Rachel Taylor MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Road Safety: West Midlands · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the leader of Warwickshire county council consulting the public on whether children should walk up to 8 miles to and from school was a bad move?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Road Safety: West Midlands · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. As a constituency neighbour in Warwickshire, I share her concerns. I have been out with my local Speedwatch groups in Warton and Water Orton. My constituents in North Warwickshire and Bedworth are fed up of dangerous roads simply being ignored by the Reform-led county council in Warwickshire. From the Woodford Lane junction, Grendon Road in Polesworth, No Man’s Heath Lane in Austrey, Marston Lane in Bedworth and King’s Lane in Newton Regis to Coventry Road in Fillongley, speeding is out of control and the lack of speed cameras is putting lives at risk. Meanwhile, Reform’s record on Warwickshire county council shows that it is spending less money on our roads. Does the hon. Member agree that communities such as mine in Warwickshire deserve safer streets, investment in road infrastructure and action on potholes from local government, not rhetoric about what information children can read in libraries or what flag can be flown from Shire Hall?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Gurkha community. I want to pay tribute to the Queen’s Gurkha Regiment and the 30th Signal Regiment, based just outside my constituency. The Gurkhas who served are an essential and integral part of our community; they offer great value, and integrate into the community. I thank him for mentioning them, and for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to those Gurkhas who live in or around my constituency.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Allied Health Professionals · Hansard source

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  I do not think that anyone could have better described the importance of AHPs than my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for securing the debate and for her tireless work as a physiotherapist; to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for leading the debate; and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for all her work as an operating department practitioner—a profession that is often overlooked. Allied health professionals are such an important part of our healthcare workforce, yet they are undervalued and poorly represented in NHS hierarchies. I am incredibly proud of the Government’s achievements within the NHS, including the £29 billion of additional funding—the largest injection of cash into our health service since Labour was last in government—a 320,000 fall in waiting list numbers, 5 million more NHS appointments, and the recruitment of 2,500 new GPs. In my constituency, we have started to see the benefits of that investment for local people. George Eliot hospital has eliminated corridor care despite a difficult winter. It has also seen a 5% improvement in waiting lists. GP surgeries in Polesworth, Bedworth, Coleshill and Keresley are all getting upgrades, so that more patients can see physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other professionals much closer to home. There is much more to do, of course, but we should be proud of the progress we have made in less than two years. These improvements would not have happened without the support of allied health professionals. Their workforce represents over 276,000 practitioners, aided by skilled support workers. The Government are right to be ambitious in their target to deliver more care in the community and invest in neighbourhood health centres across the country. To do that, we will rely on allied health professionals to support patients. We must embed dietitians, occupational therapists, osteopaths and physiotherapists into neighbourhood health if we are to succeed in treating more people closer to home. I commend the work done on frailty by the Hazelwood group practice in Coleshill as part of the Apollo primary care network. I also pay tribute to the work of paramedics, radiographers and physios. My constituency is semi-rural and without a hospital, so the quick work of paramedics is crucial in providing urgent initial care and supporting my constituents on their journey to hospital. Radiographers are vital in supporting patients through early diagnosis, as I found out myself a couple of weeks ago. Some 80% of hospital pathways require their skills for imaging to support a diagnosis. As part of this Government’s plans to bring care into the community, we must ensure that more radiographers are in community diagnostic centres like the one recently opened at the George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton or available through mobile services, to reduce pressure on hospitals. That way, patients can be treated faster and closer to home. On their behalf, I would like to ask the Minister to keep the chief allied health professions officer post in the Department of Health and Social Care and work with local ICBs to establish AHP director roles that have parity with medical directors and directors of nursing. In 