Rachael Maskell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

  More

  At the beginning of February 2026, we learned from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown that Peter Mandelson had shared highly sensitive Government information with Jeffrey Epstein. At that juncture, if I had been in the Prime Minister’s shoes, I would have been forensic in recognising a security risk and wanting detailed answers. What is not adding up for me is why we are now getting this information in mid-April, and why the Prime Minister did not drill down to ensure that we had the security information that we have learned Peter Mandelson clearly breached.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Short-term Holiday Lets: Registration · Hansard source

  More

  11. What progress he has made on introducing a registration scheme for short-term holiday lets.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Palliative Care · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Foster Care: Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

  More

  Could the Minister say a little more about how foster carers from within families will be handled in this process? That is really important. Also, how will the reunification process work, so that we can reunite a child with their birth family?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Foster Care: Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

  More

  Feedback from foster carers in York has highlighted the differential in the sums of money they receive for Staying Put and for foster caring, which makes it really difficult for them to decide whether to maintain that home—that safe place—for a child or to push the child out of the home. Does the hon. Member agree that those resources should be equalised, to ensure a smooth pathway for these very vulnerable children?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  Palantir is a client of Global Counsel, which was Peter Mandelson’s PR agency, and clearly Palantir has benefited from lucrative contracts from the Government. Will the Minister ensure that all papers associated with Palantir are published as part of this inquiry?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Middle East and North Africa · Hansard source

  More

  The provision of aid and healthcare is needed at pace, yet over the past 27 months pace has not been the response. Is the Minister taking a step back and looking, for instance, at the instruments available to him, such as the international law framework, to ensure that they can operate at pace? Clearly, without pace, the Israeli Government feel that they have impunity to do whatever they wish.

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

  More

  It is my recollection that we were locked down during the pandemic when much of this science was being undertaken, so people would not have been able to protest anyway. When we face such extreme circumstances, I think the country understands, but this provision is far broader in scope, and if that is the Government’s intent, I have to press the Minister on why that is not written in the legislation.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Unfair Dismissal: Protected Characteristics · Hansard source

  More

  We know that workers are often unfairly dismissed before the two-year threshold despite the application of the Equality Act 2010. That threshold was one year under the previous Labour Government; we are reducing it again down to six months. However, there is still a risk of disabled workers, ethnic minority workers and young workers being unfairly dismissed. Will the Government monitor the data about workers who have been unfairly dismissed in the first six months to ensure that their protected characteristics are not a feature of their dismissal?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Children of Alcoholics · Hansard source

  More

  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.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Myalgic Encephalomyelitis · Hansard source

  More

  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 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

  More

  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?

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

  More

  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

  More

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

• 27 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Giving sick and disabled people agency and drawing on lived experience sets the only path to getting policy right, so that they can access work appointments and get out of their homes, avoiding worklessness, health decline and isolation, with their mobility support needs recognised through PIP. Further to the Minister’s previous answer, will he ensure that any policy reforms to PIP mobility payments are fully co-produced with sick and disabled people?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Creative Copyright · Hansard source

  More

  Daisy May Johnson is an exceptionally talented author of children’s books in York, but her work has been scraped and reproduced by generative artificial intelligence. She has not given permission and has not received a penny, but she has lost thousands of pounds. The same can be said about artists, musicians, writers and other creatives. When the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 was going through this House, we were given a commitment that the Government would do more, so could the Minister set out what progress has been made and ensure that there is legislation on this in the next Session?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Creative Copyright · Hansard source

  More

  2. What steps she is taking to help protect creative copyright, in the context of further advances in AI.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source

  More

  I am really grateful for this debate. Dr Gupta is a leading specialist in PoTS but, although he knows the physiological changes that take place and he knows how to treat it, he has been stopped in his practice because we do not have the clinical guidelines in place. The Government must now ensure that that happens, so that he can continue his practice, which he knows has an impact on patients—indeed, they recover well.

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

  More

  I am really grateful for all that my hon. Friend has said, but I am reminded of what Kate Bingham said when she talked about the scaling down and scaling up of our capability in responding to the pandemic. Will my hon. Friend look at the methodology so that we are able to respond not only to this particular crisis but, as the shadow Minister highlighted, to the future risks that farmers face?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source

  More

  I am slightly baffled; I have been campaigning on this issue throughout my 10 years in this place, and the hon. Member’s Government were in power for almost the entirety of that time. Can he explain why the Tory Government did not make any improvements to pavement parking? Why is he pointing the finger at a Labour Government who clearly want to make a difference for all pedestrians?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

  More

  Doctors have told us that they walk into the emergency room and see, if not starved and emaciated children, tiny bodies strewn across the floor with burns, blasts and bullets, and their job is to choose which child to save and which ones they will have to let go. That is decision making. The Foreign Secretary has an option right before him to make a decision that could make a difference to those children—to protect all health facilities, with the means to do that at the UN. I trust that he will do that. Secondly, if he does not recognise the state of Palestine, there will be no state left to recognise.

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Survive is a York-based charity providing specialist services and trauma-specific interventions to survivors of sexual violence and abuse. However, it has had to close its waiting list because it does not have the capacity to meet the demand. Will the Minister look at providing additional funding, so that we can get those vital services to survivors and victims now and they do not have to wait?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

  More

  I am so grateful for my right hon. Friend’s focus and commitment on investing in our very youngest, not least because when we invest in early years, we change the trajectory of a child’s life. Will she look at the model we have created in York, where we have not only a SEND co-ordinator, but a SEND hub, so that we can bring all those specialist services together, which can be really transformative for families as a one-stop shop?