehind campaign, which has included starting this petition and then gathering such a large number of signatures that we are now debating it in Parliament. It is an incredible campaign, and it is just brilliant and brave of him to lead it in the way that he has. I was shocked to learn of Lucas’s case when I read about it. As a wheelchair user, he was left upstairs on his own when a fire broke out at his school. Although it was only a small fire and thankfully no one was hurt, Lucas described feeling petrified and even considering getting out of his wheelchair to crawl down the stairs, because there was no evacuation chair. No person should ever have to feel like that, and Lucas’s passion to ensure that no disabled child or staff member has to endure the fear and indignity that he had to go through is truly commendable. I was very moved by his powerful poem, which the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter read out. Lucas is not alone. According to Disabled Students UK, more than one in five students with physical or sensory needs do not feel confident that they would be able to exit on-campus buildings in case of emergency. That is unacceptable. Disabled people must be sure that, like all other pupils, they will be quickly and safely evacuated from schools during fires or any other emergency. Although there were no fire-related fatalities in schools in the 2024-25 financial year, we cannot continue to hope for the best and run the risk of somebody losing their life because of a lack of accommodation for the needs of disabled people. Evacuation chairs are vital to meeting these needs. Not only do they provide a safe and effective means of escape for individuals with mobility impairments, but they ensure that everyone has equal access to emergency evacuation procedures. In the case of a fire or other emergency, individuals with disabilities should not be left behind or be unable to evacuate because of a lack of proper equipment. As the Government’s response to the petition acknowledges, not all disabled people feel comfortable using such chairs, and it is not always possible for wheelchair users to transfer into an evacuation chair or to maintain a sitting position once seated in one. Evacuation chairs are incredibly important, but they are not an automatic solution to the escape requirements of all wheelchair users. However, it is essential that they are readily available and well maintained, and that staff are trained in their proper use to guarantee a smooth and efficient evacuation process when someone’s personal emergency evacuation plan requires an evacuation chair. It should also be checked that the evacuation chair is suitable for the person who will be using it, as different types of chair are available. The legal framework for this issue has room for improvement. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which applies to schools, does not mandate that evacuation plans for schools must include PEEPs. That is in contrast with the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025, which were rightly brought in to mandate PEEPs for relevant persons in specific residential buildings in England from April 2026 following the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to go further and to widen mandatory PEEPs beyond residential buildings to include schools. We believe that PEEPs should be mandatory for students and school staff with a disability who might require evacuation assistance, and that they should be developed in genuine partnership to ensure students’ needs and preferences are fully understood and acted upon, so that disabled children and staff feel safe and secure at school. This change to the regulations is common sense and clearly implementable, given the Government’s identical changes to fire safety regulations in residential buildings. This change to the regulations will ensure that every disabled person can safely evacuate schools during a fire or other emergency, whether with an evacuation chair or via another method. It is vital that no disabled person is left behind during a fire or other emergency that could put their life in danger. If we are truly committed to equality of opportunity for everyone, especially for children and young people, we must ensure that every person is free from fear. We owe it to Lucas and many others like him.

• 25 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise primarily to speak to new clause 26 and amendment 82, tabled in my name, which are related to the changes the Government propose to the assets of community value system. Members across the House will know from their own communities that playing field space is at a premium, and my constituency is no different. We have fantastic local grassroots sports clubs run by dedicated local volunteers, including our local football clubs, the Cygnets—which has more than 300 girls on its books regularly playing football, and now adult women, too—the Twickenham Tigers and the Hearts of Teddlothians, as well as Thamesians rugby club, among others, all of which are desperate for pitch space. These groups are struggling to meet growing demand because they simply cannot find the space to train and play matches. At a time when we face the twin public health crises of obesity and poor mental health, we must do everything we can to promote and support young people, in particular, and adults to play sport for the immense physical and mental health benefits that it brings. Yet sitting in my constituency are the much-loved Udney Park playing fields—a 13-acre war memorial playing field—which have, scandalously, lain derelict for more than a decade. Sadly, I do not have the time to bore the House with the long and sorry tale of how we ended up with prime playing field space, which was donated in 1919 under a covenant for the playing of amateur sport, going to rack and ruin. However, since Imperial College decided to sell the site in 2015, successive developers have purchased it at overinflated prices and have, quite rightly, been unable to develop the site due to the various important protections afforded to it. The site has been designated an asset of community value, and despite huge efforts by the local community to buy the land whenever it has been put up for sale by its owners, the two successive owners have refused to agree a price and sell to the community, meaning that the precious playing fields and pavilion have degraded over time. I warmly welcome the new community right-to-buy provision in the