Munira Wilson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wrote to the Justice Minister in the other place, Baroness Levitt, on 20 March this year on behalf of my constituent Lowrie Roberts, regarding the existing policy and legal framework relating to contact rights between extended family and children following parental separation. Despite repeatedly chasing a response by email and by written parliamentary question, I have yet to receive a response for my constituent. I would like your advice on how I might be able to secure a response from the Ministry of Justice.

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

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  Last week, Kenneth Law pleaded guilty in Canada to 14 counts of aiding suicide. The toxic packages that he distributed around the world are believed to be linked to the deaths of some 79 Britons, including Tom, the son of my constituent David Parfett, yet Law will not be tried in the UK following a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service. David, other victims’ families and the Molly Rose Foundation have called for a public inquiry into these deaths and similar deaths connected to pro-suicide forums. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the relevant Minister to give a statement to the House on this case and the wider issue?

• 27 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I am dismayed that we find ourselves here yet again on this Bill. I remind the House that this is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and currently one of the biggest threats to our children’s wellbeing is online harms, not least as a result of harmful social media, alongside other online harms such as addictive gaming and chatbots. I recognise and welcome that the Government have moved a little since we last debated amendments to the Bill last week: Ministers have finally made the commitment in legislation that the Government must take action, rather than may take action. There has also been some limited movement on the issue of addictive by design—a key principle that the Liberal Democrats have been pressing—although clearer and stronger wording on this point would be helpful, not least in view of the recent court cases in the US. Critically, we have been pressing for a clear time-bound commitment to action. I must say that the initial timeline put forward by the Government in the other place this afternoon was, frankly, laughable. When parents and carers, young people, grandparents and teachers in their tens of thousands are demanding urgent action on teenagers’ access to harmful social media, setting out a three-year timeline for introducing regulations to this place—let alone implementing them—was ludicrous. I note that this evening the Government have shortened that period to 21 months. Ministers have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box that the current consultation is very short and sharp. I welcome the fact that they have committed to bringing forward a report in three months’ time, whereas previously they had said that it would take six months, but why do they need a further full year to lay regulations, and then a further six months’ buffer? Countries around the world are taking action right now. This Government have shown that when they want to move quickly on an issue, they have the means to do so. The compromising of children’s wellbeing and safety online every single hour of every single day is a damn good reason to move quickly and to bring forward amendments acceptable to both Houses of Parliament and, most importantly, to the people of this country. In the debate in the other place this afternoon, we heard excellent speeches from across the party divides—Labour, Conservative, Cross-Bench, Liberal Democrat—all calling for urgent action. A number backed Lord Nash’s amendment again, even though many, including the Liberal Democrats, are unhappy with his particular approach, all because we want to ensure that the Government move further and faster. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the noble Baroness Kidron’s excellent amendment that was considered in the other place this afternoon? As the Government will know, she is widely respected on the subject of online safety. Her amendment deals with all these important issues: safety by design; a harms-based approach with variable age-gating; and allowing the Government eight months to lay regulations and up to 12 months in total to enact them. Indeed, Lord Nash’s amendment, which the Government are choosing to vote down, committed to action within eight months, instead of this three months, plus six months, plus 12 months, plus another six months, adding up to 21 months before we might see any action. My noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones set out clearly that the Liberal Democrats support the approach set out in Baroness Kidron’s amendment, and I strongly agree with him. I would like to repeat my noble Friend Lord Mohammed’s offer: we stand ready to come together, cross-party, to act together, legislate together and protect our children from online harms and ensure that teenagers do not have access to harmful social media. The time is now. We will keep pressing through the night if necessary, until Prorogation, to ensure that our children and young people are not let down by this Government at this critical moment.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. There is a plethora of evidence out there showing that we have to act, and we have to act now. I simply cannot understand why the Government are not committing to doing something soon. Going back to the US court cases, one document revealed that Meta executives claimed: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.” That is my 11-year-old daughter that Meta is talking about. Another internal memo showed that 11-year-olds were four times more likely to keep coming back to Instagram compared with competing apps, despite the platform requiring users to be at least 13 years old.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Victims’ Rights · Hansard source

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  The Minister will recall that last month I raised with her the case of Roksana Lecka, who was convicted of child cruelty at a nursery in Twickenham. Her victims’ parents were given only six days’ notice that she was being deported just a few months into her eight-year sentence, so although the victims code currently says that “all reasonable steps” should be taken to inform victims of an offender’s immigration status and likelihood of deportation, it does not say when. Does the Minister agree that an updated victims code should say that information about an offender’s immigration and likely deportation status should be shared as early as possible in the process?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  I think that all of us across the House share the Justice Secretary’s passion for delivering justice more quickly for victims. I visited Isleworth Crown court at lunch time on Friday and spoke to barristers there. They impressed upon me that it is extremely rare that juries and jurors are the cause of delays to court cases. Recently, there have been delays because the cells have been too cold for defendants or Serco staff to use. Defendants are routinely delivered late by Serco, and there are no contractual penalties. That is pushing cases back repeatedly. Why will the Justice Secretary not take action on those things, rather than restricting trial by jury, which will make a limited difference?

