Paul Waugh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · High Street Shops: Illicit Activity · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that dodgy shops and mini-marts are often a front for organised crime, particularly drug dealing, but also for the sexual and criminal exploitation of children, which we sadly know all too much about in Rochdale. I am delighted that the Government have listened to experts such as Rochdale trading standards on extending closure orders from three months to a year, and that they are looking closely at doing that. But there is also a big issue in my local shops of drug paraphernalia being sold next to sweets, and of drugs in resealable bags designed to look exactly like sweet wrappers. Does he agree that the Government should look at the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 so that trading standards can intervene on this?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Maternity Commissioner · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for leading this debate. I pay tribute to Louise Thompson, Theo Clarke and the other petitioners for raising the profile of the issue of birth trauma and for helping so many other women to share their own experiences and, crucially, to fight for the changes that will prevent others from having to go through the same trauma. I also put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), who has done a brilliant job with the all-party parliamentary group on maternity and who explained today, by outlining her own personal experience, just what birth trauma can mean. This debate is fundamentally about how we ensure that women are being heard—genuinely heard—by the national health service. However, it is also about how we raise the levels of care, so that the best care is not an exception but the rule. One of the missions for this Government is restoring trust in maternity care. We know that that trust has been eroded by traumatic experiences, poor standards of care and—even more importantly—women feeling that no one is listening to them. [Christine Jardine in the Chair ] As has already been said, the rise in maternal mortality is seen in the data produced by MBRRACE-UK between 2021 and 2023 compared with that between 2009 and 2011. That is simply unacceptable. What is particularly stark is the increased risk for women from minoritised communities and for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In 2023, women living in the most deprived areas were dying at almost twice the rate of those in the least deprived areas. Alongside that data, there has also been an increase in obstetric haemorrhage, which I know worries both mums-to-be and health professionals. Women who want a second child need to know the risks of severe bleeding and placenta previa caused by previous caesarean sections, which are well-documented. The NHS is not good enough at not only monitoring maternal deaths and morbidity, but monitoring trends in those areas. It is very good at identifying a trend in stillbirth or maternal death, but it is not so good at spotting trends in postpartum haemorrhage and admissions to intensive therapy units, which need the same attention. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that whatever choice women make, that choice is informed and that the procedures are safe. If women want a home birth, let us make that a real choice; if they want a C-section, let us make that a real choice; and if they want a midwife-led unit or an obstetrician to care for them, let us make that a real choice. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis), who was absolutely spot on in saying that we should move away from making choice in this area a binary decision between safety and choice. It is time for us to be proactive and not reactive, and to put into place the processes that will protect future mums from negative experiences of maternity care. That is why I am glad that the national maternity and neonatal taskforce, announced by the Government last year, is focused on long-term systemic reform that actually addresses the systematic failures identified by the CQC. The conversation must include midwives who, more than anyone else, want best practice and care for all the mums they work with. It must also ensure that there are oversight, accountability and robust reporting mechanisms that support midwives as well as mums. Not many people know that word “midwife” is middle English. It literally means “with woman”, which is the crucial point. Midwives across the UK are advocating for women, supporting women and sharing their expertise with women all the time. However, that is also why we need to make continuity of care a reality for women, so that midwives can be “with woman” throughout the pregnancy and the birth. There must also be the investment in staffing that is needed to allow for rotas that provide the gold standard of staffing that everyone wants, both for pregnant women and for midwives. Earlier this year, I was proud to host a drop-in event for the Royal College of Midwives with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth). I put on the record that my wife is a midwife; in fact, she is one of the main reasons why I am in this building today. I came into politics to change the situation for women who are suffering, but also to help to get more midwives in the profession. It has not been explicitly said today, but let us be honest—the last Government failed to invest in the NHS, including in the right number of midwives. My wife came home night after night saying, “We simply are understaffed. We are chronically understaffed.” She was really worried about the standard of care that would be provided, and about whether it was safe or not. I said that, instead of writing about the maternity