Bill, but it does not go far enough in actually empowering communities to buy precious sites such as Udney Park. New clause 26 would further strengthen the proposed powers where dormant assets are concerned. While the Bill introduces a mechanism for independent valuation where a price cannot be agreed between the seller and a community group buyer, it remains silent on both how that valuation is achieved and what can be done if the seller repeatedly refuses to sell at what is determined to be market value. On the point of independent valuation, I would like to have seen written into the Bill an explicit clause that removed hope value where an existing playing field has been purchased by a community group to continue using it as playing field space; alas, I was told by the Clerks that this was firmly out of scope, and the Government refused to back a similar amendment that I tabled to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. New clause 26, however, provides a mechanism to enable a local authority to engage the compulsory purchase function in the event of an asset of community value lying dormant for five years or more and a market value offer—as determined through independent valuation as set out in proposed new section 86T to the Localism Act 2011—from a community group being rejected, and if the seller has been unable to agree a sale with an alternative buyer. Extending the right-to-buy power in this way would prevent developers from land banking in the hope of a change in legislation and prevent precious, desperately needed sites like Udney Park playing fields from lying derelict and unused when hundreds, if not thousands, of local residents, young and old, could benefit from them. It would focus minds and encourage the owner to sell when it gets a fair market value offer from a community group. Together with amendment 82, new clause 26 would help to boost access to more green spaces and grassroots sports facilities at a time when demand is growing, not least following the amazing successes of the Lionesses and the Red Roses this summer. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have been concerned by the Government’s removal of Sport England’s role in national policy. Amendment 82 would support local authorities by ensuring that they have the funding necessary to assess land in their area for eligibility as a sporting asset of community value. As I said at the outset, sport is such an important tool in the fight against the mental and physical health crises facing our young people and adults, and amendment 82 would simply ensure that lack of funding will not be an obstacle to protecting what will be vital sporting assets of community value. I hope that Ministers will take these measures seriously, and I look forward to hearing their response. Finally, I will touch briefly on amendment 94 tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), and consequential amendments to it, as well as amendment 4 tabled by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). They both seek to achieve the same objective. My council in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames is run through the committee system, and it has been run extremely effectively in this way since 2019, in line with its commitment to democracy and transparency. I completely refute the Minister’s earlier comments that a committee system means that a council will not be run efficiently or transparently. Not once in the last six years that we have had a Liberal Democrat council running on a committee system have I ever heard a member of the public say to me, “I don’t understand how decisions are made.” We are actually running so efficiently that the Government have decided to punish our council by cutting its core Government funding in a devastating way that will have a massive impact on services. So I completely refute her suggestion that a cabinet executive model is the way to go. All elected councillors in Richmond are involved in the decision-making process. Our council does not have the cabinet executive and back-bench structure that the Government feel is their prerogative to dictate out from Whitehall, overriding democratically elected councils. It is a blatant misuse of Ministers’ authority to do that. I hope that this Government will think again on this, if not today when the Bill goes to the other place, because it is absolutely outrageous to override local authorities in this way. They should be given the power and freedom necessary to shape and provide local services the way that they choose to. After all, that is what they were elected by our residents to do.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Families in Temporary Accommodation · Hansard source

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  With London councils now spending £5.5 million per day on temporary accommodation, it is clear that we need to build more social homes in London. Richmond council has been prioritising sites that it is selling for social housing. As the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) has just suggested, will the Minister look at incentives for other public bodies—whether it is the NHS or Government Departments—to prioritise for social homes land and buildings that they no longer need and are selling, as I have been campaigning for with respect to the former Teddington police station in my constituency?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Parkinson’s Disease · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the 459 constituents of mine who have signed this important petition. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as swift access to neurologists, access to specialist nurses is absolutely vital, as is having a named GP for long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s disease? One of my constituents who wrote to me said that her father has just had his medication changed and is having real problems with it, but he will not get to see anybody until March. We could reduce unplanned admissions by improving support.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State will be aware that the Met police recently proposed closing, or scaling back the hours of operation for, a number of police front counters across London. Those plans were scaled back, apparently in response to public feedback, but the Twickenham police station’s front counter is still earmarked for closure, and only 15 people were invited to an online meeting at which to give that feedback. