Rachael Maskell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  City of York council has gone from “requires improvement” to “outstanding” in all areas due to the innovation it is driving. In particular, it has been working on halving the number of children in social care, ending the use of agency workers and setting up a SEND hub. The director of children’s social care would like the Secretary of State to visit. Will she come to York and see what we are doing?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  I met people from my regional adoption agency just last Thursday—I thank them and all their partners for their excellent work—who raised the adoption and special guardianship support fund, recognising that the quantum in resource is not there and that the demand is so high. Will the Minister meet the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and permanence to talk about the future of the fund and work with people who have lived experience to ensure that we get it right in the future?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Children of Alcoholics · Hansard source

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  I am really grateful for all that the hon. Gentleman does in this place. I want to raise the issue of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We know that its prevalence is now 4%, which is higher than autism, and there is no screening programme for pregnant women, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) just mentioned. It is really important that we understand these issues and find a sensitive way to protect children from developing such a disorder.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I like drilling into the data and getting to the facts. You can see a correlation between the rise in people claiming social security and the rise in waiting lists in the NHS—they map identically through all Parliaments, whether Tory or Labour. Will the right hon. Member look at the data before making assumptions? Getting waiting lists down has got to be our objective.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Indifference to poverty, as we have just heard, marks out the political divisions of our time. The task of restructuring our economy to ensure that those who serve and work hard are not exploited by profiteers and the powerful is our mission. Today, it is clear which side Labour is on. Leveraging resources from accumulated wealth, not simply income, must be the economic pivot that this Parliament determines to make. We should hold wealth accountable, not just the fruits of hard labour. That is why I welcome measures such as the surcharge on council tax. As John Maynard Keynes said: “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones”, such as the notion that the success of growth will trickle down to provide economic security. Generations have failed to receive that. Unlike the economic engineering we have seen today, economic neoliberalism has been a failed experiment that holds people back and holds people down in poverty. Some 14.5 million people now sit below the poverty line, and 4.5 million children sit in poverty. Tonight, 180,000 children will not sleep in their own bed, and 1 million children are in destitution and dependency, not given dignity or decency. We inherited that shameful legacy from those on the right. Today is monumental: 450,000 children lifted out of poverty, 1,650 of them in my constituency. Scrapping the two-child limit is the right thing to do—it is the Labour thing to do—but we must go further. Another 80,000 are held back by the Tory benefit cap, and I trust that the child poverty strategy will ditch the cap and the ideology behind it. When a baby comes to York hospital with hypothermia, and when a mother begs me for formula because she has no milk, we must recognise the impact of pregnancy and baby poverty. It causes low birth weight, malnutrition and impeded development. From cold and damp homes, we get poor lung health. I therefore urge the Government to look specifically at women during pregnancy and at their babies, and to say that we will prioritise lifting them out of poverty, because it will make a difference to their life course. As we seek to abolish child poverty here at home, I plead with the Government to recommit to 0.7% of GNI for overseas development aid. Every child’s life must be of equal worth, no matter where that child is born. Cutting aid will be catastrophic for infants, and we must not contemplate it. Instead, we must restore our commitment to 0.7%. The moral injustice of the social determinants of poverty must be addressed. After a decade in this place, I have concluded that holding power and wealth in Westminster and Whitehall fails to realise the opportunities across the towns and cities of our country. A pound spent by a Government has a limited reach, but when infused with partnerships and people in localities, it stretches further and deeper into the solutions that can transform lives. The Government must trust our communities and invest to return better health, better education, better employment and opportunities for all. Today I challenge them to embark on a radical devolution of the nation’s resources to our communities, making finances work harder and reach further, restructuring services with transformational local partnerships and relationships. I urge the Government to review the broad rental market area. Housing injustice is a major cause of poverty in York. The local housing allowance has fallen far below rental costs, to nearly 50%, and a review is essential, while more social housing is a priority. We must examine this issue. Enabling local revenue-raising is also critical, and after years of lobbying hard for it I welcome the tourism levy, which, at just the price of a cup of coffee, will raise £7 million for York. I urge the Chancellor to look at cities such as York, because we are struggling. Our city may have an affluent core, but much is extracted, leaving it with a very high cost of living and a low-wage economy. Eight communities in York sit in the lowest quintile nationally, and the Government funding formulas are failing us across the board. We receive the lowest funding of any unitary authority but we are far from the most affluent, with one of the lowest settlements for health, schools, special educational needs and disability, police and fire. The cumulative impact has caused significant impediment. School heads who come to York cannot believe the inequity. We have far less than other areas for health and care, we need more police on our streets, and our brilliant Labour local authority is on its knees. Combined with decades of fiscal oversight, the cumulative impoverishment has driven a cultural change in York, and, sadly, the new fair funding formula is just not fair for our city. We are experiencing disadvantage, and I want the Government to look into this inequity in order to understand why the matrices are not working economically for our city and others like it and how the Treasury can rebalance them. I trust we can have a meeting to discuss that. I believe that Labour can build a safe and secure economy, nationally and in my city, working for all. Addressing poverty, its causes and effects, must always be our driving force: keeping the elderly warm, giving disabled people dignity, and ensuring that child poverty is consigned to history. Today resets the moral purpose of politics, powerfully showing Labour on the side of families and communities, using our socialist roots to collectivise revenue to work for the common good. Poverty, in all its forms, destroys the hope that we long for and the opportunities that we need. Labour must always recognise that ending the injustice of poverty and inequality is our moral purpose, and the route to a strong economy.

