Sarah Russell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The members of the judiciary that I have spoken to have very genuine concerns about their personal security, particularly immigration judges. They are genuinely frightened of doing their jobs, and that will be affecting judicial recruitment. We need immigration judges to be able to stand up and serve the judiciary. Many judges take a pay cut to become a judge, and they deserve our genuine respect. They work very hard in a system that has been grotesquely underfunded for 14 years. Lastly, I would like to mention new clause 40, which was tabled by the Liberal Democrats. I have referred to cross-party working elsewhere. I understand that it might not be in the exactly right format for the Government to it take forward today, but I hope that the Minister will consider how we will deal with the fact that people are not receiving training when they are on remand and are often released at the end of that time. It is a serious issue that deserves serious consideration. I have asked previously in the Justice Committee about what work is done with people on remand, particularly in respect of domestic abuse offences. In my opinion, we are missing an opportunity for people, without accepting any sort of guilt, to engage in services that many would benefit from, considering their general behaviour, irrespective of whether their original offence was related to domestic abuse. In fact, all of us could benefit from those opportunities for reflection. People spend a lot of time in prison, and at the moment it is not being used as effectively as I and many others would like it to be. That brings me back to my original point. Government Members absolutely believe in punishment, but fundamentally we also believe in rehabilitation, and the emphasis on that in this Bill is very much to be welcomed.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Huntington (Ben Obese-Jecty) for speaking to his new clause, although I do not support it because the minimum needed to cause death by careless driving is a momentary lapse of concentration. Of course, he was talking about a death, and I am not suggesting for a moment that that should go unpunished, but a full lifetime driving ban meaning that someone who had a momentary lapse of concentration at 19 still cannot drive at 55 does not feel proportionate. However, I agree that we should look much more closely at all driving-related offences, including all offences relating to dangerous driving, careless driving and, in particular, causing death by dangerous driving. Those are horrendous crimes. I have met families who have been bereaved in that way, and those have been some of the most impactful conversations I have had in my life. The impact on those families simply cannot be overstated. We are expecting the road safety strategy imminently, and I hope that these matters will be taken forward on a cross-party basis and looked at sensibly, because it is a really important topic.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member appears to be ignoring the entire recruitment process for the judiciary, which fundamentally, at its heart, emphasises the independence of those people from political interference, and also the fact that the application of the law should not be subject to political interference in this place. That is absolutely fundamental. Judges are not getting up every morning and just coming up with ludicrous leftie positions. The picture that is sometimes painted by those on the Opposition Benches is just fanciful. It bears no relationship to my experience of engaging with the actual judiciary on an ongoing basis.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress and speak to amendment 31 to clause 6. That clause is the one that I am most proud of. It was the result of cross-party work between the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and the Government Front Bench and it needs to be given the prominence it deserves. For the first time, the clause will enable the recording and tracking of when domestic abuse is a factor in an offence. Amendment 31, which I support, discusses the ability to call for evidence as to whether there has been domestic abuse. I start from the fundamental position that we should believe women on domestic abuse—I add that victims are predominantly, though by no means exclusively, female. None the less, I also strongly believe in the rule of law and the importance of having evidence. That is why I have sponsored the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) will more thoroughly address new clauses 28 and 29, which are about gambling treatment being considered on a par with treatment for drugs and alcohol in the courts. Those on the Conservative Benches have suggested that Government Members are in some way anti-punishment. We are not. I absolutely believe that crime should be punished, but I also absolutely believe that rehabilitation services are critical to preventing the recurrence of crime. When 80% of criminal offending is reoffending, we have to look seriously at how we break those cycles of offending. I welcome and applaud the clauses put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. Gambling creates significant social problems in our society and when that extends to crime, we need solutions. New clauses 15 and 24 both address the potential abolition of the Sentencing Council. The language with which they have been addressed by Opposition Members today has been a bit more circumspect than some of what we have heard them say previously about the Sentencing Council in this Chamber. Our judges in the UK are some of the best in the world. The independence of our judiciary is an absolutely fundamental premise of our democracy, and the way in which it has been talked about recently treats it with complete disdain. That terrifies me. It is one of the most important principles that our country stands upon. