Sarah Green MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Maintenance System: Economic Abuse · Hansard source

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  I have too many constituents whose financial abuse is effectively being perpetuated and facilitated by the Child Maintenance Service. I have secured a meeting with the relevant Minister in the other place, but it has been postponed. Could the Minister help me to secure a date for that meeting? I am sure that he would agree that if the system is at fault, it needs to change.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Maintenance System: Economic Abuse · Hansard source

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  7. What steps her Department is taking to help prevent the use of the child maintenance system to facilitate economic abuse.

• 9 Dec 2024 · SEN Provision: Funding · Hansard source

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  A recent National Audit Office report makes it clear that, without reform, the SEN system is financially unsustainable. The Minister will know that, since 2020, local authorities such as Buckinghamshire council have been able to exclude their dedicated school grant deficits from their main revenue budgets. That statutory override means that local authorities do not breach their duty to set a balanced budget, but it is due to end in March 2026, and there is currently no identified solution. Can the Minister share more on what urgent conversations she is having with colleagues to ensure that local authorities get the certainty they need?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Cumberlege Review: Pelvic Mesh · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. This is where I must pick up Carol’s story again. She tried to pursue her claim against her original surgeons through the courts, and she hit on an unexpected problem. She approached multiple legal firms who would not take her case because one or both of the surgeons were advising them on other cases and, as such, it would have been a conflict of interest. Indeed, the same surgeon who caused Carol life-changing injuries acted as an expert witness in an unrelated surgical mesh negligence case. The judge in that case said: “he had cherry-picked those parts of the evidence which were supportive of the Defendant’s case and did not comment on those parts which were consistent to the Claimant’s. That is not the correct approach to be taken by an independent expert, whose duty is to the court. His evidence lacked balance and was unpersuasive.” On this occasion, the judge called it out, but that is not the only instance of the medical profession closing ranks—it is not a unique occurrence. Such clear bias and conflicts of interest are a huge barrier to justice for mesh victims around the country. The point of recommendation 3 in the Cumberlege review was to establish a non-adversarial avenue for redress after someone has been harmed in a healthcare setting. Both the Hughes report and, more recently, the Darzi report found that the current clinical negligence system is difficult for patients to navigate and prevents the healthcare system from learning from its mistakes. It is also eye-wateringly expensive for the taxpayer. If it is the dead hand of the Treasury blocking a redress scheme, Ministers would do well to reflect on that. As the Patient Safety Commissioner points out, the clinical negligence system is behind only nuclear disarmament and pensions on the list of liabilities on the Government’s balance sheet. I must ask the Minister when the Department will respond to the options outlined in the Hughes report, and when families can expect to see redress schemes up and running. Recommendation 5 relates to the establishment of mesh centres around the country, and while such centres have been established, they get mixed reports from patients. My question on the mesh centres is about their outcomes. How is the Department ensuring a consistent service across them all, and how are outcomes being measured? With so many people reporting dissatisfaction with the centres, it is not enough that they exist; they need to be working well for the patients they are there to serve. Recommendation 6 relates to the MHRA, and it is clear that we still need the yellow card reporting system to improve. I would also welcome the Minister’s thoughts on progress against recommendation 7, which is about creating a central patient-identifiable database. To my understanding, it is still a work in progress. The previous Government’s decision not to take forward the eighth recommendation, which is for a mandatory register, is disappointing. The recommendation called for “Transparency of payments made to clinicians” and “mandatory reporting for pharmaceutical and medical device industries of payments made to teaching hospitals, research institutions and individual clinicians.” I fail to understand why more progress has not been made on that. I know that campaigners have written to the Department asking it to consider a sunset Act that speaks to that recommendation, and I urge the Minister to chase a response to them.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for securing this debate on something I know matters to a great many of my own constituents in Chesham and Amersham. The appalling examples of sewage-filled floodwater blighting lives in my constituency are part of a much bigger picture: a water industry that is not held to account by a regulatory system that is not fit for purpose. I therefore welcome today’s announcement of the independent water commission. As a report published last year by Surfers Against Sewage states, part of the problem is the “severe budget cuts” that regulators have experienced, which have meant that even reported pollution events go uninvestigated and unpunished. Indeed, in 2022, the Environment Agency instructed its staff to ignore reports of low-impact pollution events as it did not have sufficient resources to investigate them. To the extent that that is the case, we get the environment we pay for—but that is only part of the problem. A report published by the previous Government in May this year makes clear that regulators must avoid drifting into unnecessary risk aversion. Internal culture should challenge excessive risk aversion, not promote it. One former employee of the Environment Agency described to me how some of those the agency regulates see it as a toothless tiger. I suggest to the Minister that fixing the regulatory framework is not the only area worth looking at. There is also a need to make sure we are not creating more problems with our sewage system in the future. At present, our water companies are not statutory consultees on planning applications. Instead of asking whether the existing sewage infrastructure can support new developments, the right to connect means that water companies are required to make it work after the fact. That is surely nonsensical and something the Government can address as part of the work they are currently doing on the national planning policy framework. I will close by thanking the many campaigners in Chesham and Amersham, including the River Chess Association, the Chiltern Society, Misbourne River Action and others, that have worked tirelessly on this issue. I pay particular tribute to local parish councillors who have found themselves at the forefront of these issues, becoming citizen scientists and experts in a way they never expected. I have been so impressed by their diligence and their dedication to doing their best to help their residents. However, they are volunteers committed to their environment and their communities; they should not be responsible for holding the water industry to account. That is what our regulators are for.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Front Benchers to their places. They will know that the steel industry in Wales is just one of a number that have suffered in recent decades. Last year, the Industrial Communities Alliance said that tackling the effects of deindustrialisation in Wales has been hampered by competitive bidding, which forces local authorities in deprived areas to bid against each other, preventing partnership working and a more strategic approach. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether future rounds of the UK shared prosperity fund allocated to Wales will no longer be subject to competitive bidding?