2018 my father had a stroke. The staff at George Eliot hospital were wonderful and took really good care of him. I cannot thank them enough for the support they gave him, but there reached a point when I was wondering, why is my elderly father still stuck in hospital? Why can he not leave, so that we can help him get better from the comfort of his own home and my elderly mum does not have to travel 10 miles each day to see him? What is the plan for him and other stroke patients after they leave hospital? My dad, like many people recovering from a stroke, could not get the same support from speech and language therapy services at home or in his neighbourhood. Those are vital services that help patients learn to swallow and slowly regain their ability to speak and be understood. So my dad had to stay in hospital. He is definitely a fighter, and he regained his speech and his ability to sing in a choir. Patients like him deserve to be able to see speech and language therapists in their local neighbourhood, so that they can recover at home once they are medically fit to leave hospital. This is not about freeing up spaces in hospital; it is about giving patients choice and the best care we can, so that they can recover comfortably at home, surrounded by friends and family. I will continue to work with all allied health professionals and their representative bodies to ensure that they are a core part of this Government’s 10-year health plan. Finally, as a tennis player, I would like to thank the thousands of independent physiotherapists, support workers and students working in local gyms, on the high street, in professional sports facilities and at matches at weekends. Their support is vital to ensure that people can continue to play sport as they get older and that an injury does not stop them getting back on the court. We promised to deliver healthcare in the community, and with the support of allied health professionals, I am confident we will be able to do so successfully.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am proud today to celebrate Warwickshire day with colleagues from across this House, and I thank the Speaker’s Office for arranging an event this morning. It was a real honour to raise the Warwickshire flag on the flagpole here in Parliament. The Believe in Bedworth board manages the £20 million Pride in Place investment from the Government, and we are holding a St George’s day celebration this Saturday. There will be free activities for children, as well as food vendors and stalls. It will be a great day out for everyone, and I am really looking forward to it. Can I ask the Leader of the House if the Government will make time for a debate on the importance of community events like this for cohesion in our areas and to celebrate days like St George’s day and Warwickshire day?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Housing Conditions in Temporary Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her tireless work in this area and for her fantastic stewardship of the Select Committee. The report is harrowing to read. Such reports cannot be written without witnesses giving evidence, and very often in doing so they put themselves on the line and at risk, so I commend all the witnesses who wrote to or appeared before the Committee, or who participated in roundtables. It is a scandal that children and families are living in these conditions in Great Britain in 2026. Will my hon. Friend impress upon the Minister that we really need to see a change? That means every single local authority making that change and committing to it, in particular in rural areas such as mine, where temporary accommodation is really scarce, meaning that people are living many miles away in areas they do not know or understand and without family support networks.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Osteoporosis and Bone Health · Hansard source

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  As someone who is taking medication to ward off the progression of osteoporosis, I was delighted to welcome Bedford’s new state-of-the-art physical activity hub, which will help residents to stay active and stop their osteoporosis developing. I would like the Minister to explain how the Government will make better use of the growing physiotherapy workforce to deliver early intervention, fracture prevention and rehabilitation in the community in places such as the Bedford physical activity hub.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and that is exactly the point I am making. We need to encourage the best from all our services, local authorities, police, education, courts and so on. We should not lose the approach of striving for the best, in favour of having a national minimum, because that becomes a drive to the bottom. We need to allow organisations to design their own approach with their local community to do the best they can for the armed forces—veterans and serving personnel—within their communities.