Rachel Hopkins MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2025 · Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) for securing today’s debate and congratulate him on bringing forward a ten-minute rule Bill on Philomena’s law. I am proud to put my name to that Bill as a co-sponsor, particularly as I represent a significant Irish diaspora in my constituency, with close ties between the UK and Ireland. I hope the Minister understands the importance of those ties. As has already been outlined, Philomena’s law is named after Philomena Lee, who was 18 when she became pregnant and was sent to the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, where she gave birth to her son Anthony and lived for three years before being forced to give him up for adoption. We have heard about the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, which told the story of her painstaking search to be reunited with Anthony. Philomena’s story sadly struck a chord for thousands of mothers and their children who not only suffered in those cruel institutions, but were ever changed by the lasting mark it made on their lives. With great thanks to Luton Irish Forum, which does brilliant work supporting our Irish diaspora, I am honoured to share a snippet of the story of my constituent, Christina, who is here today. She has been really courageous in sharing her story and allowing me to mention her in my speech. Christina was born in a mother and baby home in Rathdrum, County Wicklow. Christina’s mother escaped and ran away with her just weeks after her birth, but subsequently left Christina on the doorstep of a church in Dublin. Christina spent much of her life being passed from foster family to foster family, where she experienced physical abuse, taunting and humiliation, including from those caring for her and neighbours on the street where she lived. She eventually reconnected with her mother during her teenage years, after hiring a detective to track her down, and realised that she was living in Dublin, just minutes from where Christina was working in a factory. Unfortunately Christina and her mother never forged a close relationship, but it is important to ensure that these stories are heard, because the trauma Christina endured and the shame associated with mother and baby institutions in Ireland unfortunately mirrors the story of tens of thousands of women and children who experienced harsh conditions and mistreatment, with many fleeing to England to escape. It is right that the Irish Government opened the mother and baby institutions payment scheme for survivors of mother and baby homes in March 2024 to recognise the impact of the time they spent in those institutions. However, for those now living in England, further hurdles remain and are preventing those eligible for the scheme from accessing the compensation they are entitled to. Survivors who accept an offer of payment from the scheme could lose a range of means-tested benefits, including housing benefit, pension credit and financial support for social care, as the payment would be treated as savings. This complicated and unfair situation has made the payments scheme, which was supposed to be a token of apology from the Irish Government, into an additional burden and hurdle for many. The uncertainty and stress involved is causing yet more trauma for survivors, and many eligible applicants have delayed accepting the money they have been offered or not made applications in the first place as a result. Sadly, the age profile of many eligible applicants means that delays in accepting offers or making applications run the risk that many people will not live long enough to benefit from the compensation that they are due. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge in his efforts to implement Philomena’s law, which would put right this unfair situation through the introduction of an indefinite capital disregard and would ringfence any compensation accepted through the scheme so that it would not impact benefits or social care calculations.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I welcome this Labour Government’s announcement on expanding eligibility for free school meals to any child with a parent in receipt of universal credit. This expanded entitlement means that nearly 8,500 children in years 3 to 11 in Luton South and South Bedfordshire will be eligible for free school meals. Can the Minister confirm that this expansion will not only support children’s behaviour and attainment, but save their families up to £500 per child per year?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Football is more than a business; it is one of our country’s greatest exports and a pillar of local and national identity. Football would be nothing without its fans, and this strengthened Football Governance Bill will put fans firmly back at the centre of the game. For too long, financial instability has meant that loyal fans and whole communities have risked losing their cherished clubs as a result of mismanagement and reckless spending. The previous fan-led review was instigated following three trigger points: the collapse of Bury FC, the coronavirus pandemic, which suspended football, and the European super league. The fan-led review recommended in the light of those events and the structural issues in the pyramid that the Government should establish an independent regulator for football finances. I am delighted that our Labour Government have reintroduced and improved this Bill without delay to deliver on our commitment to football fans. The Bill’s primary purpose is to ensure that English football is sustainable for the benefit of fans and the local communities that football