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Mayor of London and the Met police have a duty to do a full public consultation on these plans?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Rogue Builders · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this debate, and for his record of campaigning on this issue. I also recognise the Federation of Master Builders for its important work in this area. I was proud to be at the launch of its “Licence to Build” report earlier this year. Like many other hon. Members, I have heard regularly from constituents who have gone through horrendous experiences with rogue builders, and I have seen people in tears in my surgeries after suffering the effects. One couple who came to see me had their home turned into a building site when builders left trenches dug up around their house, having taken £36,000 from them. When the couple were asked to pay double that cost and they refused to do so, the builders disappeared without trace, leaving the work undone and parts of the couple’s home unusable and unsafe. Another constituent’s builder continually demanded further payments for months before abandoning the work unfinished. The mental toll on the victims is hard to explain until we meet some of these people. These builders, if we can even call them that, are simply allowed to get away with it because there is so little regulation. As we have heard from other hon. Members, rogue builders often close down their companies and re-establish under a different name, which makes it incredibly difficult for trading standards to go after them. Over half of UK homeowners, 55%, have had a bad experience with a builder, so this is not a small or hidden issue—and, as other hon. Members have said, it gives other, excellent builders a poor reputation. It is not fair on the rest of the industry. Consumers are left with limited options, limited support and limited agency. Our system of redress is overwhelmed, underfunded and extremely complex. The small claims courts, trading standards, the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and the Competition and Markets Authority all have a role to play, but they are all far too weak. When homeowners have spent their savings or borrowed huge sums of money to improve their home, as is their right, they do not have money left over to chase people through the courts. There is no ombudsman, but how could there be when there is no regulation to enforce? I urge the Minister to take back to her Department the need to be much more ambitious in this area. This problem is not just societal, but economic, given that the public have lost some £14 billion in five years to rogue builders. As the hon. Member for Wyre Forest said, this problem depresses demand because many people are too afraid to do extension or home improvement work. I hope that the Minister will give strong consideration to a licensing scheme that could be administered and regulated by the Building Safety Regulator. If she concludes that that is not feasible, for whatever reason, what other measures are Ministers willing to consider to strengthen the justice system in order to protect consumers and make it much easier for them to get redress from the rogue house builders that cause misery up and down the country?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and I thank Professor Becky Francis for her important work on the review. I welcome much of what has been announced today. As with free school meals and maintenance grants, this Secretary of State seems to enjoy adopting Liberal Democrat policies. I particularly welcome more enrichment activities and citizenship education, including financial and media literacy. But today, many headteachers across the country will be asking about the how. How will we fund this when budgets are already overstretched? With specialist recruitment targets missed year after year, including in physics, computer science and music, how will we find the subject specialists to deliver the new curriculum, not least the right to triple science at GCSE? Can the Secretary of State set out how she will protect time for other subjects, given the welcome new enrichment entitlement? Has she considered using money from falling school rolls to perhaps fund a longer school day? Turning to the Secretary of State’s claims about breadth, instead of scrapping the EBacc did she consider broadening it? Having gone explicitly against Professor Francis’s recommendation to leave Progress 8 unchanged, the Government actually risk narrowing choice. The new Progress 8 model pits languages against creative arts for the first time. These two changes put together could mean the death of languages in our state schools. The review missed the opportunity to broaden A-levels. The UK is an outlier in this regard. Combined with the defunding of the international baccalaureate in state schools, I worry that the Secretary of State’s legacy will be that breadth becomes the preserve of the privately educated.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the measures announced by the Mayor of London and the new Housing Secretary actually reward developers and do not incentivise them? Not only will the mayor be funding half of developers’ affordable housing if they meet the new target, but our local authorities will have their community infrastructure levy money slashed. In Richmond, we could lose £21.5 million of CIL money from the Stag brewery site. That comes on top of the Labour Government cutting our core Government funding under their so-called fair funding formula. Our communities are going to be left without the infrastructure they need and deserve alongside new housing developments.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister accept that sometimes the mayor’s intervening slows down development? Earlier, I cited the example of Stag brewery in Mortlake. That development of 1,000 units would have started years ago, but thanks to the mayor calling it in, it was slowed down and it has still not been built.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  I have long campaigned on that issue. I have a disused police station in my constituency, in Teddington, and we want to turn it into a GP surgery and social housing. I tabled an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to ensure that public sector sites are redeveloped for public good. Unfortunately, I have had no response from the Minister. Does the hon. Lady agree that that would be a good amendment to make?

