Peter Prinsley MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. Let me tell Members about two men. The first is Adolfo Hernandez, the chief executive of Capita, who has an annual remuneration, I believe, of £1.6 million. The other is my constituent, a man who gave 33 years of service to the Metropolitan police and, despite giving ample notice of his retirement, did not receive his pension for at least six months. He wanted to fund his daughter through university, but was unable to do so. He took out loans from the police. He then developed cancer and is under treatment at my local hospital. He has finally received a quotation for his pension. This is an utter disgrace and we in this place must surely be able to do something about it. We all came to this place to change things. Surely, this is something that we can change. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for securing this debate. What should be at the centre of a discussion about public ownership of water? I think it should be public health. Imagine a family spending an afternoon beside a river. The children are playing near the bank. One asks whether they can paddle. The parent looks at the water and hesitates. Hon. Members might think it is because the river is deep or flowing quickly, and they might be right, but just as importantly, the parent does not know what has been discharged into it. That should concern every one of us. In Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, the rivers connect our towns and surrounding villages. They should be places that communities enjoy and take pride in, not places from which parents feel they must warn their children away. Yet when we discuss the water and sewerage companies, the conversation too often begins with the company finances and ends with arguments about regulators. I think we should begin with the family beside the river. Julie is the mother of Heather, who was just eight when she died in 1999 after contracting E. coli during a family holiday in Devon. Her family story featured in the Channel 4 drama that we have heard about. Julie continues to speak out, so that Heather is not forgotten and so that other families understand the risks, but behind that campaigning is a mother who should have been watching her daughter grow up. That is why I believe the case for public ownership of our water and sewerage companies must be made in terms of the people this essential service exists to protect. The purpose of the water system should be straightforward: to provide clean, safe water. We need water and sewerage companies that have more actual engineers than financial engineers. Our constituents should not have to become experts in the sewage discharge maps before deciding whether to enjoy their local river. No parent should be left wondering whether an ordinary afternoon outdoors puts their child’s health at risk. We cannot promise that open water will ever be entirely risk-free, but we can insist that preventable pollution be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Water is essential to life, and the way we own and manage it must reflect that.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have cared for patients with advanced cancers of the head and neck, and I have seen patients at the end of their life. It is that experience above all that convinces me that we must introduce this humane and dignified option to assist those who are dying, so that they can die in peace at a time of their choosing and avoid the loss of autonomy and dignity that so many people fear. I fear it; perhaps other hon. Members also fear it, for none of us can know when we will die until we are dying ourselves. This is not a measure that chooses between life and death; it chooses between death and death, between dying and dying. That is the truth of the matter. I did not always think like this, but I have seen the limits of even the most skilful palliative care. I have seen the look in the eyes of the patient reconciled to the end of their days, and the pleading expression of the poor soul who wants to put an end to suffering. That is what we are debating—suffering. Assisted dying is complementary to palliative care; it is not an alternative. Others will say that assisted dying is unconscionable, and I respect that. I am asking the House to vote to support choice; that is all I am asking. We voted for the Bill before, and hon. Members in the other place sought to prevent its passage, but we are not misled or deceived by such a parliamentary device, and neither are the public, who will not forget this moment. I urge Members across the House to support choice. That is all I am asking.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning I met Julie, the mother of Heather, whose tragic death was featured in Channel 4’s “Dirty Business”. She is an incredible campaigner. With all the debates and discussions about the terrible state of the water companies, does the Leader of the House agree with Julie and with me that public health must be this House’s top priority?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Vaccination Rates: England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the members of the Health and Social Care Committee for securing this debate. Doctors like me do not need any convincing about vaccination, but some of our political opponents do not agree. It is incredible to think that a platform was given at last year’s Reform conference to someone claiming that vaccinations had caused cancer in the royal family, and that the head of the United States Health Department is a vaccine sceptic. That is quite pernicious and wrong—very, very wrong. Doctors like me do not need convincing. Nor do wives like mine who are Rhesus-negative and whose mothers had multiple miscarriages before the discovery of anti-D injections to prevent baby loss, which was first tested in the famous Sing Sing prison experiments. When I was young, every county had a school for the deaf, but they had all closed by the time I was a senior ENT surgeon. Why was that? Maternal rubella, or German measles, in pregnancy had been abolished by simply vaccinating all girls at puberty, just like that—brilliant. There was no longer a need for so many schools for the deaf. A landmark 2026 Lancet study reported no cervical cancer deaths among women aged 20 to 24 between 2020 and 2024: a dramatic drop from the previous five-year period directly credited to the national human papillomavirus vaccination programme. We will see the same fall in the number of deaths from oropharyngeal throat cancer in boys as a result of HPV vaccination. We all know that the national response to the pandemic was not a glorious one. There were costly errors in personal protective equipment and test and trace, but the one thing we did get right was vaccination, which saved countless lives. I recall myself vaccinating the first very elderly patients in Great Yarmouth. Just lately we have seen reports of increased life expectancy in patients with malignant melanoma due to personalised cancer vaccines—brilliant. Doctors like me, unlike some politicians, need no convincing of the crucial importance of vaccination, but there must be a warning here, for we are short of clinical academics who lead medical education and research. We need to incubate the next generation of scientists who will lead these discoveries, for this is the country of Jenner, who discovered vaccination; of Lister, who discovered antisepsis; and of Fleming, who discovered penicillin. We have a great legacy, and we must secure a great future.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that managers in the NHS sometimes get a very bad press from the medical profession? I believe that to be wholly unjustified.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady take another intervention, Ms Lewell?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  A fine vintage.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is, obviously, a very interesting discussion. I agree—I actually do—that medical practitioners should not go on strike, but the question is whether that should be the law. I would apply the same question to nurses, a point that the hon. Lady has not answered.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the hon. Member’s experience mirrors mine. Many years ago, it seemed to be easy for general practitioners to ring me up. I often received telephone calls from general practitioners asking for advice about patients. As time went on, general practitioners became busier and busier and seemed to have less time to telephone consultants. When I started my consultant career, I spoke often to general practitioners, and by the time I got elected to Parliament and had to stop, I found that was a very unusual thing. Has her experience been similar?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that the invention of vaccination by Jenner centuries ago is the single most important medical invention we have had in this country?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the new clause refers specifically to the foundation programme—