clubs serve. It will improve the sustainability of club finances, prevent rogue owners and directors, and strengthen the voice of fans. This legislation will protect our football pyramid for future generations. The independent football regulator will have three main objectives: club financial soundness, systemic financial resilience and the safeguarding of club heritage. The proposed regulatory activities are pretty standard—it is a light-touch regulator. The improvements that our Labour Government have made to the Bill include clubs providing effective engagement with their supporters on changes to ticket prices and any proposals to relocate their grounds. The regulator will be given a remit to include parachute payments to be considered through any backstop mechanism when considering finances across the game. The requirement to consider Government foreign and trade policy has been ditched, which is appropriate, and the regulator will ensure that clubs democratically elect fan representatives for the club to engage with, which is right. We must have that clear commitment to improve equality, diversity and inclusion within the game. I was therefore gobsmacked when I heard the thoroughly disappointing and embarrassing amendment from the official Opposition in the name of the shadow Culture Secretary, the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), to decline to give the Bill a Second Reading. As a member of the Bill Committee, he well knows that there was genuine consensus on the Bill. It is fundamentally the same Bill with just a few changes, and I do not understand why he does not support them. As has been mentioned, the former Member for Chatham and Aylesford Dame Tracey Crouch worked so hard on the fan-led review.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I rise in support of amendment 234. I acknowledge the point made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough about not pushing it to a Division, but it is important to hear why it would benefit the Bill if it was agreed to. It would allow a terminally ill person with a neurodegenerative illness, disease or condition who has fewer than 12 months left to live—rather than six—the right to choose an assisted death. I speak as a humanist, because I am very alive to many members of the public, and some MPs, wanting a wider scope of eligibility to cover intolerable suffering. In fact, some want no timescales, and an amendment has been tabled for that. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, who introduced the Bill, has had people speak to her and say the Bill needs to go further. Like all of us, I want to make this a good Act that will have strong safeguards while allowing people choice at the end of life, and I want it to command the support of the House. I reflected on whether we need to have such a wide definition to cover intolerable suffering, and I thought that a change to 12 months for those with neurodegenerative diseases would be a good way to reflect the breadth of voices we have heard in debates on the Bill. It is an appropriate compromise. One of the things we have seen over the course of our Committee debates is the real pulling apart and consideration of what this legislation will mean in practice. As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough set out so well, a 12-month timescale for those with neurodegenerative diseases would mean that people could make decisions while they still have mental capacity. As he rightly said, their condition would so often see a cognitive decline before six months. The Motor Neurone Disease Association—another organisation that supports people living with terminal neurodegenerative diseases—highlighted problems with the six-month criteria and the inequity that arises. Again, I reference the testimony of medical practitioners from Australia, where some states have eligibility criteria for assisted dying that includes an illness, disease or condition that is expected to cause death within 12 months. It is out there in practice, so it is not a new concept. Professor Meredith Blake said in oral evidence: “Queensland legislation is different: it sets a 12-month period of expected death, and the reason for that approach was in response to feedback from people living with neurodegenerative disease that they felt that they were being put in a different position to people suffering from, or experiencing, other terminal illnesses.” –– [ Official Report, Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Public Bill Committee, 30 January 2025; c. 211, Q270.] I will draw my remarks to a close, but there is a personal reason why it is important to me that we reflect on 12-month eligibility: the case of Diane Pretty. Diane Pretty was from Luton, albeit she lived in the neighbouring constituency, and some 25 years ago she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. She tried to change the law then so that she could access assisted dying, such was the pain and suffering that she endured because of her terminal illness. What she said is fundamental and at the heart of what we are trying to do here, 25 years later: “I want to have a quick death, without suffering, at home and surrounded by my family.” In the end, Diane Pretty was not successful, and she died aged 43 on 11 May 2002. She did not have a choice. She could not choose the death she wanted. Much has been said about rushing the Bill, but that was over 20 years ago, so the debate has been going on for many years. That is why I speak in support of amendment 234, so that those with neurodegenerative terminal illnesses, whose death is reasonably expected within 12 months, can access assisted death.