Rachael Maskell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2026 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  When we think about a nationalised rail service, we often debate the governance, which is vital. It was a real honour to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) on putting together the blueprint that has set this train in motion. However, we must also remember the staff, and I therefore refer to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I raise a number of issues that could really impact their experience of working for our railways. On 1 November last year, a horror unfolded on the east coast main line on a southbound LNER train. It was a chilling reminder of the incredible skills of rail staff in keeping us safe. It is our duty in this House to ensure that we keep the staff safe. My amendments 56 and 57 seek to do just that. Rail workers, whether on board, at stations or in our ticket offices, face an unacceptable level of violence and abuse. The industry recognises this, and how changes in working practices such as driver-only operation and lone working increase risk, and supports the changes I am proposing. Amendments 56 and 57 would extend GBR’s function to include an assurance for the safety of all rail workers, including from assaults. They would also secure safe staffing levels to achieve that aim. Let me provide some examples. One rail worker was physically assaulted after trying to prevent a member of the public from climbing on to the train tracks, with trains due into the station imminently. Another rail worker had a hot drink thrown over them after charging an excess for an invalid ticket. Another was punched when they asked to see a ticket, resulting not only in him losing a tooth and requiring extensive dental treatment, but in the long tail of a mental health impact that ended in him leaving the service. Others have been threatened with knives. The level of violence is on the rise, with the British Transport police’s latest figures showing a 24% increase in violence against rail workers compared with the previous year. It is staggering. I have raised this in Parliament many times. We need strong legal protections for public transport workers against assault at work, mirroring new provisions the Government have introduced for retail workers via the Crime and Policing Act 2026, and previously for emergency workers. Transport workers need equally strong protections. This is a devolved matter, and I understand that the RMT has made significant progress in Scotland, with the Scottish Government committing to create a stand-alone offence of assaulting or abusing a public transport worker, not least as many have an enforceable element to their role. Once that legislation is enforced, it will create two tiers of legal protections where rail workers in Scotland, including those working on GBR cross-border services, are afforded strong legal protections, while those working on GBR services in England and Wales are not. It is really important that we move to a single system to protect staff from assault. The Minister has been very helpful in engaging with me on this, and I hope that we can make real progress so that the safety of our staff who serve us day and night is put first. I appreciate that we have CCTV, bodycams and the British Transport police, but we need safe staffing levels and consultation on any changes. On the wider issue of safe staffing, it is really important that we strengthen passengers’ right to be consulted on changes to staffing levels. Amendment 58 seeks to achieve that. This issue is particularly important for disabled people too. The passenger watchdog has consistently shown that properly staffed trains and stations are not only important for passenger safety, security and accessibility, but safer for staff. Removing guards from trains and cutting staff from platforms, gatelines or ticket offices should be subject to consultation before any decisions are made. Finally, I have tabled an amendment on open access operators. If they fold, we need to ensure that a process or mechanism is in place whereby staff can be TUPE-ed across—or the equivalent—into GBR, so that they are not left without a job. We need to retain their skills and experience and ensure that they continue to be employed on our national rail service as we move forward.