• 25 Nov 2025 · G20 and Ukraine · Hansard source

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  It is feared that the brutality in El Fasher will only intensify and spread to Tawila and beyond if international action is not convened and focused on the resolutions that are needed, not least to stop the incursions with drones supplied via the United Arab Emirates and mercenaries. Will the Prime Minister say more about what happened in South Africa to put the necessary focus in place, and about the next steps to stop the expansion of the atrocities we are witnessing in Sudan?

• 25 Nov 2025 · COP30 · Hansard source

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  Leadership at home, leadership globally, and now we need leadership on the fossil fuels road map. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will play a pivotal role in setting the terms of reference, the scope and the ambition of that. It is also important to build the industrial strategy to ensure that we can see a just transition for so many countries. How will he lead that opportunity for our country and others to ensure that fossil fuels are the focus leading into COP31?

• 25 Nov 2025 · Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister set out what the English requirements and the earning requirements will be for someone with a learning difference? Clearly, those requirements will be significantly different from those for the wider community. How will they be assessed?

• 25 Nov 2025 · Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing today’s debate. In a dangerous and dystopian world, our word must be our word. It must be honoured. Many have fled to our land for sanctuary, safety and security, and we cannot change the terms retrospectively; nor should we change them for those to come. We rightly have made commitments to people who have embarked on their settlement journeys, from the horrors of Taliban Afghanistan, to our BNO friends from Hong Kong who have fled the human rights abuses of the Chinese regime, young people who have arrived under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees schemes, and our good friends from Ukraine who have come to the UK because of the sanctuary and human rights we have extolled and spent 80 years leading. I will say it plainly today. I believe the Government have got this wrong. Their analysis is political, not factual, and their propositions are unacceptable. I agree with all the hon. Members today who have made such pertinent points in this debate. I appreciate how the Tories absolutely destroyed the system. They built the backlogs, did not put the staffing into the Home Office and lost focus and urgency, weaponising our systems. They did not have functional pathways. But all of these things speak of the pace that is needed, not slowing the pathways down. It has been wrong not to have the humanitarian routes available to so many, and I welcome the Government now putting those in place. But it is right that we honour the schemes already in existence and create the right culture for our country to be safe and secure for others fleeing dangers, so that they have security here as well. On the issue of language proficiency, what we need is functionality around language. I therefore ask the Government to think this through carefully again. Also, we know that many will not make the earnings threshold. They will be predominantly women who are carers of children and adults. I therefore call for an impact assessment to understand how gendered already our pay is in this country, and how the policy will press into that space and discriminate. As somebody who represents a human rights city—the only human rights city in England—articles 3 and 8 are not to be questioned. We need to ensure we have secured the right human rights framework and use it to protect people at home and abroad. If we lessen rights for others, it lessens the rights of us all.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Two-child benefit cap · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on the two-child benefit cap. Tomorrow we all trust will be a turning point for children living in poverty, as the third child and subsequent children in a family have been denied vital support since 2017 unless proved to be conceived by rape. To lift 540,000 children out of poverty with the removal of the two-child limit and a further 80,000 with the removal of the benefit cap is something 578 of my constituents have called for through a paper and digital petition against the hardship which they endure. The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the impact of the two-child benefit cap in developing a strategy to end child poverty.” Following is the full text of the petition: [T he petition states: The petition of residents of the constituency of York Central, Declares that the Two Child Benefit Cap results in parents of families with three or more children born after April 2017 can only claim benefit for the first two children, unless they prove that further children have been conceived by rape; and further that this is a major reason for child poverty, causing larger families hardship, and that this has impacted on 1.6m children since its introduction. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the impact of the two-child benefit cap in developing a strategy to end child poverty. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003137]

