Sadik Al-Hassan MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls: AI-based Crime · Hansard source

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  In January I stopped using X as a communication channel because the platform facilitated the creation of illegal and deeply harmful images by its AI tool, Grok. This platform is, unfortunately, just one instance of AI-based violence against women and girls, an issue about which I know North Somerset residents care deeply. Can the Minister tell me whether the current law is keeping pace with AI-generated intimate image abuse, and what assessment she has made of whether sentencing powers are adequate to reflect the harm that such images cause to women and girls?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls: AI-based Crime · Hansard source

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  6. What steps he is taking to help tackle AI-based violence against women and girls crime in online spaces.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is an understatement to say that Capita’s service in administering civil service pensions is unacceptable. One resident has faced real financial hardship because it took five months and considerable pestering from my office just to receive a quote from Capita. That pension has still not been paid. It does not end there. I have heard from a bereaved and grieving widow, Carolyn. On top of the pain of losing her other half, she has had to fight through a mountain of administration just to receive a widow’s pension. I have personal experience. I am incredibly proud that my father worked in the civil service and shared a pension with my mother, who passed away in November. MyCSP did not even have my mother’s name spelled correctly on the account, and all progress I had made was lost when Capita took over. I personally experienced the difficult situation that residents in North Somerset have to go through. Surely it is time to act decisively and consider ending Capita’s involvement in the administration.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. Thirty-seven years after privatisation, those companies are laden with debt, our rivers and coastlines are polluted and shareholders expect good returns while investment lags. That proof can be seen in North Somerset. One young man training for an Ironman in 2023 swam in Clevedon Marine lake, which was unfortunately polluted. Within a day, he had collapsed. It took four months of tests to confirm what had happened; a virus caught in that water had lowered his blood pressure and triggered a minor heart episode. That is what “acceptable” water quality is costing real people in my constituency.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  I agree. In my constituency, the Land Yeo river, which once ran clear and was a genuine source of local pride, is no longer the beautiful river that residents grew up with. Agricultural and urban runoff, as well as underfunding and a lack of investment, have left it choked with invasive plant species and thick algae. In 2025, a storm overflow at Portbury Wharf nature reserve discharged sewage into the Severn estuary for a total of 721 hours—the equivalent of 30 full days of waste pumped from North Somerset’s shores. That is why I strongly welcome the swift introduction of the Water (Special Measures) Act, but it treats the symptom, not the disease. We are past the point of regulating out a structural failure. If a company’s incentive is shareholder return rather than public service, no amount of fines will help. Water is an essential utility, but as we saw this summer, the failure of these companies is already compounding the impact of climate change and drought. We had one of the wettest springs on record, yet the companies have failed to invest in reservoirs, such as in Barrow Gurney in my constituency, that are needed to capture one of the most valuable resources. Reservoirs in the south-west, which should be central to how we store and manage water, have suffered from years of under-investment, neglected by companies that are more focused on returns than resilience. Nobody chooses their water company. Nobody can switch. But our constituents are paying the price through their health, their pride in local areas and their bills. The public deserve the chance to say whether that should continue.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), for sharing heartfelt stories, and showing the strength that I would not be able to —my mum passed away in November last year. Their stories, and what they shared with us today, are inspiring. Like many across this House, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this debate, reading constituent stories—many of them heartbreaking—and reflecting on what this Bill means to me personally, as well as what it means to the people of North Somerset who sent me here. At the heart of this debate are autonomy, dignity and humanity. The question of whether someone who is terminally ill can choose the manner of their death is fundamentally one about agency. These people did not choose their illness. They did not choose the suffering that came with it. They did not choose the impact that it has on those who love them. But they might be able to have some say in how their story ends, and that, I believe, restores some measure of the dignity and control that illness has taken from them. Many hon. Members will know that I practised as a pharmacist for nearly 20 years before my election. That means that I have seen the faces behind this debate. I have watched people collect prescriptions that offer nothing more than a sticking plaster over terminal illness—pain managed, but suffering not ended. A safe and legal route at the end of life would not replace good palliative care; it would sit alongside it, offering the small mercy of choice to those who want it. There was another element of this debate that I had to consider: as a Muslim, this question sat alongside my faith in a way that I had to think through carefully. I have concluded that, while I personally may not choose to make use of this provision, my faith guides my own life; it is not my place to let it dictate someone else’s final chapter. This debate is, at its core, about whether people have the right to choose. It is worth remembering that choice is itself central to faith. Belief has meaning only because it is freely chosen. If I were to use religion as a basis for stripping others of their choice, it would turn faith against one of its own foundations. My faith guides me to live my life and make my choices. That right to choose, I believe, should not be denied by any one of our beliefs, however sincerely held.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not. Like so many North Somerset residents who have written to me on this issue, I believe that those who are suffering, often for long, unimaginable stretches of time, deserve to be offered a choice.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies: Government Funding · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. As Members might know, I am here today wearing two hats, both pharmacy-shaped, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy and as a community pharmacist for nearly 20 years. The brilliant, unrelenting work of my colleagues in pharmacy teams I saw throughout my career is the reason why this debate is so important. Pharmacists know what it is like to be the first port of call for an unwell patient, to deliver vaccinations to an entire community, and to work exhausting, long days.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies: Government Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Select Committee. I agree with him. Pharmacy is well placed to help offer additional vaccination services as well as help with a suite of other minor ailments with an expanded Pharmacy First. I greatly welcome the uplift for 2026-27 in the pharmacy contract, but let us be honest about the scale of the problem: funding fell by £800 million in real terms between 2015-16 and 2025-26, even as prescription volumes rose by 20%. Last year’s funding settlement was a great amount, but that has been eaten up by a great amount of costs, and the Government’s independent analysis found a £2 billion annual funding gap. Nationally we have lost nearly 1,500 pharmacies since 2017—a 15% contraction of the network. In my own constituency of North Somerset, that story is written in bricks and mortar. We have six fewer pharmacies than in 2016.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies: Government Funding · Hansard source