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, particularly the hon. Members for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy), for sharing their personal stories. I also thank everyone for their good wishes for my mum, which I will pass on when I speak to her next. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. I am encouraged by what he said about data, prevention, the digital tools that will come into play, and the fact that we are trying to make thrombectomies universal during that acute phase when somebody is blue lighted somewhere. However, I come back to one of my key asks, which was to widen the target for stroke and cardiovascular disease to prevent disability, not just to save lives. Of course, saving lives is crucial. Thanks to those interventions, many lives are saved, but the disability that goes with that is incredible. Yes, we can use robots and all sorts of other new technology, but, ultimately, physios, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists are desperately needed. Frankly, community-based rehab is withering on the vine, and I have been personally quite shocked by how patchy it is. My plea is for the Minister to take the need to build up those services to the public health Minister, and I hope that she will be willing to meet me, as well as patient groups and patients. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered World Stroke Day 2025.

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered World Stroke Day 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank all the hon. Members who have come to Westminster Hall today to mark World Stroke Day, which is tomorrow. This year, recovery is in the spotlight, and this debate provides a timely opportunity to consider the life-changing impact a stroke can have both on a survivor and their loved ones and how the NHS can better support patients’ recovery beyond the acute phase of treatment in the early days following a stroke. Every day in the UK, another 240 people wake up to the catastrophic impact of a stroke. There are currently more than 1.4 million stroke survivors in the UK. On 9 May this year, my mother was one of those people, and that is the primary reason why I secured this debate. Her experiences over the past six months are still too raw and too devastating for us as a family for me to talk about today. Sadly, too many stories shared with me in recent weeks reflect exactly what my mum has been through and is still going through. I will endeavour to use the short time available to highlight some of those stories and to call on the Minister to prioritise stroke rehabilitation in particular. Not only is that the right thing to do for the patient and for their family, but it makes a lot of financial sense. Ultimately, it would save the taxpayer money in healthcare and social care costs and enable those of working age to continue to work and to be active in their communities. The Stroke Association estimates that, without Government action, stroke is expected to cost £75 billion by 2035. Approximately 100,000 people have a stroke each year in the UK, with 59% of them occurring in older generations. There are 38,000 stroke-related deaths every year, which makes it the fourth single leading cause of death in the UK. It is also the leading cause of complex adult disability in the UK, with around 60% of stroke patients leaving hospital with a disability. Stroke causes brain damage and can leave survivors unable to move, see, speak or even swallow. It can leave people doubly incontinent and lead to personality changes as well as depression. The NHS is rightly lauded for the care it provides, particularly in hospital, often delivering world-class support to those who need it when the unexpected happens.

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  I 100% agree. The post-stroke support is critical, and I will share some stories about people who have felt abandoned and isolated in exactly the way that my hon. Friend describes. Despite guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy says that 20% of people do not receive the minimum specialist rehabilitation required in the first five days following a stroke, and 68% do not have an assessment for rehabilitation, which is required after discharge. The reality is that those who want to regain a level of independence need to be able to fund support privately. I pay tribute to Richard Sealy, who runs the Neuro Rehab Practice in Hampton, which is in my constituency. He and his whole team are doing brilliant work in trying to fill that gap. Over the summer, I had the privilege of visiting the practice and speaking to stroke survivors and their carers about their experiences. What runs through so many of their stories—I am sure Members will have heard similar—is the cliff edge that people fall off when they leave hospital, and the devastating knock-on impact that can have. I would like to share some of their testimonies. One stroke survivor said: “I felt lost, like I had been thrown out of the boat, not knowing what to do or where to find help”. Another survivor’s family member said: “Although the NHS took care of her while she was in hospital, we felt that after the six weeks had finished, it was very much goodbye. You’re now on your own”. Another, when asked what happened when the NHS rehab ended and whether they were given any further options, simply replied, “Nothing.” Those survivor stories are far from unique, and that is unacceptable. According to the Stroke Association, only 17% of community-based rehab services have appropriate access to each core therapy—physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy. The Right to Rehab campaign argues for the simple idea that rehabilitation should be accessible to everyone who needs it, for as long as they need it. We know that stroke survivors continue to make incremental improvements over many months, even years, so I welcome the Government’s ambition to rebuild our NHS through transitioning care from hospital to the community, and to improve integration of rehabilitation. While the Government target to reduce stroke and heart attack deaths by a quarter in the next 10 years is also welcome, given the devastating impact that stroke can have and the struggle to recover faced by many, the scope of that target must be widened to also reducing disability. Take Miriam, a resident of Twickenham, who at just 21 years old suffered a stroke only three months after graduating with a BA in music. After spending four days in hospital without diagnosis or treatment, where she suffered two more strokes, she was unable to play an instrument or even grasp a pencil. She suffered significant challenges, including depression and isolation, but through therapy and determination, she was able to rebuild her life. Miriam is now a neurological music therapist, working with children and adults with learning disabilities, and I believe she is here, watching today’s debate. Chris Stirling, who suffered a stroke in his 60s, was told by doctors after six months in hospital that he should go into a care home. He left hospital in a wheelchair, unable to shower. Thanks to privately funded neuro physiotherapy and the support of his family, he is now able to play golf, one-handed. Not everyone is as lucky as Chris to have both the means and the family support. Miriam and Chris’s stories, and the testimonies I shared earlier in my speech, show just how important it is to get both stroke diagnosis and rehabilitation right.