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) said that the Conservatives still respect the independence of the rule of law, but I have heard Members on those Benches refer to lefty activist judges as if somehow the judiciary in Britain were populated by radical Marxists. That is not the case. I am a lawyer and I spent 13 years in practice. I have never met a judge who was anything but genuinely committed to the apolitical upholding of the law. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It is incredibly important that we continue to recognise and promote those principles. I say that partly from a genuine ideological position and partly from experience. Britain has exported £9.5 billion in legal services in the last year. One of the reasons for that level of success is that there is genuine belief in our judiciary—people in multiple jurisdictions across the world trust that our judges will hear disputes impartially. When we talk like Conservative Members have in a criminal or civil context, we damage not only our institutions but our economy. We have to understand the importance of the British rule of law and we need to promote and uphold it at all costs. Those who do not do so damage our country. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not know the details of the case to which the hon. Member refers, which makes it impossible for me to give an informed comment by return. None the less, I can genuinely say, speaking from 13 or 14 years’ experience practising as a solicitor before I came to this place, as well as a lot of time spent in the Labour party and meeting leftie people, that the two did not really overlap. They just did not.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I broadly agree with the hon. Member on the overall topic: we should look at whether those offences are dealt with with sufficient severity. I also agree that the impact on people’s families cannot be overstated.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Ellie Reynolds has said that financial dependency has made people stay silent when they should speak, and also alleged that people on the panel were isolated by having contact with each other discouraged. The Minister has been extremely clear that this is a fully independent process and has not had Government involvement, but how does she propose to handle the very complex relationship between the concerns that Ellie Reynolds has spoken clearly about and ensuring that the process retains the faith of everyone involved?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Ada Lovelace Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) so much for securing this important debate. Other hon. Members have already outlined some fantastic initiatives to encourage women and girls in STEM. Such initiatives are so important. There is one in my constituency, at the all-girls Sandbach high school, which runs an extracurricular club called CAUC—Complete and Utter Chaos—for their female students. To be honest, it does not sound chaotic to me: together they design and build electric cars in the school’s workshop, and then race them against other schools at prestigious circuits around the country, including Silverstone. I have been and it is honestly phenomenal. They have this car building workshop, and it is just incredible. The aim of CAUC is to inspire and encourage female students to pursue careers in traditionally male-dominated industries. We know that, at the moment, only 14.5% of UK engineers are female. The club looks to expose its students to a unique hands-on learning opportunity and many of them have gone on to do STEM degrees and become engineers and have obtained placements, including with Bentley and an F1 racing team. They are doing great stuff. There is also the Jodrell Bank observatory in my constituency, which I truly love and have spoken about before—I should mention that a member of my immediate family works elsewhere within the University of Manchester. There are lots of fantastic women at Jodrell Bank doing groundbreaking research and discovery, and I want to recognise that Jodrell Bank has made active efforts to improve the percentage of women using its radio telescope with double-blind evaluation of applications for it. Having done that, female scientists now take up 50% of the telescope’s usage, which is fantastic and what we should all be aiming for. The point I want the Government to look at is that there is a massive problem with childcare for people doing PhD studentships. I do not regard childcare as exclusively women’s work, nor do I regard it as exclusively their financial cost to bear. None the less, if a person doing a PhD is a young woman wishing to have children, it takes years and it is quite likely to be within a time during which they might want to have kids. At the moment, if they do a fully funded PhD, paid for by the state, they are not eligible for free childcare hours within nursery settings. An average PhD stipend is £15,000, whereas an average full-time nursery place is £12,500 a year. People would be completely unable to live and parent on that sort of money. We should urgently change that. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered radio pulsars during her PhD. We could be losing all kinds of talent by having that restriction.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Health and Social Care Committee · Hansard source