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  I share the hon. Member’s commitment to getting the right number of pharmacies for the population they serve. That is an important part of not just our high streets, but our communities. We must ensure we have pharmacy services available to people who need them, which reduces the pressure on the rest of the NHS system. The amazing pharmacies still working and dispensing in my constituency dispense over 109,000 prescriptions a month. They deliver thousands of Pharmacy First consultations and have saved as many as 7,370 GP appointments since January 2024. I recently released my vision of what primary care should look like in 2040 and how we should integrate our system better. It has to be true integration, not just in words but in digital infrastructure. We need a primary care network that knows what happens in different parts of the provision, but also understands how that provision affects the rest of the NHS system. We need a true single patient record that extends beyond general practice and into pharmacy; that will make the funding decisions for the Department easier because we will be able to see the activity even better than we do today. My message to the Minister is simple: pharmacies are not asking for charity. With some reports suggesting that only 14% of pharmacies are profitable, I am asking for money not to make the job of pharmacy easy, but to make it possible, because it should not be this hard. Pharmacists are asking to be paid properly for work they already do brilliantly. I urge the Government to set out a road map for a six-year funding settlement of £600 million in today’s terms, to invest in the workforce, to allow pharmacies to realise their ambition and finally to close the funding gap, before we lose any more of these vital neighbourhood services.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Very briefly, I would like to congratulate my beautiful, long-suffering Kiwi wife on completing her citizenship ceremony today in North Somerset. Will my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out how the Government’s investment can support the development of more local schemes for young people in North Somerset?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. I am delighted that North Somerset is finally getting two fantastic new stations at Pill and Portishead with the reopening of the railway line, but—and I hate to sound greedy—with Bristol airport’s potential expansion on the horizon, it risks becoming one of the worst-connected major airports in the country. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that now we need a proper mass transit system for North Somerset and the west of England combined authority, linking Felton, the new Woodspring development, Long Ashton and the wider economic area?

• 8 Jul 2026 · Railway Station in Long Ashton · Hansard source

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  I would like to present a petition for a railway station in Long Ashton on behalf of North Somerset and the village of Long Ashton, which remains significantly underserved by public transport infrastructure, with no viable railway connection to Bristol and beyond. The petitioners therefore request “that the House of Commons urges the Government to undertake a feasibility study for the construction of a new railway station at Long Ashton, North Somerset, in order to serve the existing community and support the sustainable development of the forthcoming healthtech campus.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of Long Ashton, North Somerset and the surrounding areas, Declares that the community of Long Ashton in North Somerset is significantly underserved by public transport infrastructure; further declares that the area is set to become home to a £1.25 billion healthtech campus which will bring substantial employment, economic growth, and inward investment to the region; further declares that the absence of a railway station serving this community places an unacceptable burden on residents who currently have no viable rail connection to Bristol and beyond; further declares that the provision of a new station in Long Ashton would reduce car dependency, ease congestion on local roads, support the region’s net zero ambitions, and ensure that the economic benefits of the incoming healthtech campus are accessible to a wide range of workers and residents; and further declares that failure to invest in this infrastructure risks undermining the full economic potential of one of the most significant development projects in the West of England. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to undertake a feasibility study for the construction of a new railway station at Long Ashton, North Somerset, in order to serve the existing community and support the sustainable development of the forthcoming healthtech campus. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003220]