• 24 Feb 2026 · EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK · Hansard source

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  Our duty in this place is to build bridges, not walls, and yet, since the Brexit vote, we have seen our country pull itself apart day by day because the disruptors who caused the Brexit vote have continued to disrupt our communities. Why is that? They have made our country poorer, they have regressed our economy, we have lost jobs and our services are no longer supported in the way that they were. We have to build our way back and build our way back fast. Rebuilding the relationships is the first step, but we must move forward, as so many have said, to a customs union, to the single market and ultimately to our membership back in the European Parliament, being rule-makers, not rule-takers. That is what my city voted for back in 2016; two thirds of my constituents voted to remain. It is why we need to come together and reach a decision among ourselves on a pathway to hope once again.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review · Hansard source

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  We expect integrity from our journalists and we expect integrity from our Ministers. In the light of the fact that 109 MPs received funding from Labour Together, can the Minister say what involvement the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has had, and what advice was given to those 109 MPs regarding reporting the funding they received from Labour Together?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Independent Water Commission: Final Report · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) on securing the debate. We inherited the most dysfunctional water system imaginable. The governance was not there and there was no accountability in the system. Labour came in to put that right. Although we have gone so far on that journey, and I congratulate the Minister on the legislation we have passed and the legislation to come, there is clearly so much to do. My city of York is based on two rivers that flood and, with all the pollutants in the water, it is a crisis when that occurs. In 2023, there were 16,357 hours of sewage releases on the River Ouse and another 3,254 hours on the Foss. We now know that the Foss has the worst levels of pharmaceutical pollutants—which we have not heard about in this debate—of any river in Europe. I draw the Minister’s attention to the work being undertaken by the University of York in its Ecomix project, which is looking at 1,000 different chemicals—whether from agriculture, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products, personal care products or things like tyre additives—in order to raise standards. We have to know what is in our rivers so that we can address the issues. Although we have come so far with the excellent report by Sir Jon Cunliffe, there is clearly more to do. I again draw the Minister’s attention to the work of the University of York—it is such a leader in the field—and its action for quality aquatic environments project, which is drawing citizens into the science project to detect chemical and biological pollutants in order to put things right in the future. That mass community research enables communities not only to own their rivers but to press for change. They pressed me to take part in this debate, and I am grateful for that. We must move forward. This country had the reputation of being the “dirty man of Europe”. That changed, particularly under the last Labour Government, and yet standards have slipped back so much over the last 14 years that we are getting that reputation again. It is important that we maintain those standards, and we should be adopting the principles of European legislation—the urban wastewater treatment directive—into our legislation, ensuring that we close that gap on pollutants and move forward so our water can be safe again. We must also move to ban the dangerous forever chemicals that are finding their way into our waterways. There is too much flexibility about the chemicals that people have been using, and keeping our waterways safe is really important. I want to raise the issue of our infrastructure and modernising our sewerage system, which is predominantly still based on the Victorian infrastructure of the past and does not segregate rainwater from sewage. That is causing so many problems. We need those investments to come at pace. We need to ensure that, locally, we are measuring and reporting the scourge of what is happening in our waterways. As has already been mentioned, Yorkshire Water has failed. Bills have gone up and accountability has gone down, and the chief executive is taking eye-watering sums of funding. We need better governance and, with all these failing contracts, we need to move water into public ownership again.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. My word is my bond, and when we break our word we break our bond—not just with those people who have trusted our country, given up their lives and come to serve us, but across society as a whole. It is a particular challenge at this time, so we have to build trust. That starts with how we respond to this White Paper. The problem at the heart of the White Paper is the wrong diagnosis and the wrong prescription. Prescribing the wrong medicine makes a patient sicker, and that is exactly what will happen. We have a serious skill shortage across our country. Our health and care systems are creaking. We cannot get the right care in the right place at the right time. For our children, we need teaching in our schools, we need a generation’s worth of houses built and we need infrastructure across the country. If we put skills at risk and create insecurity, our economy will not function, our public services will continue to crumble and our society will be worse off, causing more pain across those communities that desperately look to Labour to find solutions. I therefore say to the Government that the only place where this policy belongs is in the bin. It has completely misread what the country is saying. Having gone through the detail—I will be putting in a submission to the consultation—around the earned settlement, I have to say that it is gendered. It is built on a premise that we know to be biased against women. It is built on the patriarchal belief that someone with higher pay or status is worth more. Instead, we should be thinking about justice and fairness for everyone, no matter how much someone earns or what language they speak—of course, the report does not once mention our second English language, British Sign Language. It should not matter what contribution someone makes. For some disabled people who come here, just being is being part of our communities. Of course, the paper then gets into the prejudicial rhetoric around recourse to public funds. We must be a country that shows our standards, compassion and morals, and this paper certainly fails on each of those criteria. In response to this paper, I say to my constituents that my word is my bond. If these proposals progress, I will vote against the Government and ensure that many of my colleagues join me in the Lobby, because this is not a Labour policy.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  To date, Baroness Casey’s review of adult social care has been pretty impenetrable, but in York we want to engage and innovate. Will my hon. Friend provide Parliament with a briefing on the progress, scope and scheduling of the review? The clock is ticking and the crisis is growing.