• 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.

• 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?

• 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.

• 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?

• 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—

• 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?

• 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?

• 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?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Police Stations · Hansard source

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  1. What discussions she has had with the Mayor of London on the closure of front counters at police stations.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Police Stations · Hansard source

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  May I, as a London Member, begin by paying tribute to the brave police officers from the Met and many other forces who were policing protests on Saturday, a number of whom were injured in the line of duty as a result of abhorrent attacks? I am sure that the thoughts and prayers of all Members, in all parts of the House, are with them. Last week we discovered that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, had admitted that he had known as long ago as November that the Met planned to close a number of police front counters across London, having promised just six months earlier in his election manifesto that not a single borough would be left without a police front counter. The decision to close Twickenham’s counter means that Richmond upon Thames will be left without one. Does the Minister agree that, given the importance of police counters in maintaining trust in and accessibility to our police, this decision needs to be reversed? Does she also agree that the Mayor of London has broken his promises, and that the Metropolitan police should be funded properly?

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

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  I was disappointed that the Leader of the House, when she was celebrating summer moments, did not mention our Lionesses’ amazing victory in defending their European title. In a less positive moment over the summer, the Metropolitan police announced the closure of Twickenham police station’s front counter as part of plans to close half of London’s police counters and reduce hours at many others. This comes despite Sadiq Khan’s 2024 manifesto commitment to maintain a 24-hour police counter in every borough, and Richmond borough will now be left without one. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the Met police’s funding for the forthcoming year and beyond, especially as the closures come on the back of the slashing of the Royal Parks police and our school police liaison officers?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Educational Attainment of Boys · Hansard source

