Rachael Maskell MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Despite York’s new emergency department, a consultant has described to me the situation in emergency medicine, where patients are waiting for days to be discharged and 50 patients are waiting to be placed on wards. We know we have inherited a broken NHS. Will the Minister say what she is doing first to enable primary care to pull more patients out of emergency medicine, in order to see people in the community, and secondly to invest in social care, which will clearly address some of the backlog and the logjam in patient flows?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment: Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  I thank the residents of York for donating to my thermals collection on Saturday, but I know that older people in the city of York will really struggle this winter. Will the Minister say how many people across the country have signed up to pension credit since July and what additional steps will be taken to ensure that those who miss the 21 December deadline will still be able to get support to keep warm this winter?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Academisation has created fragmentation in lines of accountability, leaving local authorities carrying much risk, not least when it comes to SEND provision. Will my hon. Friend look at academy governance structures to ensure that local authorities can carry that responsibility and be able to deliver for children with SEN?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Syria · Hansard source

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  The Syrian diaspora in York will welcome the fall of the Assad regime, but what follows really matters. What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with the International Criminal Court about the crucial gathering of evidence at this time of transition to build the case for justice, which is the Court’s responsibility?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. The overheated housing market in York is being fuelled by the 2,193 short-term holiday lets in the city. I have a private Member’s Bill on the subject, so will the Minister work with me as I co-produce the Bill to address this problem in York?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will press on. Much would rely on regulations using the negative procedure, and some the affirmative. Even if not prepared within two years, clause 42(3) says the Act would be fully implemented. The Bill changes the role of the chief medical officer without any analysis, as is the case for doctors. During the 14-month Health and Social Care Committee inquiry, we heard how the clinician-patient relationship changed with assisted suicide. Record keeping and data collation is inadequate, as we found in Oregon. Clause 18(9) highlights that the procedure may fail. The Bill is silent on how to manage such cases, but it should be explicit. We must acknowledge that it is not always peaceful. We learned in Oregon that some have seizures or vomit as the body rejects the toxic medication. The Bill falls woefully short on safeguarding patients, too. It is too flawed to amend. It is a wrong and rushed answer to a complex problem. Today, we must be beyond reasonable doubt of error if voting for the Bill. Remember, the vote is not on the principle of assisted dying or on choice, but the principles detailed within the clauses of the Bill. Polling overwhelmingly says that if Members are in any doubt, the public expect them to vote against the Bill today. We can focus on optimising palliative and end of life medicine to build consensus and to discern what further steps need taking. For death, as with life, is too precious to get this wrong.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who makes a pertinent point. After all, we would never write a prescription before making a diagnosis, yet this Bill does that. It is simply prescribing the wrong medicine. Extraordinarily, there is no critical analysis, not even an impact assessment, when such significant matters of life and death are at stake and when our broken health and justice system would be stretched even further. My constituent was just 46 when she received a terminal diagnosis. She did not have long; the cancer was advancing and the prognosis would have qualified her for an assisted death. Had it been law, she would have consented. Now 54 and in remission, she pleads that the Bill should not pass. Palliative care consultants say that it is nearly impossible to prognosticate at six months; just 46% get it right. Experts say that the arbitrary six-month threshold is insecure. We must recognise its prematurity. Clause 2(2) says that someone for whom treatment only relieves symptoms but does not cure them would qualify for an assisted death if they were within the criteria. We understand someone declining chemotherapy, but the provision extends to any condition where a cocktail of drugs is sustaining life. The person involved may be only 18. That would not need a change in the law; it is written in the Bill. My greatest concern is coercion. We live in a coercive society; the UK spends £40 billion on advertising and ever more powerful algorithms drive us to content online. We recognise coercion in relationships or elder abuse, but the Bill fails to safeguard against it when someone is dying and there is malign intent. People often recognise coercion only after years have passed, yet within a month someone could be dead. Malign coercion cases may be few, but as a clinician