• 6 Jan 2026 · BBC Charter Renewal · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) on securing today’s debate. A new charter is an opportunity for a real reset for the BBC. We have heard many criticisms in the debate, but this is an opportunity for a fresh start for the BBC, and that is important. The BBC will only be as good as the accountability systems that are built around it, so it is crucial that independence is at the heart of that. Detachment from this place and from Government decisions on who should sit on the board is an important expression of that. I certainly support workers, who know their organisation so well, sitting on the board, alongside voices and experiences from across the nations. We also need to ensure that the regulator, Ofcom, is robust in its scrutiny of the BBC. I therefore ask the Minister to look at the role Ofcom can play in enhancing the role of the BBC, its accountability and its transparency. In an age when media is driving distrust and disunity, how the BBC re-establishes itself as a trusted media source and brings community cohesion is vital for our democracy and our country. I trust that the report will place huge emphasis on that. I also want to raise the issue of the supply of skills across media, broadcasting and journalism. There is a huge opportunity for the BBC to be a training space for so many of our future skills, whether behind the camera or in front of it. I ask the Minister to think about the role of the BBC within the whole creative sector and how it could become an academy for future voices and skills, drawing people from the regions and nations. Finally, I want to raise the issue of devolution. The reality is that the BBC’s removal of local radio content has seen its listenership fall by 27%. I really hope that the Minister will reverse that and ensure that there is no more playing with words—I am thinking of “neighbourhood radio”, which actually means regional or beyond. We want to see localism as so many people in our community depend on it. It strengthens the BBC when voices are about community; it gives the BBC a real purpose. I trust that that can be at the centre of the reforms. Radical devolution of a centralised BBC would be the regrowth of the BBC.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Draft Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I will commence by looking at some of the paperwork accompanying the draft regulations. The fact that the explanatory memorandum says that consultation “took place informally” highlights some of the challenges with this legislation. We know that when the Government have adhered to their manifesto they have done incredibly well, but these measures were not in the manifesto, and then they moved forward with an informal consultation. From what I can see, there does not seem to have been much scope behind that informality. It has meant that the public have not had the opportunity to engage. That is deeply regrettable, and I think that is why the Government are coming unstuck on this measure. I really urge the Minister to reconsider, not least in order to do things in the right way, trusting the British public to be able to respond to these measures, but also clearly because of the distaste for this. I am really grateful to my constituents who have alerted me to this measure in their correspondence, and to the campaigning organisations that have highlighted the risk. I disagree with Opposition Members: I do believe that the Public Order Act was a massive overreach of the state, and I have serious concerns about the suppression, as our party did in opposition. I have to question what changed, because clearly something has changed to trigger the Government into believing that that Act should go even further. I have deep concern about that, because at the heart of that legislation was suppressing the right to protest. That has serious consequences for our democracy, for this place and how it operates. We have been able to achieve so much because of protest in Parliament. I stand for animal welfare protectors—for those people who have deep concern for the welfare of animals. I have certainly campaigned on many such issues; I have led some of the work on the forced swim test, which was referred to earlier. Our time today would be better spent working on how we could perhaps better legislate against that. I note the levels of distress to animals in a pointless exercise, but those licences will continue until 2028. That would have been time better spent. We must also ask what the urgency is. We know that the average time for a pharmaceutical product to come online is 12 years. We are not talking about something urgent in that respect. It can take up to 30 years for a new pharmacological product to come onstream. The fact that we are talking about a protest over perhaps two or three days will hardly stall the process. The Government are making a mockery by saying that this is an urgent requirement, to the point that they could not even carry out a consultation, as they say in the documentation. It seems slightly dystopian, given that Lord Vallance came forward just last month with a faster phase-out of animal testing programme. For some time now we have been following the replacement, reduction and refinement strategy—the three Rs—to switch from animal-relevant science to ensuring that we use the new technologies