Paulette Hamilton MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Good afternoon, Doug. I have a really quick question. I am just going to be brutally honest. I am a woman of colour—a black woman. Within our communities in the UK, there is a fear that if we move towards a judge-only trial, it would create major problems. How has the Canadian system ensured that defendants from such diversity are receiving a fair hearing in judge-only trials? Doug Downey: Again, that is a wonderful question. One of the dynamics is cultural sensitivity. Whether a jury can be walked through what they are dealing with, with the proper lenses, is open for debate. I can tell you that we have a lot of effort going into judicial education, by the judges for the judges, on First Nations perspectives, with everything from body language to lived experience. That knowledge resides with the judge; it may or may not reside with the community of peers. That is the goal. That issue can go both ways, but we have some confidence that judges are exposed to things that juries may not be.

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

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  I agree absolutely. Unless we work together to sort this out, we will not get a decent Bill that everybody can be happy with. To just throw it out at this stage would serve no purpose for anyone. The crisis in our courts demands action, and the Government are right to act. I urge the Minister to commit today to strengthening the scrutiny of these measures and putting a clear review on the face of the Bill. Let us prove to my constituents that their faith in justice is still well placed. I look forward to working with the Justice team on the Committee to strengthen this clause.

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

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  I absolutely agree. That does back up what I am saying. I am not suggesting that our judiciary is biased, but perception matters, so I ask the Minister for two specific assurances. First, the Bill contains no clear statutory review, and there is no start or end date. Clause 3 allows the new provisions to be brought into force by regulation with a three-month minimum lead-in time, but beyond that, scrutiny is absent. I welcome that the Justice Secretary has announced a review. Can the Minister confirm the exact timeframe for that review? When will it begin and, crucially, when will it end? Secondly, if there is to be a review, I urge the Minister to make its scope explicit. Will the Minister commit today that any review will break down data by ethnicity? We need to know if this new system is leading to disproportionate outcomes for ethnic minority defendants.

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

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  I rise to speak on a Bill that is both necessary and difficult. Let me start by saying that I support its intention to tackle a Crown court backlog that has more than doubled since the pandemic, leaving victims waiting years for justice. Let us be clear what the backlog means: as the Victims’ Commissioner has warned, some trials are now listed for 2030. The bench division serves a purpose by enabling judge-alone trials for lower level cases, which means we can free up capacity and expect hearings to take about 20% less time. I represent Birmingham Erdington, a working-class constituency with a proud and diverse ethnic minority community. It is from the perspective of my constituents that I must scrutinise this Bill. Clause 3 removes a defendant’s right to elect for a jury trial for either-way offences, replacing it with a judge-alone trial in a new bench division for offences likely to attract sentences of three years or less. Crucially, this is not a temporary pilot—it contains no sunset clause. This is a permanent structural change to one of the oldest rights in our justice system. The intention to speed up our justice is honourable, but my concern is about trust and perception.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. For ethnic minority communities, that right has been seen as a vital protection against fear of bias, whether conscious or unconscious. A diverse jury of 12 brings the common sense of the community into the room; a single judge, however learned, does not offer that same representation.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who I love dearly, for leading this important debate. Palliative care is about dignity. I saw the value of this care every day during my 25 years as a nurse in the health service. I still see it now in representing my constituency, particularly through the experience of John Taylor hospice, which is now part of Birmingham hospice. John Taylor hospice is a beacon of compassion. My constituents tell me consistently how the hospice supported them and their loved ones through the most difficult moments of their lives. But like so many hospices across the country, it is a charity, heavily dependent on voluntary contributions, and when donations dry up, it is patients and families who pay the price. Despite providing an outstanding service in 2024, John Taylor hospice was forced to reduce in-patient beds and cut the equivalent of 45 full-time roles—14% of its workforce. That means losing specialist nurses; it means losing the staff who hold the hands of the dying. That is the human cost of financial uncertainty. I welcome the Government’s recent funding of £100 million in capital for hospices and the £26 million per year for children’s palliative care, and I am glad Birmingham hospice has successfully accessed over £1.1 million from that funding, but we must be honest with ourselves: a one-off grant is simply a short-term sticking plaster. Palliative care cannot survive on a diet of gap-filling and bake sales. It cannot be sustained by charity alone.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  I am sure that every Member in the Chamber has a local hospice that they really appreciate and cannot do without. I thank my hon. Friend for giving his local hospice a shout-out. I am sure it will be appreciated. Palliative care is a core medical need and it requires core funding. Let us look at the numbers. It is estimated that in England and Wales, by 2040, demand for palliative care is expected to increase by between 25% and 47%. We are heading towards a cliff edge, yet we are funding these services as if they are an optional extra. We must ensure that hospices receive proper, recurring funding from the NHS and the Government. Staff must be retained and patients must have equitable access to care. We need a long-term financial strategy so that no family, in Birmingham Erdington or anywhere else in this country, suffers because services are cut back. We must also talk about access. Just as we have seen with GP appointments, accessing hospice care is becoming harder. If we cut beds and staff, we close the door on dignity. That brings me to the assisted dying Bill. I am concerned that it is not clear where the funding for the proposed new system will come from. If it is drawn from the same limited pot as palliative care, we risk starving the very services that provide the positive alternative: a death free from suffering. We need to close the door on that dilemma. We need hospices embedded not as a charitable extra, but as core partners in the NHS: funded for the long term and resourced to be there for everyone. The people of Birmingham Erdington and across the country deserve to live and die with dignity.