working at the fringes of life, I heard my patients frequently say, “I don’t want to be a burden,” or “I’d rather the money went to the grandchildren than on my care,” or “Somebody is more deserving than me.” Intrinsic coercion is very real, not least where the law has changed—rapidly becoming an expectation, verbalised as a duty to die. In fact, not wanting to be a burden is cited as a major reason to opt for an assisted death, alongside loss of dignity, loneliness, and needing personal care, yet every day, disabled people live in this reality. We fight in this House to take away stigma and give dignity, equality and worth. That is why disabled people fear the Bill: it devalues them in a society where they fight to live. We should understand why Disability Rights UK opposes and why Liberty opposes: to push back against the Bill is the cause of the progressive and the libertarian, not just the domain of the conservative. Under this Bill, a doctor may raise an assisted death with their patient—clause 4(2). Given the trust we place in doctors, not least when people are vulnerable, this is so significantly coercive. Let us suppose there is unconscious bias, which is well known in healthcare. Before people question that assertion, let me cite the industrial application of the Liverpool care pathway, and then, five and a half years after its ban, the covid “Do not actively resuscitate” letters. The evidence shows that disabled and ethnic minority people experience bias in healthcare. Those who stand for equality will recognise the safeguarding failures in the Bill. While not wanting to encourage suicidal ideation, rates are 6% higher in jurisdictions where there is assisted suicide. On the process, two doctors—possibly unknown to the patient—ask a set of questions. It can take days to establish capacity in the courts, but it only needs a consultation. That is the same for assessing coercion and prognosis. Doctors are proponents of assisted dying. Risk increases in closed environments. At least the Isle of Man is considering a parole board-style approach; this Bill does not. The documentation of the decision fails in its rigour, not even seeking evidence for the decision. It is passed to a judge. Sir James Munby, former family division president, describes, “a scheme which does not provide for an open and transparent process but, on the contrary, permits a secret process which can give us no confidence that it will enable the court to identify and prevent possible abuses.” In decrying how the Bill changes the role of the judge to one of certifying compliance, he states, “the Leadbeater Bill falls lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards,” describing the suspension of any appeal as an “extraordinary” omission, not least if the patient’s concerned relative or physician cannot take their case. That is backed by Thomas Teague KC, former chief coroner, who said the safeguards “will not hold” and that they “amount to nothing more than arbitrary restrictions, with no rational foundation.” Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court judge, highlights that once the law facilitates assisted suicide, it could be deemed discriminatory to deny others—disabled people—the same right. Barristers say they will take cases. They expect the law to change.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  This is hard, Madam Deputy Speaker. With compassion, we search for ways to best alleviate pain and suffering and ensure that those we love die in peace. Initiated by the Bill, focus has rapidly turned to caring for the dying and optimising every moment of the life that we want to hold on to; it breaks us knowing that at some point we have to let go. That was the mission of Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement. Thankfully, most die in peace, but tragically not all. Funding for palliative care has regressed against rising demand in an ageing society with growing comorbidities. Hospices are paring back services. Research by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford highlights how jurisdictions with assisted dying fall down the rankings on palliative care, while promised funding never materialises. When more than 100,000 people, predominantly in poverty, from minoritised communities or based on postcode, fail to access any palliative care despite needing it, or when those who access care do so from frequently overstretched services, unable to make timely or optimised interventions, or when, for most, care starts far too late, tragic testimonies follow, as we have heard in recent days. We all know that the NHS is under significant duress, and just cannot do what it should. Social care is fragmented and costly, and palliative care is significantly underfunded and inequitable. This is a mess. Following Lord Darzi’s devastating report, we must give my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary the opportunity to reset health and care. I believe that that is what we on these Benches were elected to do. With just 17 days since publication, this Bill has consumed us and that will only intensify if it proceeds. Instead, our focus should be on getting palliation right and then seeing what is really needed. We cannot do both as there is simply not the capacity. More than 70% of the public say that they want a commission on palliative and end-of-life care before we consider assisted dying. Other polls agree. Plans for a commission are well advanced.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Church-owned Hospices: Assisted Dying · Hansard source

