Sharon Hodgson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Jun 2025 · Anti-Stab and Anti-Slash Protective Gear in Prisons · Hansard source

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  I rise to present this petition in the light of recent horrific attacks on prison officers by inmates. Debate about whether prison officers should all be provided with anti-stab and anti-slash gear has been brought to the forefront of political discussion recently. We know that attacks can happen in any prison, as it did to my very brave constituent Claire Lewis, who as a result set up a Change.org petition calling for mandatory protective gear—it currently has 32,000 signatures. We must ensure that this is available to all officers, not just those working in high-security prisons. The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all prison officers are equipped with mandatory anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear to keep them safe from violent prisoners. And the petitioners remain, etc.” Following is the full text of the petition: [ The petition of residents of the constituency of Washington and Gat es head South Declares that the government and prison authorities should make anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear mandatory for all prison officers. There is also a separate online petition on this issue, which has generated over 32,000 signatures. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all prison officers are equipped with mandatory anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear to keep them safe from violent prisoners. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003083]

• 10 Jun 2025 · Prostitution and Sex Trafficking: Demand · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I congratulate her on securing this debate, however short—we are all managing to squeeze little bits in. Does she agree that those who argue that outlawing pimping websites will just drive this all underground are absolutely wrong? Actually, the reverse is seen: prosecution rates go up, so the demand decreases.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Free School Meals · Hansard source