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  The statistics in this report and everything they reflect are completely shocking. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) for bringing it forward on behalf of the Committee. Records at Leighton, my local hospital, show that work has been done on improving experiences and outcomes for Asian and black women, but unfortunately, given the quality of data collection, it is quite difficult to be sure whether that is translating into better clinical outcomes for everyone—particularly black and Asian women. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to urgently push that work forward?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Work for Serving Prisoners · Hansard source

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  My local women’s prison is HMP Styal, and my hon. Friend will be aware of the Clink Charity, which does work in developing people’s skills in hospitality. Its ability to operate in HMP Styal collapsed completely because, as there was such a shortage of prison officers, the women were locked up for so much of the time that it was simply unable to provide the service. In other prisons, the charity is being forced to retender for contracts on a commercial basis. It is a not-for-profit that was set up to do that work. I encourage the Minister—I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees—to review whether contracting in the Ministry of Justice is really working as we need it to in that regard.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for opening this important debate, as well as everyone who signed the petition and those who filled in my survey on SEND matters this summer. The level of distress that the current system is causing to both children and their parents is difficult to overstate. The parents I see in my surgeries are so distressed, and so are their children.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend; in fact, that is a matter I will come on to. The distress I see within this system is staggering. I see parents making decisions about taking their children to school, when they suspect that the school place might be damaging for their child, but they also strongly suspect that not taking their child to school is damaging that child—that is a horrific position for parents and children to be placed in. I see two big points of problem in the system. The first is when children or their parents are seeking a diagnosis. In response to my survey, I heard from parents who had got into thousands of pounds—sometimes tens of thousands of pounds—of debt in seeking diagnoses for their children, because they were so desperate to get them some help. However, when they get that EHCP, after a great fight and sometimes legal confrontation, they often find that the support that it gives is not consistently maintained, despite schools doing their absolute best—I have never met a teacher who did not want to help children with special educational needs. Those parents are then incredibly distressed, and those children struggle to stay in school. The second difficulty, I find, occurs as their children get somewhat older: the parents have the diagnosis that they desperately wanted, but their teenage child’s mental health goes down sharply. At that point, they often find that a neurodivergent diagnosis is a hindrance to getting their children the mental health support that they need. That is shocking; it is appalling that people appear to think, on a widespread basis, that autism inherently involves anxiety, and therefore children with an autism diagnosis do not need support with their mental health. That is what I am hearing from parents in my constituency. I could give so many stories. I recently spoke to one parent who explained that her son had repeatedly gone missing from home. She has had referrals to CAMHS from the police, social services and other organisations, and her son is 13 years old and suicidal, but there is a two-year wait for a child’s mental health assessment in my constituency and he is not deemed to meet the threshold. This is life and death for our children, and it is really frightening. These parents are terrified; as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned, they are so frightened for their children that they cannot go to work and leave them unattended. I ask the Minister to please process as quickly as possible the applications for special schools at Westfields and Flag Lane Baths, previously flagged to her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell).

• 11 Sept 2025 · Regional Transport Inequality · Hansard source

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  I was quite tempted to stand up this afternoon and just say the word “pothole” over and over again for three solid minutes, as the peculiarity of such an approach might really bring home to the Minister, who I know has been doing his best on these matters, quite how strongly my constituents feel about the state of their roads. The Government did give Cheshire East several million pounds more in this year’s Budget to deal with road maintenance backlogs than in recent years, which was very much appreciated by my constituents. However, the reality is that 14 years of chronic underfunding has left my roads in a catastrophic state. I cannot emphasise enough how dark, dangerous and worrying rural roads are—the number of young people who die on the roads in my constituency is absolutely horrific. Similarly, I cannot emphasise enough that we need separate funding for significant safety upgrades, as well as a dramatic increase to the road maintenance pot as soon as the Government are able to do so. There is another matter concerning roads in my constituent that I want to draw attention to. Gritting might sound like a trivial thing to those living in an urban area, but gritting in rural areas is absolutely critical. Our roads get a lower level of use, and the result is that they freeze and stay frozen for longer periods of time. One impact of my local authority having had so many financial challenges over the past 14 years has been reductions in gritting. There are schools in my rural areas that have no pavements outside them, and the roads in front of them are completely and utterly ungritted. When those children are dropped off at school, they are put into a road—alongside cars—which has not been gritted at all. Headteachers do their best to mitigate the associated risks by not demanding that parents bring their children in on time, so the lack of safety features not only puts children at risk, but undermines their education. Let me contrast that with London, where automatic number plate recognition cameras help to shut roads off completely at specific times of day. I find it staggering that we have such a complete contrast in treatment. Of course, I want children in London to be safe; this is not about taking things away from London schools, but it is very much about children in my constituency, as well as older people and others, having the same access and safety as everyone else. Briefly, given that I have only 30 seconds left, I want to touch on Northern Rail and the complete lack of Sunday services in my constituency. The strikes have been going on for a year, and we desperately need the issue to be resolved. Sandbach station rail accessibility, including the lack of an accessible lift at the station, is a huge issue. I echo points made by colleagues about the importance of funding such things properly. Lastly, there has been a 67% reduction in buses in my local area over the past 15 years. We must improve on that desperate situation.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Criminal Justice System: Technology · Hansard source

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  3. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help improve efficiency in the criminal justice system through the use of technology. [R]

• 4 Sept 2025 · Criminal Justice System: Technology · Hansard source

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  I thank the Solicitor General for that answer. The courts system and all the associated IT have been left in the most catastrophic state by the previous Conservative Government. It is shocking that £2 billion was spent on a civil courts IT system that cannot even handle litigation where there is more than one claimant or defendant, which is basic and normal. The particular issue that worries me today, though, is the Legal Aid Agency and the state of its IT system; as she will know, it was the subject of a cyber-attack in the spring. Could she update us on that situation and on any potential plans to build back better?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Poverty Reduction · Hansard source

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  5. What steps she is taking to reduce the number of children in poverty in Congleton constituency.