available to reduce the use of animals in experimentation. The faster we do that, the better. Again, that is a better use of Government resource. I also want to raise with the Minister the issue of protesting outside such infrastructure. Supposing the workers within voted for industrial action, and supposing that they chose to strike outside that infrastructure, would that also be unlawful under the Act? Could trade unionists end up with a sentence of perhaps 12 months because they were standing up for their own rights? Of course, the legislation does not state the implications of that. I think it is badly written legislation and should be withdrawn on those grounds as well. We have existing law to protect against criminal damage, against harassment, against threats and intimidation, against violence, against trespass and against blocking the highway. We also have health and safety legislation. I have to ask the Minister: what is the purpose of this legislation, if we already have that whole framework? Will it be targeted at the peaceful protester who is holding up a sign with a picture of a bunny rabbit on it, saying, “Don’t inject disease into this animal”? If that is where we have got to, it is a really sad day for this Government. Quite frankly, I believe that we are better than that. It is a massive overreach of the state. I also want to raise my significant concern about the implications for the criminal justice system. I know from informal discussions with the police during the passing of the 2023 Act that they were deeply concerned about the overreach of the state. They prefer fostering a cordial relationship with protesters, because it helps them in their work and in being able to keep order. Having to move into the space of criminality is an overreach. Our prisons, as we hear daily from the Government, are full to the brim. Why are we introducing more legislation to put people behind bars? There seems to be a lack of join-up between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. We need police officers on our streets as well. I really do urge the Government to withdraw this measure. If they do so, there will be no need to bring it to the Floor of the House, but we should at least give this House an opportunity to vote these measures down.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q3. While the last Government were indifferent to child poverty, this Government’s driving mission must be to eradicate child poverty, and the strategy is a first step on that path. Over the first 1,001 critical days in pregnancy and early years, poverty contributes to malnourished babies, developmental delay, hypothermia and poor life outcomes. That is unacceptable. Will the Prime Minister lift pregnant women and babies in York and across the country out of poverty in this Parliament and ensure that we relieve poverty over the first 1,001 critical days?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  I will just press on. If DWP data and NHS data are in the wrong hands, social security will become insecurity; if Home Office data contains someone’s location, then the ICE teams will find them. This could be our future. Behind our screens, the datasets that researchers use for good will be used by others for ill. Of course there is interest in digital ID. We see the revolving door of those from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and people from his former office; there is Larry Ellison of Oracle; after all, he already has 185 contracts with the Government. He recognises the power, the money and the opportunity, which is why we cannot afford to go there. We have already heard about the scale of the money. However, I must say that the interest in this project will only expose us all to the risks of future Governments and what they might do with our data. It will not then be just about each one of us individually, but about that knowledge being used to determine each one of our futures, including our mortgages, our social security, our health and our economics. Let us not forget that the insurance companies are also eager to lay their hands on this data. Technology may be agnostic, but it will have behind it people who most certainly are not and will be using its power, augmented for their own gain and opportunity. This House cannot go into this space. Parliament needs to wake up to the reality that it is not about what is on our phone, but about the data behind that and how it will be misused in future. I beg the Government to stop. The fact that this was not in the manifesto is enough to tell us all that it does not have public consent and therefore should not proceed.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Tomorrow I will be hosting York’s director of children’s services here in Parliament to talk about York’s care journey, which has been phenomenal. It has enabled care leavers to co-produce services and to chair many committees. Does she agree that that is an exemplar that can enable young people not only to gain confidence and experience but to direct their future?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Huntingdon Train Attack · Hansard source