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

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  Councillors are the bedrock of their communities, working tirelessly on behalf of residents. I know this from my own time as a local councillor. Waseem Zaffar was an outstanding and much-loved Birmingham councillor, who served his constituents with passion and distinction, and his recent passing at the age of 44 is a great loss. Given the invaluable contribution of local government representatives, may I ask the Leader of the House for a debate in Government time to recognise the vital role that local councillors play in our communities?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Town and City Centre Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this important debate. In my constituency, our local town centres are the beating heart of community life. Whether that is Erdington High Street, Slade Road, or Kingstanding shopping precinct on the Hawthorn Road, these hubs are vital to our local economy, culture and sense of belonging. When I was first elected, Erdington High Street recorded some of the highest levels of crime in Birmingham. Working closely with West Midlands police and our police and crime commissioner, we secured £880,000 from the proceeds of crime fund to launch Operation Fearless. Through that initiative, officers have made substantial arrests for violence, theft and drug offences, seized dangerous weapons, and helped restore a sense of safety and order to the high street, showing that effective, sustained policing can make a real difference. I urge the Minister to continue working closely with police forces, local authorities and community partners to support proven initiatives such as Operation Fearless, which demonstrate that sustained, community-focused policing can turn around our high streets, making them safe, welcoming and vibrant places at the heart of our communities.

• 29 Jan 2026 · First 1,000 Days of Life · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all the hard work she put into this report. It could not have been achieved without everybody on the team working so diligently. Family hubs are an incredibly valuable resource, and they deal with all the issues that she raises. The problem is that we just have not got enough of them. One per county will not do. If we are really talking about early prevention, working with families and raising standards of care, we need more family hubs and more healthcare professionals and paediatricians within those services. We need to ensure that we are looking at this holistically, and not just as a preventive measure.