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. Before my election, I spent well over a decade working as a pharmacist on the high street. I stood behind my counter and watched the flow of the community come and go through the door. I challenged shoplifters, from which I still literally bear the scars. What I lived, and what I now hear about week after week at my surgeries and visits across North Somerset, is worry—worry that our high streets are becoming a symbol of decline, rather than a source of pride. In Portishead, residents have watched yet another vape shop or barber shop open where a much-loved local business used to be. People notice, and residents ask why. This matters because the high street is not just bricks, footfall and business rates; it is where people feel proud of where they live and it is where community happens. The opposite is true, too. Vacant storefronts and deserted high streets do not just look sad, they breed antisocial behaviour. That is the backdrop, on top of which our high streets are now under fresh pressure. Just last month, as temperatures soared, footfall on the high street dropped by 19% on the hottest May day on record, and we saw the same pattern in the most recent heatwave. Shoppers stayed home, commuters worked from home and the high street paid the price. Whether it is empty units or empty pavements, the message is the same: our high streets are fragile and need support. That is why I welcome the Government’s action: a £30 million enforcement package with raids, closures and cash seizures against the dodgy vape shops, barber shops and mini-marts linked to organised crime, which launder an estimated £1 billion of criminal cash every year. We can have the renaissance on our high streets that my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) set out yesterday, but first we need to joust with those criminal businesses. The Government’s action is significant recognition that our high streets are worth fighting for, but I admit that we need even more. We need a co-ordinated vision for what our high streets will look like in 2030 or 2035. We need to manage the future of our high streets, not watch their decline.