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Although the amendments are well-intentioned, they are somewhat problematic because they target health, education, adoption and fostering, which are all devolved to the respective Governments. They risk recklessly breaching our devolution conventions, including the Sewel convention. The purpose of the Bill is not to strain relationships with the devolved Governments; instead, it seeks to empower them to design the right solutions for each nation. The covenant duty is intentionally flexible and is supported by guidance and existing frameworks. It allows each Government to design their response. I believe that this Government should seek to work collaboratively with the devolved Governments on supporting our armed forces, rather than prescribing duties to them in legislation. Furthermore, our NHS already works effectively with the covenant duty to support continuity. The amendments would risk governance and clinical risks. Instead, the Government are focusing on initiatives that aim to promote awareness of the armed forces community. The Ministry of Defence already provides comprehensive guidance for service families through the adoption and fostering defence instruction notice, which embeds the MOD’s role firmly within existing civilian-led systems. These long-standing frameworks already ensure continuity for families when they move. In combination with the strengthened covenant duty, they will provide a far more practical and effective approach than is proposed in the amendment.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. She has spoken passionately, as she always does, about the benefits of a new route to link towns and cities from Wrexham through the west midlands to London. The proposed route would make a real difference to my constituents, particularly those living in Coleshill and the surrounding villages, who currently do not have a direct link to London. For them, that lack of connectivity represents not just an inconvenience, but a barrier to opportunity. For too long, parts of the west midlands have been left disconnected from each other because of poor planning and under-investment. We are rightly encouraging more sustainable travel and balanced regional development, and the importance of strong local rail connections cannot be overstated. Constituents in Coleshill and the surrounding villages, such as Curdworth, Lea Marston, Nether Whitacre and Shustoke, deserve rail routes that take them directly to London and to other west midlands towns and cities, opening up opportunities for work and leisure, particularly in the motor manufacturing supply chain across the Black Country. We have already seen the benefits of improved rail connectivity for constituents in Atherstone, who can now travel directly to London from the town’s station every hour, although it would be good to have a later service back home, so that we could enjoy the theatre and still get back. It has removed the need to drive to neighbouring stations such as Nuneaton or endure long indirect journeys with multiple changes and cold waits in platform shelters. It has made travel simpler, quicker and more accessible. I intend to work with constituents to ensure that everyone can benefit from that route by improving bus routes from Polesworth and villages in the north of the constituency. My constituents who use Coleshill Parkway deserve the same quality of rail service—a direct, reliable connection to London. They should be able to travel easily to nearby towns and cities across the west midlands, such as Walsall and Telford, as well as Shrewsbury, without the need to travel into Birmingham only to come back out again. That kind of inefficiency discourages rail use and, as other Members have said, once people are in their cars, they will stay in them to make relatively local journeys.

• 12 Feb 2026 · LGBT+ History Month · Hansard source

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  I am so proud and pleased to be taking part in this debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). She may be young, but she is a fearless, knowledgeable and compassionate champion of our movement. I also pay tribute to all my other wonderful colleagues, both those from my community and the proud allies, who have spoken in this debate. I was particularly moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes), who shared stories that vividly brought back to me what it was like living through the 1980s. I thank him for that. LGBT history in this country is shaped by courage, service, resilience and, far too often, injustice. The history of discrimination against LGBT people runs through our armed forces, our healthcare system, our laws, the way that our courts treated lesbian mums, and our communities. It is a history that reminds us that progress is not inevitable and that if equality is not defended, the progress we have fought for can be destroyed far too easily. I attended my first Pride in 1986, not long after the great work of Mark Ashton and Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. It was a celebration of how far we had come and a protest that we still faced injustice. I never could have predicted that section 28 would be introduced just two years later. That year, I attended Pride alongside angry and distraught friends. Section 28 was an attack on the right of people like me to live openly. It stigmatised lesbian, gay and bisexual people. In just two years, the progress that I had seen as a student had been ripped away from us. That is