• 22 Jul 2025 · Changing Places Toilets · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am very sad to report that there are no Changing Places toilets in my constituency on the website—not a single one. I believe that, actually, Congleton leisure centre does have a Changing Places toilet, and I believe that Ruby’s Fund also has a very extensive disabled-facilitated toilet, although not to Changing Places standard. Does he agree that, when I have a constituency of 90,000 people, with four towns and multiple villages, that is an appalling state of affairs and we need to do better?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Changing Places Toilets · Hansard source

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  That is fantastic, but could the Minister please think about how we can address this issue for those of us with predominantly rural communities that have smaller towns that are unlikely to have very large buildings?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Extending the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He talks about children. There are children in my constituency who came here as very small children and have only ever been in the English education system. Their parents are deeply concerned about what will happen to them going forward, so it would be appropriate for us to look to put in place permanent measures as soon as humanly possible. I am sure he would also want to join me in thanking the host families in my constituency, who I am so proud of and grateful to, and Refugees Welcome, which continues to work to help Ukrainian families integrate in our community.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Condition of Roads: Cheshire · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady—she is being very collegiate, as she always is. Does she agree that it is incredibly important in our beautiful Cheshire towns that our roads are maintained in good condition? I am thinking in particular of a stretch of road in Alsager, which is lovely and has a fantastic local café, but it is a major part of the town centre, and the degeneration of the road is making it look less attractive than it otherwise could be. Does she agree that those are important points, not simply for the state of the road, but for the whole local economy?

• 4 Jul 2025 · Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister mentions forests. I want to congratulate Trees for Congleton, which has just planted its 30,000th tree in Congleton. It set out a few years ago to plant one tree for every citizen in the town, and it has achieved that. I think that is quite remarkable.

• 4 Jul 2025 · Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) for bringing forward this Bill, which is immensely popular with local farmers. I have met with the NFU and its membership repeatedly over months, if not most of the last year, and it is always one of the first things they mention to me. I commend her for her sterling work and for the collegiate way in which she always conducts herself, including in this matter. It is fantastic that we are extending protection to alpacas and llamas. No one wants to see attacks or worrying, and including both those definitions is really important and strengthens the law appropriately. I am incredibly impressed that the Bill covers paths and roads. The hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury thinks her constituency is the most beautiful in the country but, of course, it is not even the most beautiful in Cheshire, because mine is better. One of the really beautiful things I did recently was go to Goostrey Rose Festival last weekend. We have new paths in Goostrey and they are used incredibly regularly by dog walkers, but they are on farm boundaries. This legislation is so important for covering paths like those. I have been on a farm with a family in the aftermath of a dog attack, and it is terrible. I am not here to demonise dog owners—we have so many considerate, sensible, countryside-loving dog owners in my constituency—and I know the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury is not either. We are here to make sure that the overwhelming majority of people are left in peace to go about their everyday lives, in both the farming community and the dog-owning community—they are often one and the same—and to make sure that rural crime is properly prosecuted. GPS theft is another major component of rural crime in my area. Our local police and crime commissioner, Dan Price, has been doing work on this, and the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury has been involved in it. It would be great to get an update from the Minister on that. I want to take a moment to thank the NFU, which has lobbied me extensively on this issue. I am on its food and farming fellowship and have learned a great deal from it. I also thank the farmers in my constituency for continuing to feed us and for looking after the countryside so well.

• 4 Jul 2025 · Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for introducing this fantastic Bill, which does important things for animal welfare. Sadly, my constituency has a problem with dog-on-dog attacks, which are truly distressing to their owners. The overwhelming majority of dog owners in my constituency are incredibly responsible and keep their dogs under control at all times, but a tiny minority are doing a great deal of damage. Does the hon. Member have any thoughts on what we could do about that?

• 4 Jul 2025 · Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill · Hansard source

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  May I take a moment to mention Dobermann Rescue, based in my constituency, which also does fantastic work? I am sure my hon. Friend will join me in commending its work.