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

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  Of course. Journalists are the eyes of the world, and they open all our eyes to the suffering and the scale of what is happening. We need to ensure their safety and security, as well as the free access that my hon. Friend calls for. I understand that 16,500 people are currently registered for medical evacuation, with many more yet to make the list. Those long lists are posing serious risk to life. The UK has evacuated 51 children, plus family members, for medical treatment, yet the need for lifesaving interventions is overwhelming. How will this Government ensure that that need is addressed proportionately? We can do more, and we must do more. Médecins Sans Frontières rightly highlights that priority should be given not just by age, but by medical emergency. Are we ensuring that patients are properly triaged and that we are taking those most in need? I also believe that we could do a lot more to scale in the region. I trust that the Minister can set out exactly what is happening to ensure that people can cross the border and receive the healthcare they need, as well as to allow the aid to flow—it cannot be impeded at the border any longer, whatever that requirement is. Beyond that, I would like the Government to consider how we can assist in the training of medical and other health professionals from Gaza. Our medical, nursing and allied health professional schools are first class. With all the universities in Gaza decimated, there is a clear need to ensure that the Palestinian healthcare workers of the future are given the right training and the opportunity, alongside those currently practising, for remote supervision and interventions to support them. How can we further help support those programmes? Are we doing everything we can to ensure that vaccination programmes are in place, particularly given the significant risk of disease? The trauma is unimaginable and enduring. We need to ensure Palestine has the opportunity to heal. Many of us talk about mental health support in our country, but we cannot imagine the scale at which it is needed in Gaza. What are we doing to ensure that the right mental health support is given to heal that nation? It used to be that, when we saw injustices across international borders, and the world order was not working, we called the world together to ensure that we changed the world order and justice was served. To this date, it seems that we follow the rules and do not set them any more. I ask the Minister to dig deep at this time and say, “What more can we really do to ensure that we are once again the convening voice for changing the world order, to see that justice is served and people have the aid and resources they need to move forward from this tragedy, which will mark us all in years to come?”.