a reminder that equality is an ongoing battle. Today, I see the same people who supported section 28 trying to row back on rights for trans people. That is why LGBT+ History Month matters, because it reminds us that progress cannot be taken for granted. This LGBT+ History Month, I want to remember all the LGBT soldiers and veterans who have served the United Kingdom. Even when the armed forces rejected them, they proudly served our country. Many had their careers ended, their ranks stripped and their sacrifices and service erased simply because of who they were and who they loved. That treatment was a moral stain on our nation. As a Labour MP, I am proud that it was a Labour Government who lifted the ban on LGBT people serving in the military. We can never undo the harm that was done to veterans, but we can take responsibility for it. That is why it is important to implement the recommendations of the Etherton review so that LGBT veterans get compensation, have their ranks restored and have their records corrected. Only by implementing those recommendations will we restore dignity, pride and historical truth. It was truly an honour to see the King unveil the memorial to LGBT military personnel at the National Memorial Arboretum, which is not far from my constituency. I spent a wonderful day on Boxing day with my partner, Dawn, visiting and thinking at that memorial. Turning to the present, in the coming weeks, the amendment to hate crime laws, which I called for in the House last year, will be brought forward in the House of Lords. I worked with my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) and for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), and over 100 other MPs, to equalise the law on hate crime. It will make all hate crimes aggravated offences so that disabled and LGBT people receive the same support as victims of other hate crimes and have the same time to report those distressing, vile, degrading and often violent crimes. That will mean that their experiences are treated with the same severity as those of people suffering hate crimes because of their race or religion. That was a manifesto promise from the Labour party, and I am proud to be part of a Government who are delivering on that promise and who turn up on these Benches when these issues are debated and LGBT history is celebrated. LGBT+ History Month is not just about the past; it is about highlighting how discrimination persists today. Homophobia and transphobia still destroy lives. I was pleased to welcome the Premier League With Pride launch this week, which uses the power of sport to promote inclusion and respect. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, we may see premier league players coming out as gay and being supported. LGBT people have long faced barriers to healthcare, from the stigma faced by gay men during the AIDS crisis to lesbians being denied help with painful periods and reproductive health problems and trans people trying to navigate a system that often meets them with suspicion instead of care. History teaches us that inaction is not neutral; it only allows harm to continue. That is why I welcome the steps that this Labour Government are taking to improve LGBT people’s access to healthcare. The HIV action plan is groundbreaking and will support the goal of ending new transmissions by 2030. I applaud the excellent work done by the Terrence Higgins Trust. Thousands of people will benefit from improved HIV testing and treatment. That is the change that a Labour Government can make. I have one final point to make: we must be bolder when it comes to standing up for the rights of trans people. Culture wars have polluted online social media platforms with vitriolic hatred towards trans people, who make up less than 1% of the population. When I speak with them, I hear the same story: all they want is access to the healthcare that they need and to live their life without fear of discrimination. The parents of trans children who come to see me in my surgery want the same thing. At the same time, we see a minority, who claim to represent the views of women, calling for trans people to have their rights eroded. I believe that we can stand side by side. I know that most people want to live and let live. Now more than ever, the LGBT community and our wonderful allies must continue to stand against all homophobia and transphobia. We must learn from our history, so that we never allow our progress to be taken from us. We are proud of our history, we are proud of who we are, we are proud of who we love, and we are never going underground.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Road Maintenance Funding · Hansard source

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  Despite an additional £6.7 million being provided to Reform-led Warwickshire county council, the condition of roads across North Warwickshire remains an absolute disgrace. Potholes are the No. 1 concern for many drivers in my constituency. Our high streets, rural roads and main roads are littered with potholes. Does the Minister agree that Warwickshire county council must do more with this funding and take urgent action to fix our roads before many more women are left alone, waiting for recovery on rural roads late at night?