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I am delighted that Denbigh primary school and Someries infant school are two of the first schools to benefit from Labour’s universal free breakfast clubs. We know that a balanced, nutritious breakfast will set children up for the school day and improve attendance and attainment. Does the Secretary of State agree that Labour’s delivery on its manifesto commitment, through our plan for change, is clear evidence that we are committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and ensuring that all children have the best chance in life?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The point about conversations is really important. I wonder how many conversations my hon. Friend has had with terminally ill people, their family members and children, because I have had quite a few, like the example given by the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley, over a number of years now. It is so important to recognise that it is about the individual’s autonomy, but we cannot take away the fact that their loved ones may also derive a benefit in a way that the hon. Gentleman elucidated. Can my hon. Friend see how so many of us here want clarity, but do not want to put at risk an individual’s autonomy with a very subjective decision?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate all those who have made maiden speeches this evening, especially my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) and for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia), fellow eastern region MPs with whom I have campaigned long and hard. It is a delight to see them here in the Chamber. It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, and to express my full support for the Bill. I welcome the ministerial team who are taking forward one of the early Bills of a Labour Government. For too long, my constituents have paid high fares in exchange for unreliable train services and crumbling infrastructure. Having commuted throughout my working life—nearly 30 years—I have experienced at first hand the effects of three decades of a fragmented, failing privatised system. Under the Tories, fares rose almost twice as fast as wages and cancellations soared to record levels, while failing train company executives boasted of receiving “free money” from taxpayers. The privatisation experiment has failed; Britain’s railways are broken. UK Government subsidies and passenger fares have benefited not only private companies but foreign Governments. Trains on UK railways are almost entirely owned by foreign state entities. Ironically, that means that my commuting constituents are effectively subsidising rail passengers in France, Germany and Italy, as was explained so well earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald). Labour’s bold and progressive plan to bring rail passenger services into public ownership—a popular policy supported by 54% of voters in May—will address and rectify those failures. I might add that it is because we have left the European Union that we now have the freedom to implement this reform without being constrained by the EU’s third railway package, which requires that passenger services be opened up to international market competition and the extraction of profit that entails. Our Bill will save taxpayers tens of millions of pounds annually that are currently paid out in fees to private sector operators, as demonstrated by the now publicly run LNER, which submitted a £40 million dividend to the Department for Transport in 2022. This money will be used to introduce a best-price guarantee for ticketing, to improve timetable co-ordination, to reduce delays, and to grant automatic refunds for delays and cancellations, putting passengers back at the heart of the service. Our plan will also benefit workers across our rail system, including some of my friends, who are very loyal to our railways. I commend both ASLEF and the RMT for their long-standing campaigns in support of the renationalising of our railways, and I stress the importance of working closely with unions to ensure fair conditions and respect for all rail workers. I, too, refer Members to my declaration of interests, and I am proud to do so. While this Bill addresses passenger services, it is only the beginning of our plans. The wider future railways Bill will deliver root-and-branch reform of the railways, and will be crucial to reviewing rolling stock and rail freight operations to ensure that environmental issues are taken into consideration, and to working towards a fully integrated railway system. Given that we are talking about railways, I must take the opportunity to highlight, briefly, the state of Luton station. Despite the long-awaited Access for All commitment to the installation of lifts—due to start this summer—the station is not fit for purpose for the 21st century, and needs full regeneration. Having campaigned on the state of Luton station since I was first elected as an MP—with a few small wins, including ensuring that part of the station canopy was fixed and successfully keeping the ticket office open—I should like to raise the issue of its full regeneration with the new ministerial team and their officials, and I will be in touch with the new Secretary of State to raise it on behalf of my constituents. I am very pleased that the Labour Government will provide a reliable, safe, efficient, accessible and affordable transport system that supports our five national missions by, for example, promoting greener transport options and facilitating key workers’ commutes. This Bill marks a historic first step towards creating an integrated, publicly owned railway, an achievement of which Labour can be truly proud.