crisis, I want to do something about the maternity crisis. That is why I became an MP—to invest real, hard money into the NHS, including in staffing, but also to ensure that we change the procedures and reform the system. It is worth saying that this is not just about staffing. It is also about having the right culture and leadership, and about whether obstetricians and midwives talk to each other and are on the same side and. Crucially, it is about whether women are listened to throughout the process. There has been far too much avoidable trauma for far too many women, as several inquiries have found. For my constituents, Royal Oldham hospital maternity services are often of high quality. I have met senior midwives who are trying to provide innovative solutions to the challenges they face, but let us be honest: there are too many times when women are let down at the Royal Oldham. The CQC survey of patient experience, published in December 2025, found some unacceptably poor levels of care. On labour and birth, the hospital scored much worse than expected compared with other trusts. On staff care and on care in hospital after birth, it was much worse than expected compared with other trusts. On that last measure, it had an appalling score of 5.4 out of 10. It is clear from the debate that a huge amount of work has been undertaken to deliver what we all want: maternity services that are well informed, personalised and safe for all women, regardless of race or background. We owe it to every family to provide maternity services where mums are given a full range of informed choice, backed by medical evidence, where they are genuinely listened to and where compassionate healthcare is at the heart of every birth. There is excellent care in the NHS, and we should say that again and again, but we need to make sure that every area, every trust and every woman has the high quality of care they truly deserve.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last night, there was an emotional farewell for Councillor Ashley Dearnley, who attended his final full council meeting after an incredible 44 years of continuous service. As a Conservative, Ashley could be described as an endangered species within our borough, but his decency, courtesy and integrity and his hard work for Wardle, Shore and West Littleborough have won him widespread respect ever since he was first elected in 1982. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Ashley for his services to democracy and wish him well in his retirement?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Online Harms · Hansard source

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  The latest Louis Theroux documentary for Netflix, “Inside the Manosphere”, was deeply shocking to many of us who watched it. But it was not remotely shocking for the millions of teenagers to whom his subjects are well known. It was not shocking to my three twenty-something sons; it was not shocking to the boys in the playground; it was not shocking to Gen Z or Gen Alpha; and it was not shocking for children in primary schools, let alone in secondary schools. That is why this online harms debate should involve everyone, particularly the young people in whose name and on whose behalf we often make laws in this place. Their synapses are dulled to this stuff and their feeds are full of it, which in turn means that the premium for even more shock is higher. Outrage and extremism are hardwired into this business model. “Inside the Manosphere” exposed that many of these social media influencers are themselves deeply damaged boys, often with a resentment about fathers who were either absent or violent, or both. They project themselves as pro-men, but in doing so they feel the need to project themselves as anti-women. And they are not just anti-women—that is a mild term—but they are virulently, disgustingly misogynistic. They feed off the pornography that, sadly, is seen by all too many of our young boys these days. What also shocked me, however, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell) pointed out, was just how casual the antisemitism propagated by many of those in the manosphere was. We saw a chap called Myron Gaines say, “LOUIS IS A DIRTY J-E-W.” Louis Theroux is not Jewish, by the way—not that that matters. At one point, another manosphere influencer, Harrison Sullivan, imitates Louis Theroux and leers that he is “just sat there with his Jew fingers.” Another of the manosphere influencers blames Jews for feminism, homosexuality and even “vibrations that are going to negatively bring you down”. In the conspiracy theory-ridden rabbit hole of the internet, all this is normalised. I thank the Antisemitism Policy Trust for its work in exposing just how much this vile racism has exploded online, and Elon Musk and X share responsibility for much of that. We must take much tougher action against tech giants who are literally profiting from this hatred. Antisemitism is often described as the oldest hatred, but misogyny is just as ancient a hatred. That is why I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who stood up to Grok and Musk when they flouted British laws and put British women and children at risk with those nudification apps. I am equally proud that my party has been calling out Reform—none of whose Members is present today—for its pledge to repeal the Online Safety Act. I would like to know which protections for children Reform MPs would remove and what, if anything, they would put in their place. I would also like to know why George Galloway’s Workers party took £5,000 in political donations at the last general election—an election in which I partook in Rochdale—from Andrew Tate’s brother, Tristan.