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  Can I start by warmly congratulating the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this incredibly important debate and on his powerful and insightful opening speech? It behoves all of us to spend more time on this topic, so I am grateful that he has made me look into it more than I had previously. It goes without saying that our education system should enable every child to flourish, no matter their gender, needs or background, but as we have heard all too clearly already, for too long cohorts of boys have failed to thrive in our education system in the way that they should, with a widening attainment gap between boys and girls, particularly among white working-class boys. We have heard the statistics already, and I note that many of them come from the excellent report by the Centre for Social Justice, but they bear repetition because they are so shocking. Where 75% of girls are school-ready, only 60% of boys are. In GCSE exams boys achieve on average half a grade lower than girls across every subject, and at A-level girls outperform boys by an average of over a grade and a half across their best three subjects. Too many boys are quite clearly failing to reach their potential at school, and this is having severe and long-lasting consequences for our society and the economy. Since the pandemic alone, the number of young men aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training has increased by a staggering 40%. According to the Higher Education Policy Institute, men with no qualifications are nearly twice as likely as women with no qualifications to be unemployed, and if they are employed, they are more likely to work in hazardous, menial or stagnant roles. That makes men less likely to look after their mental and physical health, leading to higher rates of substance abuse, smoking and alcohol consumption, lower life expectancy, and much higher rates of imprisonment and death by suicide. It is hardly surprising that so many boys feel hopeless. Some 41% of teenagers report that they have been taught that young men are a problem for society. Tim Page, service co-ordinator at Catch22, said: “There is no trust or hope in the future, a young man from a disadvantaged background has no clear path towards making a future for themselves, the only options for hundreds of boys and young men I have worked with are crime or benefits.” I think that should make us all stop and reflect. Education is obviously vital in tackling this tragic and disturbing trend, not just to enable pupils to achieve good grades and a decent salary, but to inspire our children so that they grow up to do good and important things as part of a thriving community and society. I agree with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland; I think it probably is time for a gender-specific strategy looking at boys in particular, but as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), pointed out, some of the wider systemic challenges facing our education system have a particular impact on boys. As the Government are considering a number of these issues, I think it would be worth looking at them through a gender-specific lens. We need good teachers to stay in our boys’ lives and to guide and encourage them, whether on career options for the future or just as good role models, yet over the past 12 years more than 40,000 state school teachers left within one year of qualifying, and just 24% of the overall teaching workforce are male and 30% of primary schools have no male teacher at all. I was thinking about this last night, actually. Both my children are at primary school. One of them will leave in the next few weeks, and by far and away the teacher that she has talked about the most in her seven years there has been a male teacher. He has only been teaching her for a day a week in year 6, but all the kids love him and look up to him. I have never heard them speak about any other teacher in such a way. It is largely a female-dominated school, and it is wonderful to see such affection for a male teacher and such a role model for all the children, both girls and boys. Many attribute the shortage of teachers—both male and female—to the conditions that teachers face and a lack of career progression. I believe that the presence of more male teachers would normalise learning as a suitable activity for men and boys and may especially help children who do not have positive male role models at home. However, as the Minister knows, schools are facing the impossible task of trying to find more money in their already squeezed budgets to cover underfunded national insurance increases and teacher pay rises. While the Government have promised to recruit 6,500 more teachers, I have yet to see how they will be able to achieve that. Some of the hopelessness that many boys are experiencing also stems from inadequate mental health support. We know that boys are twice as likely as girls to be excluded from school. Sadly, exclusion and criminal activity are too often intimately related. Those who are excluded multiple times from school are more likely to have a younger age of first conviction. Mental health researchers have noted that boys in emotional mental distress tend to use coping strategies that externalise into violence and destruction, while girls are more likely to internalise into self-harm and depression. We Liberal Democrats have long called for a dedicated qualified mental health practitioner to be placed in every primary and secondary school to help tackle mental health and behavioural concerns early. While I am glad that the Government are continuing to roll out mental health support teams in schools, I fear that those teams are really overstretched, because they are often shared between several primary and secondary schools, with perhaps half a day or a day a week of mental health practitioner time in each, meaning that children do not have consistent access five days a week to a trusted person to support them with their mental health. I hope the Minister will say something about how the roll-out can be sped up and those teams grown so that there is more coverage for each of our schools. Of course, there is a big overlap between mental health provision and special educational needs and disability provision. Boys make up over 60% of those receiving special educational needs support and over 70% of those on education, health and care plans. Those receiving SEND support are more than twice as likely to be excluded as the average boy, and more than five times as likely to be excluded as the average girl. Too many children are being forced out of school due to a failure to provide the required support for them to learn. I have heard time and again from parents and kinship carers who feel that they have been let down by the SEND system in this country and that they are having to try to educate their children with no support. That has very much driven up the number of children being home-schooled, so I hope the Minister will use this opportunity to assure parents and carers of children with SEND across the country that their rights will not be rolled back when the Government look to reform our broken SEND system. Families must be at the heart of these changes, so that all children can access the support they deserve. I urge the Minister to look at the five principles for SEND reform that the Liberal Democrats published yesterday. Finally, seriously tackling the feeling of hopelessness among young boys means looking at the online world. We have seen from research that algorithms are feeding increasingly violent and misogynistic content towards boys. With 60% of children aged eight to 10 having a social media account, it is wrong that companies can profit from addictive and harmful algorithms. We need to start taking a health approach to online safety, with tighter regulation of the tech giants and by empowering and educating young people and the adults who care for them about the online world. Crucially, we need to provide alternative spaces and activities for young people, so that they are not always glued to a screen when they have spare time. The Liberal Democrats want the digital age of consent raised, to end addictive algorithms and to stop companies trading on our children’s attention. I very much hope that the Government will not kowtow to Donald Trump and remove the digital services tax, but instead treble it, so that that money can be invested in improving our children’s wellbeing and mental health. I once again thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland for securing this important debate, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

• 7 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  Every child deserves to have the very best start in life possible, so I welcome any measures to tackle inequality and improve support for the early years and for families. I therefore welcome today’s announcements both on the hubs and around the early years workforce and helping to raise the professional status of those who work with children in the early years. That is something that Liberal Democrats have long been calling for, given the level of responsibility and expertise required in that profession. With the hubs, as we have heard there is a great opportunity to identify special needs early and provide contact time with mental health practitioners and important advice for parents. However, these changes need to go hand in hand with addressing some of the deep problems facing charitable and private early years providers, and I hope the Government will start by reversing the national insurance hike for early years and nursery settings together with reviewing the rates they pay to providers to ensure that they actually cover the costs of delivering high-quality care and early years education, because we know that many nurseries across the country are struggling. While I have the Secretary of State’s attention on early years, may I raise with her the tragic cases of Gigi Meehan in Cheadle and the children at the Twickenham Green nursery in my constituency, who were completely failed by their early years providers at the hands of extremely cruel, vicious, uncaring staff? The verdicts in both of those cases have been utterly shocking. I know the Minister sitting next to the Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), met my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) last week, and although the Secretary of State’s announcement did not include it, I have read in some news reports that the Government will be increasing Ofsted inspections for nurseries, something that Gigi’s parents, my hon. Friend and I are pressing for. However, over and above that, we do need to see a strengthening of the early years framework to include the use of CCTV. May I, Madam Deputy Speaker, say one final sentence and press the Secretary of State once again to put the parents and carers of children with special needs across the country out of their misery—