• 12 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Gurdwara Baba Vadbhag Singh Ji and the BVS charity in my constituency have been serving their community in Exhall with compassion for years. Their Christmas hampers provide food and essentials to families who may be struggling at Christmas, and their Father’s Day event draws hundreds of people from around the local area to their family celebrations with free food and fairground rides. I am incredibly grateful for the warm hospitality they have extended to our community, so will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the wonderful contribution of the Sikh community to North Warwickshire and Bedworth and to our country?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  In North Warwickshire and Bedworth, many, like Felicitas in Water Orton, have welcomed Ukrainian refugees into their homes and have stood by Ukraine, just as this Labour Government have. Meanwhile, Reform-led Warwickshire county council has removed the Ukrainian flag from county hall despite public protest. Given the ever-growing threats of Russian aggression, what steps is the UK taking to strengthen its anti-submarine warfare capabilities?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the armed forces covenant is so important across all our local authority services? If so, does he share my surprise that no colleagues from the turquoise brigade on the Opposition Benches can even be bothered to come into the Chamber and listen to this evening’s debate?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful contribution. Of course, parents need help and support through this process. In 2022, a coroner ruled that a 20-year-old trans woman had died in part because of delays in accessing gender-affirming care after two and a half years on a waiting list. Trans people also struggle disproportionately with general healthcare. A third of trans and non-binary people, rising to almost half among people of colour, received no NHS or private support during pregnancy, compared with just 2.4% of cis women. Nearly one in three trans and non-binary birthing parents said that they were not treated with dignity and respect in labour, compared with just 2% of cis women. According to TransActual, 60% of trans people surveyed had been refused care because they were trans. Hundreds reported that their GP refused to prescribe hormones, even when they had been recommended by NHS gender clinics. Participation in cervical screening is also significantly lower, with trans and non-binary people estimated to be up to 37% less likely to be up to date with appointments. This Labour Government are the right Government at the right time to tackle these issues. I congratulate the Minister and the Secretary of State on the HIV action plan that was announced this month. I remember vividly the stigma and shame of an HIV diagnosis in the ’80s and ’90s, which often led to suicide, as the alternative was a death sentence and a life spent facing discrimination and abuse. This HIV strategy is groundbreaking and sets us on the right path to end new HIV transmissions. I applaud its commitment to ensuring that all prevention efforts target underserved populations, including trans people. The Government pledged in their manifesto to ensure that trans people receive the healthcare and support they need. I welcome the review being led by Dr David Levy into adult gender services, and I hope it will bring forward strong recommendations to cut waiting lists, expand access and deliver timely, appropriate and sensitive care. I know that trans people and LGBT organisations have been awaiting its publication, so I ask the Minister: when can we expect Dr Levy’s review to be published? In April 2025, the Secretary of State also commissioned NHS England to undertake an LGBT+ health evidence review. That review seeks to identify the barriers to healthcare for all LGBT+ people, from examining the poor treatment of lesbian couples seeking IVF treatment to looking at insufficient mental health support for LGBT+ people. The review is highly anticipated by the whole community. Therefore, I ask the Minister: is Dr Brady’s review still due to conclude in January 2026, and when can the public and parliamentarians expect to see it? Although I applaud the Government’s work to improve healthcare for transgender adults, I know that reviews alone will not fix the problem. We need to know that these reviews will be followed by action. I know that getting this right matters to the Government, so I ask the Minister: what steps will the Government take to reduce discrimination and transphobia in healthcare settings? Will the Minister commit to mandatory training for clinicians on the respectful and appropriate treatment of trans patients? Will the Government commit to significant sustained investment in trans healthcare, with reducing waiting lists and expanding local provision as urgent priorities? We must build a healthcare system rooted in science, not stigma, and in compassion, not fear. We must decide whether we want to be a society that listens to people, supports them and gives them the tools to thrive. There is one final point I would like to make. Those who know me will know that I first got involved in politics in the 1980s when Thatcher was introducing section 28. That policy was intended to make people like me feel shame about who we were, and to reverse the progress that previous generations had fought for. I got into politics to fight that cruel law and everything that it represented. I am a gay woman who grew up in the ’80s, so I know what it feels like to be told, “It’s just a phase. Maybe you’ll grow out of it. Maybe it’s not really who you are. Maybe there’s just something wrong with you,” so believe me when I say that I have heard it all before. LGBT people have heard this all before. We know what bigotry is when we see it, and we know that bigotry is back. Let us make no mistake: the people who are organising against trans people now are no different