Sarah Russell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q8. Dr Carly Mellor, an NHS dentist in my constituency, recently said the following to me:“Ministers had pledged to fix the failed contract we work to within this Parliament. The Government has begun discussions on a new contract, and promised a public consultation on it this summer. With a typical dentist now delivering NHS care at a loss, with every passing month more practices are reconsidering their futures in the NHS, while millions of patients continue to struggle to access care.”Reforming the contract is the route to better treatment for my constituents. Can we please start the consultation without delay?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Draft Employment Tribunal (Extension of Time Limits) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 Draft Employment Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction (England and Wales) (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. The shadow Minister asked whether this is really what Members came here to do, and I can say that I genuinely and literally came to this place to do this, so I am delighted that we are doing it. I was one of the people who joined Pregnant Then Screwed in its #Givemesix campaign against maternity discrimination. I spent years practising in employment tribunals, and I saw very large numbers of women with maternity discrimination claims and people with discrimination claims of all types. There is a huge problem: 74,000 women a year are estimated to lose their job while they are pregnant or on maternity leave, over and above what would otherwise be expected for their demographic. This absolutely enormous problem is affecting our national productivity, with so many women falling out of the workplace after they have children. When women have just had a baby and suddenly lose their job, they have very limited money because statutory maternity pay is extremely limited—it is awful—so they cannot afford legal advice. They also have a tiny baby, so bringing legal proceedings is not something they are seeking to do. It often takes them a long time to seek advice about their situation. Women are regularly being ruled out of bringing perfectly legitimate claims for the widespread problem of discrimination. I gently remind the shadow Minister that his Government failed to recruit any employment tribunal judges from 2010 to 2018, and that is how we ended up in this mess. We have no pipeline of people coming through who have seniority. This Government recommenced the recruitment of judges, and, to be fair, at the very back-end of the last Government there was some realisation of the catastrophic mess that had been generated in the employment tribunal system. It is not in employers’ best interests for the system to be run down, and it is not in employers’ best interests for us to assume that the best thing for employees is to insist that they have no rights and are unable to enforce those that they have. None of those things make business better in Britain; what they do is level down so that the worst employers are enabled to get away with misconduct while penalising those who do the right thing. I literally came here to do this. I have campaigned for this for years, and I could not be more pleased to see it happen, because what I think we will see is that good employers have absolutely nothing to fear from these measures. Good employers are the ones who are taking the time to deal with grievances properly, and that takes more than three months. At the moment, we are seeing people being pushed to bring claims to protect their position far too quickly, which pushes them into an adversarial process that is not in their best interests or employers’ best interests, and it is potentially enabling unscrupulous employers to find ways to get people to time-out by unduly elongating the process. I absolutely support these measures, and every Labour Member should be proud of them. I want to say a huge thank you to Pregnant Then Screwed for the campaigning it has done for many years. I am really proud to be here today.