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts · Hansard source

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  I have been a pharmacist and an employer for nearly two decades, and nearly every good business was already doing what is in the Employment Rights Act to recruit staff. Recruiters need to offer those things. It is simple.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  First of all, Medicines UK does not disagree with me; its members disagree that the value from the UK-US trade deal will go to people other than them. Medicines UK actually thinks that companies are not paid enough for drugs in this country. Unfortunately, you might need to go and have a chat with the association about that, because you might have misunderstood.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman’s figures come from. When we look at the drug tariff reimbursement, which is the system that we use to pay, and compare it with the arrangements in other countries, it is clear that we underpay significantly. Perhaps he is referring to something of which I am unaware; I should be happy to chat to him outside. We in this country are addicted to low-cost drugs for our health service, and what does that addiction mean? It means that we have the lowest costs and we always go for the cheapest drugs, and that favours foreign manufacturers. It destroys UK supply chains, as we have seen over the last 25 years, and it endangers our resilience as a country. We are already seeing the side effects of that, with drugs being out of stock. We have a system for payment called the drug tariff, which establishes how much pharmacies will buy drugs for and how much they will be reimbursed for. There are currently 254 price concessions. Price concessions happen when a drug is out of stock, and we must make an emergency increase to the price in the drug tariff to try to bring it back into the country. Given that there are 3,500 drugs in that section of the drug tariff, 254 does not sound a lot, but it is the highest level that I remember seeing in my entire professional career. Last month’s highest level of 230 has just been exceeded. Cheap drugs often mean that we overvalue the benefit of medicines in our system and use a “drug first” approach in the NHS, and that has continued for decades. When we increase the price that we pay for drugs, it allows us to start considering the benefits of other types of treatment, such as social prescribing. Social prescribing becomes a great deal cheaper by comparison in a system in which drugs are valued at the correct level. The all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy, which I chair, published a report in June 2025 that laid out some of the problems with drug pricing and availability. I absolutely support the idea of paying more for drugs, because at the moment we are building a system that is creaking and breaking. By trying to pursue every penny of savings, we have destroyed UK manufacturing and offshored our problems. The only way to bring that back is to rebuild the drug tariff, with the idea of paying to procure more in the UK.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  In conclusion, I welcome the deal. I hope we find a way to pay for drugs correctly in this country, so that we value them properly and can value the rest of the system.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I must declare an interest as a registered pharmacist for nearly two decades and an expert on pharmacy procurement. Let be begin by saying that I welcome the UK-US pharmaceutical trade agreement, and also by saying something quite controversial: President Donald Trump is right. We do underpay for drugs—not just our expensive, lifesaving rare cancer drugs, but the everyday drugs that we purchase.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Farming: Financial Sustainability · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. My constituency is built on the backs of family farms that I have visited, many of them run by the same family for generations. I have had the privilege of sitting around kitchen tables with farmers and the NFU, and I hear the same thing time and again: making a profit from growing food in this country is almost impossible. However, North Somerset farmers do not do this job for the money; they do it as a way of life, and with the hope—often a distant one—that one day prices will allow them, or their children, to make a decent living from this land. I warmly welcome the long-term farming road map published today and the Government’s response to the Baroness Batters review. I also welcome the action on supply chain fairness and the transfer of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to DEFRA. That matters because farmers need a fair price. As a member of the Labour rural research group, I asked the Minister, as this road map is delivered, to keep welfare labelling firmly in view. It could put an extra £60 million into farmers’ pockets. LRRG research suggests British farmers are losing out by as much as half a billion pounds, undercut by lower-welfare imports. A mandatory tiered labelling system would build on the excellent foundations laid today. Farmers in North Somerset have waited a long time for a Government willing to back them with a genuine plan. Today, they have one.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Draft Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Control of Disposals etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I support this technical but important correction. Section 27’s anti-avoidance provisions exist to prevent authorities facing dissolution from disposing of assets to avoid scrutiny, but their value depends on the reference date staying current. My constituency of North Somerset is a useful illustration of why this matters in the long term. It has been a unitary authority since 1996 and, even 30 years on, legacy questions around assets, contracts and historical boundary decisions can resurface. Updating the baseline in section 27 from December 2006 to 31 March 2025 is sensible housekeeping, which ensures that the consent regime keeps pace with present-day restructuring, rather than the baseline being tied to the 2008-09 wave of unitarisation. It is the kind of provision that must be kept under continual review so that it does not drift out of date in the same way a second time.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Newborn Screening Test · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for his impressive eloquence. Watching this debate today is my fantastic communications officer, who has spinal muscular atrophy and whose insight on this issue has been incredibly valuable. SMA is a life-threatening genetic condition where timing is everything. Without early diagnosis and treatment, irreversible damage occurs within the first months of a baby’s life. Left untreated, around 90% of babies born with severe SMA will die before their second birthday or require permanent ventilation just to survive. However, when SMA is caught through newborn screening before symptoms even appear, that trajectory can change completely. Early treatment can halt the disease in its tracks and provide children with opportunities they would not have otherwise had. That is why I welcome the news of the screening that will begin in parts of England this October. Under the current plan, however, screening will reach only two thirds of England, which leaves some newborns in England excluded. Many of my constituents in North Somerset rely on Bristol hospitals, such as Southmead, where my two children were born, which are not among those rolling out screening. Babies born there will belong to the 28% or so missing out. This really is a postcode lottery, plain and simple. A baby’s chance of early diagnosis should not depend on their parents’ address. As we heard, Scotland has now launched a full national programme, and I believe that the Republic of Ireland has done the same. We are falling behind our neighbours while our children’s futures are decided by geography. I spent nearly 20 years working as a pharmacist. In that time, I developed a particular instinct: if a disease can be treated, you treat it, and if a harm can be prevented, you prevent it. That instinct does not leave you. I agree that the current trial raises serious ethical concerns. When I consider this issue, the question I keep returning to is straightforward: where is it possible to prevent irreversible disability, why would we not act for every child without delay? Every baby, wherever they are born in the UK, deserves the same chance at a healthy life.

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  A remarkable North Somerset constituent, Jane, is watching this debate. Having been diagnosed in March last year with an incurable brain tumour, Jane has asked me to speak in the debate, because she wants us all to understand what it feels like to be told, “Treatment will manage your tumour, not cure it.” Does my hon. Friend agree that my constituent Jane is not just brave, but amazing?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Social Media Ban for Under-16s · Hansard source

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  The message from more than 1,200 North Somerset children, families and parents—like myself—could not be clearer: they wholeheartedly welcome the direction of travel today. However, spring 2027 feels too long to wait; every day that passes is another day on which children are exposed to harmful algorithms, addictive features, inappropriate advertising and contact from strangers online. So I ask my right hon. Friend: what are the barriers to implementing the policy sooner?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Community Pharmacies · Hansard source

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  Shame!