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

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms McVey. I thank all the petitioners for their efforts, as well as my constituents who, as the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara) also highlighted, have for decades been campaigning on this and standing with the people of Gaza and across the occupied territories of Palestine. The critical humanitarian situation in Gaza must remain the focus of this Government. The demand for medical and surgical facilities, for equipment, for clinical staff and interventions, is as great as ever. The consequences of famine and war alongside the more recent surges in violence after the so-called ceasefire, which continue to require an acute response, need to be considered alongside the chronic need to manage disease, poor sanitation and malnutrition and, as we heard earlier, the particular healthcare needs of often incredibly frail women and children. There is also the issue of maternity provision, when 130 babies are born every day into this horrendous situation—a fifth prematurely or with enduring complications—and, of course, that constant need for good public health.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend. It is an obscenity that mothers cannot feed their infants and have only filthy, disease-ridden water to give to their children. Of course we have to use every lever we have to address that injustice—including sanctions on the Israeli Government. As we have already heard about in this debate, we have applied those to other nations; we must apply them to the Israeli Government too. In the light of the makeshift, ready-to-erect hospitals sitting on the other side of the border, it is vital that there are negotiations to bring them across, so that such facilities can be erected rapidly and provided with the support needed, whether that is equipment, pharmaceuticals or, crucially, medical staff. I understand that the number of health service points has risen from 197 in October to 219 today, but the levels of staffing and equipment have to match the need. With so much reconstruction of medical facilities needed, how are the UK Government ensuring that an assessment of sites is undertaken so that construction can be prioritised around healthcare? Likewise, what are the health needs for the workforce to be taken into Gaza? How can we support that effort, both in this transitional period and in the long term—and with the equipment and pharmaceuticals required as well—so that we can support the supply required at this time? We have already heard about anaesthetics not being available and operations taking place without them; we cannot imagine the suffering that people continue to endure. This is urgent, and we need to be able to address those health concerns. As we have witnessed in wars across the world, it is women and girls who are targeted; sexual violence has further wounded survivors, and we should increase support services for them, alongside rigorous safeguarding to ensure that children are protected from those who, tragically, may prey on them. What has the Minister done to raise that specific issue with the Israeli authorities and to ensure that children are safeguarded? Regarding the health workforce, are we confident that medics and other health professionals taken captive by the IDF have all been released? If not, what is the Minister doing to press that point? Their skills are needed, and it is important that they are given safe passage back into Gaza to support their community.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

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  I am really grateful to the Minister. We know that, at the heart of this, we need to ensure that all clinicians have a basis of training, and that is certainly missing at the moment. We see misdiagnosis, and we see some provision, including fatigue clinics, providing the wrong interventions. Will she ensure that there is a strategy around training clinicians and making it mandatory?

• 18 Nov 2025 · UNESCO: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) on securing the debate. The power of culture to maintain peace and promote diversity over the last 80 years demonstrates the opportunity to use soft power to transform the world. In the midst of a debate about borders and identity, UNESCO is the antithesis, showing the opportunity for education, science and culture to reach beyond, to stir interest and to provide us with a framework that enables us to be proud of our heritage and embrace our own culture and that of others. It may come as a surprise that York is yet to be granted world heritage site status. We are on the tentative list—a significant achievement in itself—but our ambition is recognition. I have worked with the York world heritage steering group since I was elected in 2015, and at this point I pay tribute to Janet Hopton and John Oxley for their fantastic and committed work. Their big question is how we ensure we get proper financial backing for UNESCO world heritage sites, beyond local sources. To submit a bid can cost up to half a million pounds, with staffing and associated project costs. The nomination dossier itself could cost £180,000, with drafting, formatting and Government liaison needed. Once a site receives its status, there are, of course, ongoing conservation, management and monitoring obligations to be met, and a member of staff to oversee that. The big question is: will the Government work with the National Heritage Lottery Fund to introduce a dedicated funding strand that will support UK world heritage sites developing their bids and assist in the ongoing work? That could be a game changer and address the inequity that exists. The proposed world heritage site in York has 993 listed historical buildings, six scheduled monuments, one of the UK’s earliest designated conservation areas and one of only five areas of archaeological importance in England. York’s bid is an outstanding example of urbanisation through the ages. In the next few years I want to see York on that permanent list, but we need financial support. I briefly draw attention to York itself as a UNESCO city of media arts. It has the festival of early music, the BAFTA-accredited Aesthetica short film festival, the Jorvik Viking festival and the festival of ideas. We have embedded the Guild of Media Arts in our city over the last decade, which is now an important centre of leading media arts in our country. As a result, we are seeing global film productions in the city, the gaming industry, phone and TV apps, new technology bringing cutting-edge immersive experiences into the digital creative space and artists finding their form. It is therefore fitting to mark the 80th anniversary of UNESCO, and I trust we will also celebrate the power of all its listed locations and cultures in maintaining peace and security.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I am really grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue, because the two things are intrinsically linked. It is absolutely vital that we have a strategic plan that brings together the issues that cause fuel poverty, including poorly insulated homes. Does she agree that the Government need to have a strategic plan that looks at geography as well as degree of poverty, in order to ensure that people’s homes and their finances are insulated?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Gaza and Sudan · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for the focus she is putting on Sudan. We know from the horrific bloodshed in El Fasher that the RSF has got its sights, as we have heard, on Tawila and then on Khartoum itself. We have got to stop those atrocities from occurring. We know that the conflict is being fuelled by the supply of mercenaries and weapons via the UAE, including Chinese drones. Can she set out a bit more detail on the talks she is having with the UAE to stop that supply?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  I urge caution. We are in this predicament because the very people who championed Brexit failed to warn of the consequences of leaving the Dublin agreement. Since then, the EU has moved on and will introduce its asylum and migration management regulations next summer. Instead of creating insecurity, what discussions has the Home Secretary had with the EU on how we can explore working with the regulations to protect our human rights and responsibilities through this progressive and pragmatic approach?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  When the last Government allowed the sale of Royal Mail to billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s company, they maintained a golden share, which I now ask Government to use. Services are less frequent, outsourced workers are handling parcels and postal workers feel devalued, with their traditional Christmas stamps downgraded to second class. Will the Leader of the House ask the Business Secretary to make a statement on Royal Mail, a service that should be renationalised, and ensure that our postal workers get their first-class stamps because they are simply first class?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Public Bodies: Governance and Accountability · Hansard source