• 29 Jan 2026 · First 1,000 Days of Life · Hansard source

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  On behalf of the Health and Social Care Committee, it is a pleasure to present to the House our fifth report of this Parliament, which is on the subject of the first 1,000 days of life. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement. We chose this subject because this period of life is crucial for long-term health, educational outcomes and life chances, and because child health in this country is in an alarmingly poor state. As the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has stated, our children have some of the poorest health outcomes in Europe. That is why this report is so important, and why it is essential that we get this right. We know that investment in early intervention is highly cost-effective, yet we continue to see rising obesity, uneven vaccination coverage and persistent inequalities. We therefore welcome the Government’s expansion of the family hub network. However, we must be clear about the scale of the challenge those hubs are being asked to address—supporting a much broader range of children than the previous Sure Start system with fewer resources. That is why we have called on the Government to go further by ensuring access to family hubs in every community, underpinned by reliable, long-term funding. A single hub per county is simply insufficient and will leave families isolated. This must be matched by urgent action to restore the health visitor workforce, which is the backbone of early years care. Since 2015, numbers have fallen by 43%, leaving a shortfall of 5,000 posts. Caseloads remain dangerously high, sometimes exceeding 750 children. We have therefore called for a funded plan to recruit at least 1,000 additional health visitors. The wider workforce is also critical. Health visitors are not the only key professionals involved in supporting children and their parents during that first 1,000-day period—midwives, children’s nurses, general practitioners, early years practitioners, speech and language therapists, paediatricians and others all play incredibly important roles. The Government’s forthcoming NHS 10-year workforce plan must include specific, funded targets for increasing the number of professionals working in early years roles, underpinned by updated modelling of future demand. However, we cannot focus solely on the NHS, as many of these professionals work outside it. That is why we have supported the call of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for a children’s health workforce strategy to address the staffing needs holistically. Our report also addresses the serious decline in vaccination uptake. Vaccination is one of the most effective public health interventions, yet rates have fallen since 2012, with stark regional and ethnic disparities. It is indefensible that one child died of measles and 11 lost their lives to whooping cough in 2024. The Committee was also unimpressed by the Government’s unwillingness to revisit their vaccination strategy. The Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), told us the strategy was “stabilising” vaccination numbers, but we need a strategy capable of reversing current trends. We have called on the Government to develop a new plan to reverse the decline and to reinstate the target of 95% coverage in the NHS planning guidance. Finally, we need to ensure that the many agencies involved in supporting children at the start of life are all working towards the same goal and that it is easy for them to work together. Challenges in sharing data and the absence of a shared outcomes framework undermine accountability and strategic planning across local systems. We look forward to the Government’s plans to publish a shared outcomes framework in April this year, which they must use as a tool to drive better integration and joint working, including between the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. Every child deserves the best start in life. Failing to support children and their parents properly during those first 1,000 days is short-sighted, as it merely stores up problems for the future. However, if we get it right, we will create a generation that is healthier, better educated, ultimately wealthier and, most importantly, happier. I hope that this report and its recommendations can play a part in making that happen. I commend the report to the House.

• 29 Jan 2026 · First 1,000 Days of Life · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is passionate about the administration of vaccinations, and he has asked quite a lot of questions. I absolutely agree with them all, but I will focus on his questions relating to health visitors and to having more of a strategy on vaccinations. I hope that everybody present has read the report, which states very clearly that health visitors have massive caseloads of over 750. That means they are not able to give children the time that they need. We have recommended that we employ 1,000 extra health visitors, but we have also noted in the report that health visitors have a statutory right to visit children five times until they get to the age of two and a half. We have said that we should increase that to a minimum of six visits, which is what already happens in Wales. The minimum number of visits in Scotland is 11, and I think it is nine in Northern Ireland—I apologise if I have got that figure wrong. England has the lowest number of visits in the United Kingdom, and it needs to be increased. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to have more of a focus on vaccine levels, and to get the new strategy in place. Without a strategy, we are not going to get what we need in this area as quickly as we need it to happen.

• 29 Jan 2026 · First 1,000 Days of Life · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. These services are just not joined up. We have got young children who, from birth to two and a half years old, are not getting the health services they need. They then go into the education system and are falling behind. The strategy is just not appropriate, as has been highlighted. As the Committee highlighted, we need a new strategy, and it must be joined up. We need a strategy that takes into account not just health issues, but education and care issues. Through that, we will incorporate all the professionals who are needed for that wraparound service to be delivered.