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  With LNER headquartered in my constituency, I have written to David Horne, the managing director, to offer my support to him and pass on my best wishes to his crew. I put on record my thanks to the signallers, also based in my constituency, who made it possible to shift the train on to the other line. Last summer, I sought to amend the Crime and Policing Bill with an amendment to provide greater protections for transport staff in the light of the increased risks they face. With the Bill about to enter Committee in the House of Lords, will the Home Secretary look again at my amendments and ensure that we provide those protections for transport staff?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the 102,000-plus petitioners on signing the petition, including the 185 from my constituency, and I join them in opposing the badger cull. I am so glad that it is this Labour Government that are looking at the evidence and the science in order to support farmers, the whole community and of course badgers, with better biosecurity, testing and, if necessary, vaccination. I have been debating the badger cull since I was the shadow Environment Secretary. At the time, I pored over the science and came to the clear conclusion that the badger cull was not the way forward. We needed to cull the cull and ultimately to put in place the right measures. I am so glad that, since that point, when just Gloucestershire and Somerset were involved in the culling experiment, further science has been developed. Today we know that about 250,000 badgers have been killed, which is around half the population of badgers. In some areas, that amounts to about 70% of the population. Badgers are now becoming an endangered species in our country. They are crudely killed, and many, of course, are not carrying the TB virus at all. Indeed, this places an increased risk on farmers and their cattle. As we have heard, 94% of transmission of bovine TB is from cow to cow, but the poor badger is being scapegoated. Bovine TB is present across our environment, and we have heard many examples of that already. It is recognised that farmers and Government want to stop the spread of this disease, and we need to do that by following the right methodology. To facilitate that, we must take the money being spent on the cull and ensure that it goes to farmers. Indeed, there also needs to be additional support to ensure that we get on top of this disease. Bovine TB follows the same pattern as human TB and other communicable diseases. We need testing, isolation of the disease and, where necessary, vaccination. We need only think about covid to know that the same methodologies that were recommended to us need to be applied to TB in cattle. Controlling the movement of cattle and putting in place more rigorous testing—the right testing—can make such a difference to livestock, stopping cross-infection between herds. This is all about good public health, which we are so familiar with. We practise that worldwide, so why be different with this community? It is seriously letting farmers down. Scapegoating and slaughtering badgers does not aid farmers in managing the disease. The culling has been condemned as inhumane. Up to 22.8% of badgers shot while free-roaming were still alive after five minutes. That demonstrates significant levels of suffering, yet monitoring of culling is at an all-time low. The evidence should make the Government determine that the cull is the wrong measure. Professor Rosie Woodroffe’s research, which dates back to 2007, has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the badger cull, because of the way TB is transmitted. She has described it as the “largest manipulative ecological experiment ever conducted”. If anything, the risk of transmission from cattle to badger is far higher than the converse. Consistent DEFRA research shows that culling has no impact on bovine TB, yet culling continues. When I asked the then Secretary of State a question before the summer recess, I was told that Labour is now serious about looking at the science. I welcome that, but the cull has continued for two seasons under our watch, so it is really important that we bring it to an end. I, too, met the team from Gatcombe farm when they came to Parliament before the summer. I probed the farmer and the vet deeply for about an hour to understand the science and the methodology. I spent time hearing about the impact and about how a farm that had once been ridden with TB was now free of bovine TB. Surely that is the outcome that we want for all our farmers. We have to look at the testing regime. The traditional skin test will only show the presence of the disease when sufficiently loaded with reactor cells. By that point, the cow could have had advanced TB in its lungs for some time and could have managed to spread the disease to other cattle. A more advanced screening polymerase chain reaction test can identify the disease at a far earlier stage, so deploying that is a better approach. We all know that we can scale PCR testing, as we did over the covid pandemic. Research at Gatcombe, recognised elsewhere, showed that an accumulation of slurry led to a concentration of disease. Untreated and infested, the slurry is spread on to fields; it is then ingested by snails, slugs and other animals, and moves into the badger food chain. The risk of cattle-to-badger infection is incredibly strong, as PCR testing has proved. Further research has shown that intensification of farming increases the risk. Cattle wading through their own faeces, and that of other