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  I want to draw another two bodies to the Minister’s attention. Integrated care boards are completely unaccountable as they make clinical decisions about our constituents. They need to be evidence-based, but they are simply not working. Multi-academy trusts, too, are certainly not accountable—I have felt as though I was in the matrix, unable to escape or to nail the behaviours of some of the chief executives of those organisations, which have huge resources but are not delivering in the interests of students. It is so important that we get democratic accountability into those systems.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Public Bodies: Governance and Accountability · Hansard source

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  I take a real interest in these matters, and my right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. I believe it is ultimately about unaccountable power, and we need to find ways to hold these institutions to account. I can give the example of Bootham Park hospital in my constituency. It closed 10 years ago and is in the hands of NHS Property Services, which has paid nearly £2 million to keep the building empty while waiting for a developer to come along, when we could really use it. Is that not another example of how these bodies are hoarding our national assets, as opposed to using them for the benefit of the community?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Public Bodies: Governance and Accountability · Hansard source

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  Could the Minister quickly say how we can participate in the review the Government are undertaking?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) on her outstanding speech, and other colleagues too. I represent the city of York, which is England’s only UN human rights city, and our University of York hosts the Centre for Applied Human Rights. Human rights matter to my constituents, and human rights defenders from across the world come to our city. They come to our country because they recognise our strong framework around human rights. Human rights are in our DNA. The Council of Europe’s work 75 years ago in establishing the European convention on human rights as the first instrument to crystallise and, through the Strasbourg Court, legally enforce the rights set out in the universal declaration of human rights, provided a vital route to justice—justice that must be upheld. We in our city have therefore developed our own framework around human rights, based on those established elsewhere, and we have called to account the institutions in our city on the issues of freedom, dignity and honest resolve. The accountability of Governments, systems and actors is absolutely crucial. That is the role of the courts, and that is the role that the convention upholds. I have to ask why somebody would want to take away those rights or water them down. Is it because they want to subjugate? Is it because they want to violate? Is it because their interest is a world order where some should have fewer rights than others and where they have a God-given right to suppress the life of another and determine that their own flawed judgments should prevail? I warn this Government, and all Governments in the future, not to mess with human rights. We need to uphold the dignity of all. We should never, never water down or undermine the frameworks that have served us so well for 75 years, and which must serve us well for 75 more.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  The Independent Commission for Aid Impact, in its evidence to the International Development Committee, made some insightful observations about the focus of the Government as the penholder. In what way is the Minister using the strength of the UK to bring parties together to stop the flow of arms, mercenaries and other resources into Sudan?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said, but can she tell me how the UK is approaching the UAE, especially in relation to the supply of arms and the use of mercenaries who are being deployed into Sudan?