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  Hospices have charitable aims to provide palliative care at the end of life, but these could be compromised by the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which comes before the House tomorrow. What consultation and impact assessment of this measure has there been with hospices that have a faith foundation? I am hearing that some hospices need an exemption, or they might close.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Church-owned Hospices: Assisted Dying · Hansard source

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  1. What assessment the Church has made of the potential impact of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Church-owned hospices.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. My constituent Amanda Mountain is a phenomenal artist, painting the most outstanding designs and then placing them on stationery. However, Temu and SHEIN are ripping off her work, and many artists’ work, in breach of intellectual property controls. They are undercutting her business, at serious cost to her. What steps will the Minister take to protect artists and their businesses, and ensure that online retailers are held to account?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Environment Agency for protecting much of my constituency. However, businesses still continue to flood. Could the Secretary of State say what he is doing to review the remit of Flood Re, so that businesses, leaseholders and properties built after 2009 can be covered by the Flood Re scheme, which really does help people through times of flooding?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants · Hansard source

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  The atrocities that led to the issuing of arrest warrants continue to this day, not least in healthcare facilities, with devastating stories coming out of Gaza. My hon. Friend has set out his frustration at aid not reaching such facilities, yet more sanctions could be applied by this Government. Why will he not escalate the UK’s response to the Israeli Government by introducing sanctions so that they feel the real pain of our country but also understand that we want to ensure that justice is served by the ICC?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Health and Care Staffing Costs: Employer NI Contributions · Hansard source

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  Fourteen years of neglect have left hospices in a perilous condition. They are dealing with the rise in national insurance contributions, pay and other cost pressures, so I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is putting in place measures to ensure that the funding recovers. Will he assure me that integrated care boards not only will pass on that recovery from the increased costs to hospices, but will help them catch up from the Tory years of neglect of the whole sector?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Primary School Breakfast Clubs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. York Hungry Minds is currently carrying out a pilot project examining what happens when schools have breakfast clubs and universal free school meals. Does he agree that we need to look at the outcome of that evidence to determine whether some children also require a free school meal in the middle of the day, as well as at the start of the day, to ensure that there is equity in the outcomes we are seeking?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Council Tax · Hansard source

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  York is the lowest-funded unitary authority in the country, but has one of the highest costs of living. That puts real pressure on it. We are also among the poorest-funded for health, fire and police services. When the Minister looks at the funding formula for local government, will he look at the presumptions made, to ensure more equity in the way it is put together?

• 14 Nov 2024 · National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare · Hansard source

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  If this Government’s ambition, stemming from Lord Darzi’s report, is to be realised, significant investment is required not only in primary care but in third sector organisations. However, these organisations are concerned about the increased cost pressures on their services. Will the Minister ensure that there is sufficient support within the trickle-down approach, which the Department will now have to apply, to maintain current service levels and facilitate the urgently needed transition across health services?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Pensioner Poverty · Hansard source

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  Pensioners in poverty now have just 40 days to apply for the winter fuel payment via the pension credit system. Will the Minister look at extending the deadline so that more people can claim pension credit and get the winter fuel payment?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  I want to raise the issue of governance. There are too many minds controlling the system, which ultimately stymies local authorities’ ability to reform services in order to embed a culture of nurturing and to ensure that the best interests of children are represented. While reviewing the SEND system, will the Minister take a look at governance, and ensure that is there is one controlling mind, and it is that of the local authority?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Higher Education Reform · Hansard source

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  The last Government nearly bankrupted a number of universities. Indeed, one of the two excellent universities in my constituency had to go through a significant redundancy programme to stay afloat. However, I recognise the challenges that students in my constituency are facing, not least because of the high cost of living. As part of my right hon. Friend’s reforms, will she also look at the cost of housing students, so that they can pay their way when they are studying?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Cancer Strategy for England · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making an incredible and powerful speech. Will he add one more ask to his list: for the cancer strategy to be joined up with a life sciences strategy? The UK is fantastic at primary research around cancer, but there is work to be done in scaling that research and translating it into delivering a holistic product for the whole of cancer care, with the ensuing treatments and therapies.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Cancer Strategy for England · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for hosting today’s debate. In the last Parliament, the Health and Social Care Committee carried out an inquiry into future cancer. From all the evidence we received, we came to the conclusion that a bespoke future cancer strategy was needed to support the NHS, and that it should not be combined in a major conditions strategy, which frankly went nowhere under the last Government. I congratulate the hon. Member on his advocacy; will he read the Committee’s report and our letter about all the interventions that this Government could make to drive forward cancer care?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In Sudan, 25.6 million people are facing acute hunger, 10.7 million people have been displaced since last year, and the World Food Programme is saying that it is a race against time to stop the famine from escalating. It is a very grave situation, so can we have a debate in Government time to put a spotlight on what is happening in Sudan and the UK’s response?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Night-time Economy · Hansard source

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  Last Saturday night I had the opportunity to go out in York with the police. It was incredibly interesting and I am so grateful for the work that they do, and it gave me an opportunity to speak to employers. We know that, as employers, our traditional pubs are really struggling because the pubs code is not working properly. Will the Minister meet me and the Campaign for Pubs to discuss how we can improve things for those businesses?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q3. This Labour Government have set up a child poverty taskforce, which is determined to move 4.3 million children in poverty into a better future. However, we also inherited 2.1 million older people in poverty. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree to set up a pensioner poverty taskforce so that older people do not have to worry about paying for their housing, food and heating costs, ensuring that they have dignity in later life?