from the people who campaigned for section 28. They want to present parts of our movement as a danger to society and push them to the margins. I will never let that happen. To all those in this room and in this House who are totally convinced that trans people are not real, that they are making it up, that it is TikTok, Reddit or foreign TV that has turned them trans, that somehow this is some kind of new phenomenon, let me assure you all that I have had trans friends for as long as I have been out. Trans people have always and will always exist. To all those in this room who used to say warm things about trans people back when it was popular to do so but who decided when the wind changed that they would blow in the other direction, and to the Conservatives who in 2018 introduced an LGBT action plan promising trans equality but who now are quite happy to laugh along with cruel mocking jokes about trans people in front of the mother of a murdered trans teenager, we see you, and much like history condemns section 28, history will condemn you too. Meet trans people, talk to them, understand what they are going through and believe them, then we can all stop fighting our toxic culture wars and get back to doing what we as lawmakers are elected to do: make things better for every single one of our constituents—not some of them, all of them.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives hollowed out our communities and Reform is exploiting it, and yet this Government are helping communities like mine to thrive. We have already had the announcement of our £20 million in the towns fund. We have set up our Believe in Bedworth board, because my residents believe in their town, and the chair of that board has said that he feels energised to have a hand in shaping the future of his home town. We have already had thousands of responses to our survey and are organising a family fun day on 25 October. We would be delighted if the Minister could join us for that. Can she outline how the £1.5 million of impact funding can help to turbocharge the groundbreaking work already being done by Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council to bring empty properties back into use?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Changing Places Toilets · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that accessible toilets keep people out longer, encourage spending, make towns more inclusive, and are critical for retail, tourism and local growth? When councils close them, disabled people and young families just stay at home. Does he agree that it is short-sighted of the Conservative council in North Warwickshire to fail to fulfil its promise to reopen accessible toilets in Atherstone town centre? We need more Changing Places toilets up and down this country so that everyone, regardless of their ability or who their children are, can make the most of their days out.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Educational Attainment of Boys · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this important debate, and I pay credit to the work done by the young men in his office. For too many years we have been sleepwalking into a crisis of boys disengaging, and we have finally had the wake-up calls that we desperately needed to show us that this House must do better. From the TV show “Adolescence” to Gareth Southgate’s lecture on the lack of male role models and the Centre for Social Justice’s report on “Lost Boys”, with its shocking revelation that two thirds of those who are unemployed are young men, it is clear that everyone else can see this problem. Now it is time for us to tackle it. I stood as an MP because I truly believed that this was the party that would break down the barriers to opportunity, and it could not be clearer that that means tackling the issue of boys’ disengagement from education. With only a third of boys on free school meals achieving grade 4 in both English and maths, it is time to ask why and to ask what this Government should be doing to break the glass ceiling for working-class boys across the nation. I have championed the role of sport many times before in this place and I will do it again today, because we have mountains of data that show that access to sport does matter. For boys who struggle to get through the school day, PE is often the only thing that keeps them showing up in the morning; for boys who are on the edge of exclusion, we have seen that sport-led interventions can bring them back from the edge and improve their engagement with school; and for boys looking for community and a sense of belonging, we know that, too often, they find that online in isolated communities or in groups committing acts of antisocial behaviour. The truth is that we are seeing the result of the Conservative party’s decision to spend years starving neighbourhoods of funding for community sports clubs. A local teacher from Nicholas Chamberlaine school in Bedworth in my constituency told me that most children access physical activity only in schools. She told me that this is “because the area is less privileged and so access to sports clubs, safe outdoor spaces and even basic fitness opportunities outside school is limited.” That must change. The evidence is clear: sport-led interventions work. They work when police forces implement them, they work when schools use them and they work when local councils implement them. My ask today is clear: fund sport-led interventions and fund them properly, and give young people the sense of community and access to sport that they are crying out for. Before I finish, I want to take a moment to praise the many wonderful talented and kind young men and boys I have met, including: one of my volunteers, who is one of the most dedicated and hard-working people I know; the young men I have met in my constituency who are coaches for their local clubs or who help out by volunteering and refereeing at local games; and the young men who have joined my team for work experience.