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Armed Conflict: Children · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, not least as a neighbouring colleague. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for securing this valuable debate. In Gaza, aid workers and medical teams have become used to using the world’s most heartbreaking acronym: WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family. The phrase was born in Gaza’s hospitals as overworked trauma surgeons had to deal with so many injured, unaccompanied children that they simply scrawled WCNSF on their files. As Kieran King, head of humanitarian at UK charity War Child, told us at a briefing in Parliament last month, Gaza is the first conflict where such a term has been needed because of the sheer number of wounded children. The UN’s child protection agency UNICEF cited Gaza’s Health Ministry statistics from last September, recording that 2,596 Palestinian children had lost both parents and a further 53,000 had lost at least one parent, of whom 47,000 will grow up with no father and 5,920 will grow up with no mother. Those are not just ordinary statistics. Gaza has the highest rate of child amputations of any modern conflict. Those are all individual human beings whose stories need to be shared. The powerful new film “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, which was screened for MPs in Parliament last month, bears witness to one of those stories as it follows the Red Crescent response during the killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl by the IDF. Those of us who saw that film will never forget it. I was proud that within days of the Gaza ceasefire, the Government, working with Labour MPs, brought over 50 children to the NHS to be treated for their complex injuries. But there is much, much more we can do to rebuild the healthcare, schools and social services that children desperately need in Palestine. The other often forgotten conflict that involves children is of course in Sudan, where a civil war, now in its third year, rages between Sudan’s army and the RSF rebels. The scale of the suffering is enormous: in 2026, a staggering 17 million children are expected to need urgent aid. More than 5 million children have been forced from their homes—the equivalent of 5,000 children displaced every single day—many of them repeatedly, with attacks and sexual violence often following them as they move. Only yesterday, five more children were killed in another drone strike by the paramilitary RSF on a health centre in the city of Kadugli. UNICEF has been clear: “Children in Sudan are not statistics. They are frightened, displaced and hungry, but they are also determined, resourceful and resilient. Every day, they”— like the children of Gaza— “strive to learn, to play, to hope”. Ending the child suffering in both countries, through all the powers that we have in diplomacy, aid and trade, is a moral necessity. Those responsible for that suffering should be held accountable under international law. The reckoning will come. It may not come this year, but it will come one day.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Road Safety Strategy · Hansard source

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  Every 17 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on our roads. That is a national scandal, which this Labour Government are tackling through this road safety strategy. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Rochdale trading standards, which, together with local police, led the country in exposing how ghost number plates are used by criminals, groomers, drug dealers and others to avoid detection? Will she thank all those bereaved families who campaigned with me and fellow MPs to ensure that we have mandatory eye tests for over-70s and much tighter drug-driving laws?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Electoral Resilience · Hansard source

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  Some in Reform UK have suggested that its former leader in Wales, the traitor Nathan Gill—he was a traitor—was just one bad apple, yet we have learned in recent weeks that at least eight MEPs who represented the UK Independence party or the Brexit party were approached by Gill at the behest of his Russian paymasters. What is it about parties led by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) that makes them uniquely susceptible to Russian bribes? Could it be that they are already apologists for Putin?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Electoral Resilience · Hansard source

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  I referenced the party of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), not him.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady’s record in government and as the Chair of the Treasury Committee. She talks about tax rises. Does she accept that the bulk of the tax rises this Parliament—covering four of the five years—are Tory tax rises through the threshold freeze that she and her colleagues voted for?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. There must be accountability for Israel’s actions—for its sins of omission as much as those of commission. Is the UK pushing for education to be a key part of the peace plan? As Members have said, it has been singularly missing so far. Nearly 200,000 people signed the e-petition that brought us here today, making it one of the largest petitions of this Parliament, as has been said. In Rochdale alone, 283 constituents added their name. This is not a fringe concern; it is a mainstream demand for justice.