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  Of course I am very happy to congratulate the staff in the hon. Gentleman’s local hospital. Through my personal experience with my mother, I have seen how amazing hospital staff are, and where community services are available, I am sure those staff are brilliant, but the crux of my speech is about how poor the rehab services are in some parts of the country and how we really need to staff and boost them if we want to help people to have a good quality of life. I have heard time and again from those who have lived experience that support for community rehabilitation is simply not good enough and often collapses six weeks post discharge from hospital. In some cases, support even six weeks post discharge is not available, depending on which integrated care board or local authority is responsible.

• 28 Oct 2025 · World Stroke Day · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I am sure that in stroke, as in so many other areas of medicine, more research would be welcome, particularly into how we can prevent stroke in younger people. It is shocking to hear that a child so young suffered a stroke. The stories that I have shared today demonstrate the impact that good care and rehab can have on quality of life, regaining independence and restoring people’s identity. The moral, social, health and economic cases for better rehab support are overwhelming. Will the Minister therefore commit to expanding the Government target to cut deaths caused by stroke and heart attack to include reducing disability? With stoke and cardiovascular disease a trailblazer for the modern service framework, what discussions is he having in the Department and with the Treasury to resource implementation and ensure there is a lead in the Department on this area? With 40% of physiotherapists saying that insufficient staffing is leading to their patients experiencing increased levels of pain and ill health, what work is he undertaking to expand the physio workforce? Will he look at ensuring that integrated care boards’ data plans capture and report on performance and rehabilitation, including in relation to populations who are not accessing rehabilitation? On this World Stroke Day, stroke survivors and their carers are not asking for the impossible: a concrete plan to make stroke rehabilitation accessible across the country, no matter what someone earns or where they live. As the Secretary of State himself said only at the start of this year, “Whether in the NHS or in social care, we definitely need to do more on rehabilitation, because rehabilitation is often secondary prevention.” —[ Official Report , 6 January 2025; Vol. 759, c. 608.] He was right, and now that needs to be delivered. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I would welcome the opportunity to meet him to discuss these issues alongside patient groups and representatives.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for boosting maternity and paternity pay. Does he agree that if we are to give meaningful choice to families about whether they would like to spend more time at home in the early months of a child’s life—shown to have real developmental benefits for children—or go back into the workplace, we must address the fact that, as he has set out so clearly, maternity pay, paternity pay and shared parental leave pay is less than half the minimum wage? It is not excessive, as the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), has previously stated.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Heathrow: National Airports Review · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor has staked her economic credibility and growth strategy on a third runway at Heathrow. The Secretary of State said that she is committed to seeing flights take off from it in 2035, yet at the same time, she talks about taking an evidence-led approach, putting this project to her four tests, taking the advice of the Climate Change Committee and doing a thorough economic and environmental impact assessment. Could she clarify a point for the House, because I fear my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) did not get a straight answer? If the evidence shows that the environmental costs are too great and the economic benefits are too little, will she and, crucially, her Chancellor be prepared to do a U-turn and can this whole project?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech with some shocking figures. Just last Friday in my constituency surgery, Sarah Imi came to talk to me about her husband Jason. Seven years ago, he and his colleague were killed after a work dinner by a 17-year-old driving well above the speed limit and high on cannabis. He was given a £120 fine and a few hours of community service. He has subsequently reoffended 27 times, including committing a dangerous driving offence. Sarah had three teenage children at the time. Does the hon. Member agree that the family deserve justice and that this man should never be able to drive again?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Esther Ghey, the mother of Brianna Ghey, is in Parliament today, campaigning to keep phones out of the classroom. Given that young people themselves are saying that they want a “break from the stress” of social media at school, and given the impact of phones on children’s concentration and focus, will the Secretary of State finally listen to her own Children’s Minister and put the Government’s guidance on mobile phones in schools into law, to give teachers and headteachers the back-up and, crucially, the resources that they need in order to restrict their use?