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Water Safety · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important debate. My constituent Chiedza Nyanjowa was only 15 when she went to Formby beach on the bank holiday weekend with her 11-year-old cousin and her auntie—the beginning of this story is such a wholesome day out. Chiedza could not swim, so she and her cousin were playing safely on the sand with a beach volleyball. Unfortunately, the volleyball went into the sea and the girls went into the water to try to retrieve it. I think about how often I have told my own children: “Look after your things!” That was all the girls were trying to do; they were trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, Chiedza did not make it back out of the sea in time. Chiedza was, by all accounts, an absolutely lovely girl. She really liked helping others and her ambition was to grow up and become a nurse—an ambition that, sadly, will not be realised. That is a great loss to our community, because it sounds like she really was a deeply lovely child and a very loving Christian. She was also, by all accounts, fun; she liked taking selfies and doing all the things that teenage girls do. She liked to get flowers for her friends for their birthdays. She was extremely giving. She had recently won the local Rotary competition for cheffing. Chiedza’s mother is the most incredible woman; meeting her was such an honour. She spoke to me at length about how grateful she was to both the off-duty doctor who spent a considerable period trying to rescue Chiedza from the water and the two off-duty nurses who spent a really long time doing their absolute best to revive Chiedza. I am sure she would also like me to say thank you to the members of New Life church; she is very grateful for their prayers for Chiedza. Chiedza’s mother is just a great inspiration, and I feel very strongly that we must do everything we possibly can to prevent further such tragedies in our community. You cannot participate in the debate, Ms McVey, but I know that you have a lake in your constituency at which there are regularly tragedies of this kind, and I am sure that you would want us to assure everybody that we will work on a cross-party basis in Cheshire to look at this issue on a local level. When we look at the statistics for child safety in water, we see that boys tend to die at twice the rate of girls, children in the most deprived communities die at twice the rate of more affluent children, and black children are three times more likely to die than white children. Luck should not determine whether children make it to adulthood; there are systemic problems here that we are failing to address. In my community, 39% of children with low family affluence can swim 25 metres, compared with 82% of children with high family affluence, so there is a systemic problem. Whether someone makes it to adulthood should not be an accident of birth, but at the moment it is. We need to strengthen the school curriculum. The aim is that children should leave primary school able to swim, but a third of children cannot. It seems to me that even if a child can swim at the end of year 4, if they do not have the opportunity to practise that skill in the years that follow, the chances that they will still be able to swim 25 metres when they are 16 are negligible. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen read out the terrible list of names of the many young people who died over the bank holiday weekend. Rather than regarding those as individual unfortunate accidents, we must look at what we need to change systemically when it comes to improving access to swimming for the wider community—including the availability and affordability of leisure centres and swimming lessons—and introducing greater consistency through the national curriculum so that children do not leave primary school unable to swim, and can still swim when they leave secondary school. There are a lot of steps that we could take; I was interested to hear the reference by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) to Sam’s law. We should absolutely look at opportunities in the clean water Bill. I know that Education Ministers have agreed to look at that, and I agree that we should be working cross-party and across Departments to ensure that we consistently prioritise our young people’s making it to adulthood. Since I became an MP, it has shocked me to learn how many young people die by some sort of misadventure in my community. It is not only drownings, but road accidents and issues associated with mental health problems. We need a consistent approach across the country to ensuring that our young people make it to adulthood, because they are not doing so at the rate that they should be. Too many young people are dying in my community. I go to too many schools where I see whole cohorts of bereaved children. It is not just about the families of the children who have died, although it is horrific for them; it is also about the impact on all their peers. My heart goes out so much to Chiedza’s cousin and the rest of her family. I really would like to impress upon the Minister that we must do something, systematically and urgently, about water safety. I know that she takes these issues very seriously. Given that we have so many avoidable deaths of young people, we must also look at ourselves as a society and consider whether we are committing our resources in the right places.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Southport Inquiry · Hansard source

