Sarah Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Jul 2026 · Mental Health Support for Police Officers · Hansard source

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  I take this opportunity to pay tribute to PC Jess Turnbull, who died in the line of duty aged just 18. I attended her funeral, along with other colleagues, on Friday. It is a reminder, if any were needed, of the price that we ask of our police officers. This Government are providing an extra £2.4 million to deliver the package of wellbeing measures set out in the police reform White Paper. That includes enhanced trauma support, improved occupational health provision, and stronger leadership on wellbeing. Working with police partners, we will ensure that officers and staff can access the timely, effective support that is vital for our police workforce.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Mental Health Support for Police Officers · Hansard source

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  I agree that we need to be doing all that we can to record data. We are looking at data on suicide, for instance, as my hon. Friend knows, and ensuring that we have the right information there. We are expanding our psychological risk assessments from 50,000 to 150,000, which will hopefully also give us more information that we can use. I stand with my hon. Friend in wanting to support our officers in any way we can.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Mental Health Support for Police Officers · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hear about the situation of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, and I would be happy to talk to him about the case in more detail so that we can learn the lessons. We are looking at what happens during misconduct cases, and at the support that is given to officers. There is also a particular issue around the domestic abuse that is suffered by police officers, and we are trying to ensure, by working with women’s organisations and others, that we get our response right.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Defibrillators in Police Vehicles · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on securing this important debate. I am grateful to him for doing so, and to other Members for contributing. I know that if this had been a wider debate, other Members would probably have wanted to speak in it—several Members feel very strongly about this issue. The hon. Member for Torbay talked at length about the Our Jay Foundation and about the death of Jamie Rees, or Jay, who died when he was just 18. I have had the privilege of meeting Jamie’s mum, stepdad and godmother on two occasions. I discussed what they are doing and trying to achieve, and what the Home Office can perhaps do. For someone to be able to experience the death of their child and put it to positive use, in order to try to get something positive out of their child’s death, is enormously powerful and very brave. Indeed, not many of us would be capable of doing that if we lost a child. I join the hon. Member in praising Jamie’s family for what they are doing; it is enormously powerful and enormously impactful. As the hon. Member said, the foundation has been raising money; I think it has raised about £800,000 to fund defibrillators and it has now funded hundreds of them. It also has an evidence base, which was shared with me, showing the number of lives that have been saved as a result of those defibrillators. There is a conversation to be had here, and it is one that we are actively having. Last year, the Home Office funded 750 defibrillators that we gave to police—that happened before I became the Minister, so I cannot claim any credit for it at all. There was no stipulation on where the defibrillators were placed. Some will be in police vehicles and some, I suspect, will be in police buildings, but we provided those 750 defibrillators. I know my predecessor as the Minister for Policing and Crime, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), met representatives of the Our Jay Foundation as well and was very moved by them. Providing those defibrillators was a step in the right direction. As I understand it—I will write to the hon. Member for Torbay if my statistics are wrong—27% of police vehicles now have defibrillators. He cited a figure of 10%, so I will check that and write to him if I am wrong, but I think it a slightly higher proportion than that. We are having a conversation with police. If there is a debate here—and I have talked to the foundation about this—it is because there is a slight nervousness from some parts of the police about the role of policing versus the role of other emergency services. There are also questions about the ability to train police in many different aspects of first aid, and where their role ends and that of the ambulance begins.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Defibrillators in Police Vehicles · Hansard source

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  It is not a comprehensive view across policing; there is a general concern about the role of policing versus other emergency services. We often have a wider debate within policing about the huge quantity of time that is spent responding to mental health issues, when other services should be doing that, so there is a general nervousness about that. I am in the process of writing to police forces and having a conversation with them, so that we can answer the hon. Gentleman’s point and find out whether there is a concern when it comes to defibrillators. The Our Jay Foundation would say that, where it has engaged with police forces and given them defibrillators, that has been welcomed and it is useful. I want to find out what the concerns are, if they exist, and I am in the process of doing that. I have said to the Our Jay Foundation—and I also say it to the hon. Member for Torbay and others here today—that of course we want every piece of first-aid equipment that could possibly save lives to be as widely available as possible. In police cars there are already first aid kits, and a lot of police officers carry tourniquets. It is not uncommon for police to conduct CPR on people relatively regularly; that has to be their job when they arrive before other emergency services. The step to then funding defibs—since we are talking about the funding question here—and putting them into all response cars or a proportion of response cars is the next stage we will look at. There are two stages. The first is talking to police to see what they think. As we have already given the police 750 defibs, it would be interesting to understand what they have been using them for. Moving on to the next stage, we are going through a very significant period of reform, setting up a national police service. That service will procure the kit we need for the whole of policing, so it presents a really good opportunity to consider what should be standard in all our police vehicles, response cars and uniforms, and to have a conversation with the police. We are going to have a national police service and make decisions nationally about what we need across the police service, and whether we want to use some of our funding to put defibs into all police cars.