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

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) for securing this important debate. Gambling is increasingly accessible to children and young people, whether through online platforms, advertising or other media. There are serious concerns about the long-term consequences this will have on the health, wellbeing and development of children and young people across the country. I am particularly concerned about the betting shops on our high street. On the high street in my constituency there are eight gambling establishments—on one street. Since I became an MP, I have objected to every planning application for a betting shop on our high street. Sadly, I have not won a single decision. I will never, ever let one go unchallenged, because as a former nurse I know all too well the terrible toll gambling can take on people’s mental health and wellbeing, and sometimes it takes their lives. It pushes families into debt and can lead to addiction, which isolates people from their communities. It is also known to cause antisocial behaviour and to have knock-on effects that harm the entire area. Birmingham Erdington is a young constituency with low educational outcomes, high unemployment and many houses in multiple occupation, so I am particularly concerned about the effects of gambling. The gambling industry spent £2 billion on advertising and marketing in 2024. That was not by chance; it deliberately targets some of the most vulnerable people in our society. More than 1.5 million people suffer from problem gambling, with many more at risk. The annual societal cost of gambling harms is up to a staggering £1.7 billion. We know that young people are more vulnerable to being harmed by gambling. That is due to natural brain development and unmediated exposure to gambling at an earlier age, through advertising, marketing and the presence of gambling-like elements in places parents might not expect, including loot-box mechanics—which I knew nothing about—in video games aimed at children. Some 69% of 11 to 17-year-olds recall seeing gambling advertising, which acts as a gateway into more serious gambling as they get older. The results are stark. The annual student gambling survey found that 49% of students gamble, with four in 10 reporting that gambling has affected their university experience. The effects are inescapable. There are hundreds of gambling-related suicides annually in Britain—between 2% and 9% of all suicides. That cannot continue. Today I am calling on the Government and regulators to come together to ensure that young people are protected and that our high streets do not continue to be wrecked by out-of-control gambling and betting shops. The challenge is not insurmountable. Support is available, stigma can be challenged and change is possible. Gambling must be seen as a public health issue. Children need to be educated at an early age through the public health lens in schools, and education needs to be provided to families and parents. I will continue fighting for our young people and for the safe, vibrant high streets that our communities so deserve.

• 15 Jan 2026 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for coming here today to talk to us about the revised policy.

• 15 Jan 2026 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Well, okay; I apologise. But the Minister is here today and he has given us the revised policy, with which I am delighted. I am so pleased that the Minister and the Government have decided not to make it a mandatory scheme. I have had an overwhelming number of complaints in my constituency. Going forward, areas like mine have a very high level of digital exclusion. Can the Minister assure me that the Government will ensure that they bring constituents and residents along with them in this consultation phase, so that people do not feel they have been left behind and then start to object because they feel it will go from voluntary back to mandatory?

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  I welcome this statement and this clarity. The findings are damning. I was born and bred in Birmingham and I am a local MP, and I know that in my community there is very little trust in the police. Does the Secretary of State agree that, in an increasingly political world, it is important that in future all chief constables have the skills to work in this new world and that they are able to engage with all communities?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Less Survivable Cancers · Hansard source

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  I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this debate and for his tireless work campaigning for better outcomes for all affected by the least survivable cancers. For too long, these cancers have been neglected and left behind. Patients and their loved ones have had to bear the devastating costs alone. As chair of the all-party group on less survivable cancers, I urge the Government to make this a reality by prioritising in their plan the improvement of early diagnosis for these six cancers—brain, lung, oesophagus, pancreas, stomach and liver—which remain some of the toughest to diagnose. For decades, GPs have struggled to identify the vague symptoms linked with these cancers without the necessary diagnostic tools and tech to support early diagnosis. Tragically, this means that more than 70% of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage and face the heartbreaking news that it is too late. Targeted screening plays a vital role in accelerating early detection and faster diagnosis, as we see through the successes in the NHS lung cancer screening programme. In addition to targeted screening, we want the Government to roll out the nationwide multi-cancer case-finding programme to proactively identify people at high risk of developing cancer. I know personally just how heartbreaking less survivable cancers such as pancreatic cancer can be and the difference that early detection will make. Like many of my colleagues here today, I have seen at first hand the impact of these deadly cancers on individuals, families and loved ones. I lost my best friend in 2021. Pauline was a very vibrant woman who was looking forward to getting married. Later that year, she felt unwell. She had been to the doctor numerous times and no connection was made to cancer. She was busy planning her wedding, but because of her weight loss and continued generalised pain, she went back to the doctor. At that point, they told her that she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer and had eight weeks to live. She lived for six weeks, and then she died. What gives me hope is the transformative role that research can play in driving early diagnosis, such as the new breath test being developed by researchers at Imperial College. As it stands, two in five people with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed quite late—they will see their doctor but not get a diagnosis—and I hope that the Rare Cancers Bill and the national cancer plan will help to drive greater investment in innovation and research. I feel confident that we can deliver bigger breakthroughs and better outcomes across these six cancers. Progress is within our reach. Now it is time to act for all who are and will be affected.