  More

  I know that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families, as are mine. One of the many aspects of what has gone wrong here relates to children’s mental health services. Will the Home Secretary please outline what we are doing about the workforce in children’s mental health services? There is a real shortage of people who are skilled in that area.

• 12 Mar 2026 · Parental Rights at Work · Hansard source

  More

  Since 2004, the limit on relief for small employers at which they can reclaim statutory maternity pay has been set at £45,000. Small and medium-sized enterprises want to support working parents, but they need our help to do so. Will the Minister confirm whether that will be looked at as part of the parental leave review?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  The No Tier Snooker Society in Congleton has brought joy to those living with early onset dementia and a supportive circle for their families. It is played with revised rules—hence the name—and is a model for initiatives in other areas. It was set up by Ian, with help from nurse Denise Parr, and I am so pleased to see it spreading further. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Ian on his excellent initiative, thank the volunteers and local businesses who have supported it and grant a Backbench Business debate on community initiatives to support those with early onset dementia and their family members?

• 20 Nov 2025 · Migration: Settlement Pathway · Hansard source

  More

  I entirely agree that we need control of our borders in this country. In respect of transitional arrangements, over the next 12 years there will be an 83% increase in the number of over-80s in my constituency. Health and care visa workers are currently providing critical services to many of my constituents, as well as supporting the NHS. Can the Home Secretary confirm how the transitional arrangements will ensure that this care continues to be provided to my constituents?

• 20 Nov 2025 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

  More

  First, let me say an enormous thank you to my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) and for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) for talking so movingly about their own experiences. They are role models for us all. Speaking of role models, if one saw what was on the television and on social media about men, one would think that they were just a bunch of feckless teenagers who grew up into man-children. It is really distressing. I only know really good men. I am obviously fortunate, but the men in my life and my community are fantastic. They are great role models for their children, pillars of the community, businessmen and volunteers. My community is so much richer for the men in it, and my life is so much richer for the men in it. When I talk about men and boys, I would never want anyone to think that it was from a place of negativity, but I see so much negativity around me. It is fantastic, then, to see the work being done by my local boys’ school, which is having conversations with its year 7 group at the moment about masculinity, and about the different forms of social hierarchies among men and how that can work for them socially, or not. It is also fantastic that the Government have announced £60 million to rebuild large chunks of that school— I welcome that, as well as the men’s health strategy. So many fantastic community groups do mental health work and support the community in my constituency. I cannot list them all, but I give honourable mentions to Goostrey community shed; the Shed Crew in Holmes Chapel, which produces a lot of exciting things for the community; the Sandbach men walking and talking group; the Congleton Mentell circle; and the No Tier Snooker Society. None of them excludes women, but they all have an emphasis on ensuring that men can live their best lives. Enabling men to live their best lives includes increasing paid paternity leave, so I am campaigning for that alongside the Dad Shift, Pregnant Then Screwed and other organisations. It is extremely sad that self-employed men do not receive any paid paternity leave whatsoever, and it is incumbent on us as a Government to change that as soon as possible. Women get statutory maternity allowance, and I do not see any reason why the equivalent cannot be made available to men. Of course, I must also participate in the dad jokes. What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese! And what do we call two weeks of paternity leave? Not nearly enough.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

  More

  We must of course solve the immediate problem of accidental releases, which are a huge issue. However, for longer-term planning, we have a very high vacancy rate in our prisons. I understand what the Secretary of State has said about the work on bringing that down, but will he look at the Justice Committee’s recommendation to produce a 10-year plan for the prison system workforce in the same way as we do for the NHS?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

  More

  I would like to add my voice to my hon. Friend’s call for Hugh’s law and ask him if Edie was okay.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

  More

  The interrelationship between maternity allowance, which I made a point about earlier in the debate, and the £500 Sure Start grant is a problem, because if someone is self-employed, they are not eligible for that grant.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

  More

  Lots of people in the room will have heard me speak before about the fact that statutory paternity pay is so low that men commonly do not take it, and that shared parental leave is failing in that men do not take it up at all, particularly outside London. The result is that female work and participation in the workforce are massively hindered. What I really want to talk about is the fact that £187 a week simply does not provide enough for people to live on, and that 70% of children in poverty in the UK have at least one working parent; that group has the highest levels of poverty. We urgently need to look at what people actually need to live on when they have children, versus what we would like women to put up with. Women having been putting up with it for far too long. The reality is that 30% of domestic abuse starts during pregnancy, and statutory maternity pay ensures that an extremely vulnerable group of women do not have enough money to live on should they choose to leave their partners. This is not about making sure that we can all have posh prams; it is fundamentally about women being able to make decisions about their safety and the safety of their children. I do not think that gets nearly enough airtime in this Chamber. Finally, I draw attention to Maternity Action’s position on the treatment of maternity allowance for universal credit purposes. If someone receives statutory maternity pay, it is treated as pay and they get universal credit. If they receive statutory maternity allowance, it is not treated in the same way, and they are likely to be £6,000 a year worse off than they would be in an equivalent situation with SMP.

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

  More

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

  More

  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).