cattle, means a greater risk of cross-infection. It is far less likely where cattle graze in the open, as they eat the grass between the cowpats. We often think about TB purely as a respiratory disease, but we see lesions in other organs as well. It is now recognised that farming intensification and poor hygiene are the route of disease transmission; that is a basic thing that we learned through covid. Good biosecurity, testing and removal of cattle are the way to address this. Again, that is something that we practised during covid. The Gatcombe strategy works and should be adopted. The question is therefore not “What should be done?”, but “How will it be done, and how will the Government support it?” We need to use sensitive testing to identify the pathogens in faeces and blood, cut off the routes of infection, identify disease before cattle become infectious, ensure scrupulous hygiene and removal of faeces at pace and test new cattle before integrating with existing livestock with a more sensitive Actiphage test. The TB-infested farm has become a TB-free farm, all without killing a single badger, just by removing infected cattle. No badger vaccination was needed. In fact, it was proven at the time that the highest risk of infection comes from the most intensely farmed cattle, which are not free to graze. An infected cow produces about 500 times more faeces than a badger. Badger hygiene is also known to be far more fastidious, and badgers are likely to concentrate in one area. The risk of badger-to-cattle infection is minuscule. It is the other way around. Studies have shown that badgers do not approach cattle, so airborne infection via a badger breathing on a cow is so unlikely, if it is ever encountered.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights: Impact on Businesses · Hansard source

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  In the first of five years, we have had to repair the economy. That has been our focus, but as we move forward, businesses will see the vision that Labour has for rebuilding the economy. In my constituency, I see the vibrant boom of entrepreneurs and their business concepts coming to fruition. People want to start a business and see its success. We will certainly build the wider infrastructure needed for that. There is much more that we need to do to advance the rights of workers. Sector bargaining is a must, with standards and terms to boost economic sectors across the economy, address labour shortages and provide sector security. I would like to see workers on company boards, co-producing with businesses and seeing the success of workers. A single status for workers is really important as we move forward. That is an issue that I have worked on for many years. On changing the culture in workplaces, I want to ensure that workers no longer have to fear negative behaviours at work. An issue close to my heart, and one that I have worked on for many years, if not decades, is bullying at work. In two different parliamentary Sessions, I have introduced a Bullying and Respect at Work Bill, addressing negative cultures in the workplace. Bullying costs business £18 billion, and 17 million working days are lost. We need a legal definition of bullying, a route to an employment tribunal and a positive duty to prevent, as in Australian legislation. I hope the new Minister, who I welcome to her place, will be willing to meet me and campaigners to discuss such legislation to ensure that we can introduce such a measure on one of the biggest issues blighting business today. If workers are not subjugated and their wages are not extracted, we will build a more equitable society, a strong economy and flourishing businesses. A cohesive society is certainly something that I know working people long to see under this Labour Government.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Last week’s chaos and climbdown has been overshadowed by events of the last 48 hours. The impact assessment published last night shows that £2 billion is still to be stripped from up to three quarters of a million sick and disabled people by 2029-30 through the slashing of the health element of universal credit in two. By the end of this Parliament, some people will lose around £3,000 a year because of these reforms, including those with fluctuating conditions. If that was not bad enough, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has waded in to protect disabled people where this Labour Government have not. I believe that international laws and conventions must be upheld, but this Government are now under investigation for breaches. No matter what the spin is, passing the Bill tonight will leave such a stain on our great party, which was founded on values of equality and justice. The only way out is to withdraw clauses 2 and 3 so that breaches of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities are not upheld. The UN’s contention is my contention; sick and disabled people have not been consulted. If someone with a fluctuating physical or mental health condition such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, cystic fibrosis or a recurring musculoskeletal condition had a period of remission and worked but then relapsed and returned to universal credit, unless unequivocally stated otherwise in the Bill, they would return on to the pittance of £50 a week for their health element.