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The other important fact is that more and more hospital referrals were not coming from general practitioners at all, but from other people working in the general practice such as nurses and physician associates, who are less confident in forming a clinical judgment.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does it actually say that in the new clause?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am interested in what the hon. Member has to say about strike action. I was involved in trying to get the resident doctors’ strike stopped, but was unsuccessful for many months. I think she is talking about the principle of whether people involved in medical care should ever go on strike. If she were to apply the proposed measure to medical practitioners, would she introduce the same rule for nurses?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am listening carefully to what the hon. Member, who is a medical colleague of mine, has to say. Although I think that a fracture liaison service is an excellent idea, there are many, many aspects of medical care that require careful attention, such as the management of people with hearing loss—my own field—or the assessment of people with chronic renal failure. Does the shadow Minister believe that all aspects of each individual disease category require some sort of primary legislation?

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his speech. I would like to know whether he is aware of any evidence that mass screening of young people with ECGs will actually improve matters.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am confused by the Opposition referring in their new clause to a requirement to “make regulations” in this respect, as the private sector is already widely used to reduce waiting lists where appropriate. However, we must also be aware of the problem we have with overuse of private facilities. That can have an effect on the provision of NHS services, because the number of available staff is limited. I think particularly of ophthalmology services, as we have created a situation in which the overprovision of private services has disabled the provision of ophthalmology services.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I agree with everything that the Minister has to say—what a surprise—but particularly the fact that when the new Government came in, they did something about these 40 “new” hospitals that were not full hospitals. The people of Bury St Edmunds were delighted to learn that their RAAC-affected hospital, which is tumbling down, will be one of the first to be reconstructed. We look forward to that and are grateful for the decisions made by the Government.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Sixteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the single most effective thing that we have done for public health since we were elected is to get the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 passed? The gradual abolition of cigarette smoking will save more lives than anything else we could conceivably do in politics.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Since I have been an MP, I have visited a number of schools in my constituency, and I have always been struck by the number of children who are carers. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I think that is a very under-recognised group of people, whose lives are completely dominated by the fact that they are carers for their parents.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My wife is an educational psychologist, so I have lived this, in a vicarious fashion, for the last 30 years or more. I understand how the system for special educational needs has evolved, particularly the role of the psychological services and how children are supported. As a result of a series of reforms, in particular during the years of austerity, the services provided by local authorities to schools—particularly the schools’ psychological services—became much more focused on psychologists providing reports to inform the distribution of resources, and much less focused on educational psychologists actually being in schools supporting children. I would like to see a change, such that educational psychologists and their expertise are back in schools, in classrooms, supporting teachers. Time and again when I visit schools, they say, “Let’s get educational psychology support back into schools.” I think that is something my wife would support.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Much of the conversation around those trade deals relates to pharmaceuticals from the United States. Our patients should be able to access the best available treatments, whatever deals we cook up. We must support innovative research based in our own country, particularly clinical trials for new medicines. To do that, we need to support clinical academics—the doctors who work in universities and organise research. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the number of clinical academics fell under the previous Conservative Administration? Most clinical academics are now very senior, and we are not recruiting replacements effectively. We need to look after our home-grown pharmaceutical industry so that we do not need such trade deals.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Would the hon. Member comment on what I consider to be almost the most successful and important Bill that our new Government have passed, on the effective abolition of cigarette smoking? As time goes by, that will save more lives than anything else we could possibly think of. I recognise that it was the initiative of the previous Government, but the fact that the new Government have managed to get it over the line is a massive achievement. That is very much underappreciated and certainly not spoken about anything like enough. We will never do anything as important as the abolition of cigarette smoking.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I sit on the Home Affairs Committee, and we have lately been discussing the matter of serious organised crime, and vape shops in particular. It turns out that many of the vape shops are in fact not really shops; they are places for laundering money. Specifically, they launder money in relation to drug businesses and the drug trade, which is another huge public health matter that I am sure the Minister will agree needs to be dealt with. We were informed that about 10% of this country’s adult population are using illicit drugs, and that for the most part those are being delivered via the post office. Does the Minister agree that that is a massive public health issue that will also need to be urgently addressed?