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  That is a matter for Ministers to decide; I am not privy to all the information that would be required to make that determination. It is vital for our own national security and is in our national interests that we maintain a similar consensus as we have on Ukraine on the threats, challenges and opportunities posed by China. We should all stand firm in this House on issues of national security and human rights and on the threats China poses clearly to our economy, our industrial secrets, our intellectual property, our democracy and, yes, our cyber-space. We should also recognise that it is important that the UK engages with China where it is in our hard-headed national interest—and mutual interest—to do so, from climate change to global health and trade. That is why the Opposition in government had a policy of protect, align and engage—there is that word “engage” again. How different is that really from our own compete, challenge and co-operate? I know that this place often thrives on political knockabout, with parties trying to seize on opponents’ perceived weakness, but in accusing one’s political opponents of somehow being enemies of the people and plotting non-existent cover-ups, the only beneficiaries are our real enemies abroad.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  First, I want to put on the record my anger and frustration, shared by many in this House, at the collapse of this case, particularly the dropping of the spying charges against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry and the resulting collapse of their trial, which had been due to go ahead this very month. Secondly, I welcome Mr Speaker’s guidance on how to improve Members’ security. Members must not forget that we have a personal responsibility too to protect ourselves, our fellow Members and our staff from such foreign interference, which includes in our hiring practices and vetting of staff who can work in this building, which has not been often mentioned in this debate. However, I want mainly to warn of the danger of some of the rhetoric that has been used to date in this case. Of course, it is the job of His Majesty’s Opposition to probe, challenge and scrutinise the Government, yet what has happened in this case goes way beyond that and risks harming us all, just as spying on our Parliament harms us all. I am talking about the repeated unsubstantiated and scurrilous suggestions that any Minister or special adviser in this Government interfered or intervened in the independent decision making of the CPS. In an article in The Times on 15 October, the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), accused the Government of deliberately choosing to collapse the case: “It is clear the government chose to deliberately submit inadequate evidence that led to two alleged spies getting off scot-free.” He went on: “They must now also explain who was guiding Matt Collins in preparing this evidence.” That is an appalling accusation to make with zero evidence and an insult to the professional integrity of the deputy National Security Adviser, and I hope the shadow Home Secretary withdraws it. Sadly, he was not alone. On 13 October, the Leader of the Opposition told the BBC: “This looks like a deliberate decision to collapse the case and curry favour with the regime in China.” She went on to say that she suspected that Ministers “have decided that closer economic ties with China were more important than due process and our national security.” Just look at those words: “looks like” and “suspect”. There is not a shred of evidence, only insinuation. That is not the language of a Prime Minister in waiting. As the Security Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), has made clear, it was an entirely independent decision by the CPS to discontinue the case, and the CPS has confirmed that it came under no outside pressure to do so. As for the Whitehall meeting on 1 September referenced by the Opposition in their motion, crucially, Mr Collins said yesterday that there had been “at least four lawyers in the room who ensured that there was no discussion about the evidence” in the case. This House has maintained a proud cross-party consensus on Ukraine, helping President Zelensky to stand up to Putin—a consensus that is, sadly, not helped at times by Reform, whose Putin apologists are indeed Moscow’s useful idiots of the 21st century. We need to maintain a similar cross-party consensus in fighting against Chinese threats.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s intention to recognise formally the state of Palestine at the UN later this month—which many Labour Members have pushed for ever since our election, and which was in our manifesto. It is the biggest shift in British foreign policy in decades, and a major step forward to giving the Palestinian people hope that they will have the state they have long been denied. While I welcome the sanctions on Iran today, with the famine in Gaza now formally declared, and with 132,000 children expected to suffer from acute malnutrition between now and next June, will the Foreign Secretary tell the House whether the UK is actively looking at fresh sanctions on Israel to prevent that further tragedy?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Earlier this month I hosted in Parliament Dr Waseem Saeed, a British surgeon who had returned from working in the Nasser hospital in Gaza, where he treated children for severe burns, amputations and shrapnel wounds that were crawling with maggots. He showed us videos that would shock everybody in this House. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Israel should face a reckoning in the courts for such injuries and deaths, and that the UK should force such a reckoning? More importantly, does he agree that recognising a state of Palestine is really about recognising the humanity of the Palestinian people, and that their children deserve to have equal worth to every child on this planet?