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  I have chaired the all-party parliamentary group on school food since setting it up in 2010, so I know all too well the many benefits of free school meals, from the economic to health benefits—it is why I have campaigned for more than 18 years to extend free school meal provision. Providing more children than ever with free, healthy, hot and nutritious meals can be truly life changing. In my constituency, the provision will extend to a further 5,460 children, which is very welcome indeed, so I thank the Minister and our Government. Does the Minister agree that this down payment on the child poverty strategy is only the start of this Government’s mission to lift as many children out of poverty as possible, just as the previous Labour Government did?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  Twenty years ago, when first standing for election, I was told to limit my ambitions with regard to campaigning to bring the Metro to Washington, but I persisted and now, thanks to this Labour Government and the new Mayor of the North East, my ambition is going to be realised. Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree that that is the difference that Labour in government can make and that what we are seeing is promise made and promise delivered?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Next week marks the beginning of Coeliac Awareness Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness about coeliac disease, a serious autoimmune disease for which the only treatment is a strict gluten-free diet for life—it is not a fad. While coeliac disease affects one in 100 people in the UK, just 36% are medically diagnosed, leaving an estimated half a million people potentially facing debilitating symptoms yet being in the dark as to their cause. So will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time to mark this important month and to help raise important awareness of this terrible disease?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I commend him on all the work he does to represent his constituents. Interim payments were provided to victims of the contaminated blood scandal, as we know. Henrietta Hughes, the Patient Safety Commissioner, has detailed how to do it in her report. I ask the Government to look at that in detail when considering their response. If the Government are not moved by the moral case in respect of these health scandals, surely they cannot deny the economic toll they have taken on our public and mental health services. Although compensation would require finding money in what we all appreciate is a very tough fiscal situation, if we do nothing we will still need to find money: one payment will be given directly to the women and children harmed; if we do not do that, another will be have to be made for the provision of mental health services, for the NHS and for out-of-work benefits. We have a decision to make and, for me and the thousands of women and campaigners, the answer could not be simpler. I know from conversations with campaigners and constituents that the Government’s recent announcement on personal independence payments and welfare reform have caused anxiety for mesh and valproate victims who rely on those payments to survive. It is vital that we understand that the physical complications and illness caused by mesh and valproate are going to be with them for life, so they should not be forced into work if they cannot work. I spoke to the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst) recently, and he told me about his constituent, Julie Robinson, and her family’s experience of sodium valproate. Julie’s daughter Samantha has been severely impacted by the epilepsy drug that was prescribed during Julie’s pregnancy. They both live in Market Weighton, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He sends his apologies and asked me to raise the case of his constituent. I hope Members will allow me to list the seven complications Samantha has following the damage done to her by valproate while in uterus. She has neurodevelopment issues, including autism; memory difficulties; speech and language impairments; hearing and vision problems; heart defects requiring major surgery; a cleft lip and palate that led to a year in hospital; dysmorphic facial features at birth; and fine and gross motor challenges. It is quite a list. These conditions have significantly affected Samantha’s health and education and will persist throughout her life. There are thousands just like Samantha who will require lifelong care, which will also affect her parents’ ability to work. If a person can never work again because of mesh or valproate, they deserve support and to be treated with dignity. If they want to try to work, they should never be penalised or forced to go through reassessments and put under excessive anxiety or fear if it does not work for them and their family. Even prior to the welfare announcements, I have long argued for better education and empathy from the Department for Work and Pensions when assessing mesh and valproate victims. I hear from constituents impacted by mesh, for example, who would rather struggle financially than go through the gruelling and dehumanising process of explaining their condition and trying to claim the benefits they are entitled to. There needs to be proper and effective education among DWP staff about these health scandals, so that assessments are humiliation-free and quick for these women. While the valproate and mesh scandals differ in the specifics of the cases, the crux of them and the flags that they raise remain the same. Both affect women; both exemplify what happens when there is a lack of honesty and communication about the risks of medical procedures; and both highlight the need for increased transparency on the payments made to health professionals. They show the damage that is done when profit is put before people, when big firms avoid accountability and transparency and when—I have to say it—medical misogyny is allowed to run rife. I intend to emphasise those points, which I imagine colleagues will also touch on. Let us consider the valproate scandal. If warnings had been given at licensing, or in 1987, when Sanofi asked for information to be added to the patient information leaflet, the women and children impacted by valproate would not be in this position. Likewise with mesh, if women had been properly informed about the risks of adverse effects rather than being fed a false image, as my mam was, of “In and out; a quick 20-minute procedure that will change your life”—boy, did it change her life, but not for the better—we would not have thousands of women harmed on an irreversible scale.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  Yes, I agree. That is a huge part of the problem, especially with regard to medical devices. The Cumberlege report looked into the medications, but also medical devices, which is what mesh comes under. Often they are put into use for one thing and then used for something else without any further testing or investigation. I agree with the hon. Lady that that has got to stop. After all that these women, families and children have been through, compensation would help at the very least pay to their bills if they cannot work any longer, or help to ease the constant worry about how their child will be able to survive independently when they are gone. I have a constituent impacted by her mesh implant who is unable to work—like most of those affected—and therefore cannot afford the day-to-day necessities. She is in constant pain, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has lost all trust in medical professionals. Compensation would not reverse her physical or mental pain, but it would at least make her life easier. There are thousands just like her, including my very own mam, who is now aged 80. I have spoken in detail about her journey previously. The damage to her body and health from mesh is something she says she will regret to her dying day, which I hope is still many years off, even though mesh has ruined her long-awaited and hoped-for retirement by ruining her health.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I sincerely thank everyone who has made the time to come along and speak on this most vital issue. They have all made such valuable contributions to this debate, and it is really heartening for me to hear such a great degree of consensus across the House that there is a wrong to be righted and that this new Labour Government have the opportunity to do just that. There are so many hon. Members who would have liked to be here today. Indeed, while I was on my feet, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) messaged to send his apologies, so I said I would make sure that was on the record. I thank the Minister; the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans); and the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for listening and for their intelligent contributions. There is so much expertise on this issue across the House. If we cannot get this sorted, nobody can. I am particularly pleased that the Minister apologised on behalf of the Government again so fully and movingly. She actually moved me to tears—I do not know about anybody else—but I am a bit soft in that regard. I hope she will agree to meet campaigners to continue this conversation, as I know Baroness Merron has done in the other place. I am sure that everyone watching both from the Public Gallery and at home will have appreciated the empathy and the understanding that the Minister has shown in this debate. With a new Government, we have new opportunities and the chance to make a real difference to the thousands of women and children who were wronged through no fault of their own. We have all the information we need, thanks to the amazing Baroness Cumberlege and our fantastic Patient Safety Commissioner, to ensure that such scandals never happen again and that families are given compensation to help to rebuild their lives. We now have to act, as Members have said. I hope that this debate has highlighted to the Minister the urgency of that—I am sure that it has—and that she will have the conversations required to make this happen so that these wrongs can be righted at last and as soon as possible. If Members are willing, I ask that they gather at the bottom of the stairs outside this Chamber to join campaigners for a photo to mark this occasion, and to spend a few moments talking to them. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the first anniversary of the Hughes report on valproate and pelvic mesh.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which perhaps nobody else but him would have been able to make in this debate, so I thank him for it, and I do agree. The people harmed by mesh and valproate did nothing other than trust a medical professional’s judgment. The very least we should do is offer them compensation to help them navigate their now damaged lives, which they have had inflicted on them, most horrifyingly, by our very own NHS. The fact that the victims of these scandals are mainly women is no coincidence. I have recently spoken in this place about medical misogyny in our healthcare system, and some colleagues here were in that debate. I said then—and I say it again—that had the thousands of women impacted by these scandals been men, “I do not believe that dismissal on such a scale would have occurred.” —[ Official Report, 27 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 499WH.] We hear stories of women seeking advice from medical professionals, only to be told it is all in their head—that it is just their menstrual cycle or the menopause—or being gaslit into believing it must be anything other than the devices or medication they were prescribed. Women not being listened to by medical professionals not only perpetuates structural misogyny; it endangers lives. It is so heartening to see so many male colleagues in this debate, because it proves that we can change things and that it does not have to be this way. Issuing compensation to these women would, at least and at last, confirm that they were right to be concerned and that they were not being hysterical—we know why it is called a “hysterectomy”—which is something women have been accused of for many hundreds of years when it comes to our health. As well as medical misogyny, part of the defensiveness and dismissal stems from the huge sums given to the healthcare system by the industry, which creates bias. Knowing that that is the case is not enough: the UK needs to adopt sunshine legislation to ensure that this information is fully declared, in the same way that all of us in this room, as MPs, have to make declarations. That information should be presented via a centralised public database that is totally independent of industry. As we all know, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we need to act now to prevent future scandals. I am conscious of time, and colleagues will have a lot to say and experiences to share, so I will end my remarks by leaving the Minister with a few quick questions—sorry, Minister. Will she provide Members and campaigners here today, and the no doubt many victims of these scandals watching at home on the internet, with a timeline for when we can expect a Government response to the excellent Hughes report? If she is unable to do that today, will she commit to writing to Baroness Merron to ask for a timeframe? Will the Minister explain what scope there is for the Government to implement a sunshine-style piece of legislation to ensure the transparency of payments made by industry to our healthcare sector? In the spirit of cross-departmental working, which I know the Government are committed to, will she write to the Work and Pensions Secretary for reassurance that victims of the valproate and mesh scandals will not be subject to reassessment and forced into work, given their physical and mental complications? Finally, in her new role, will she commit to meeting campaigners, many of whom are here today, to hear at first hand about the valproate and mesh scandals, if she did not do that in her previous role as a Back-Bench MP? I thank the Minister in advance for her consideration, and I look forward to her answers. I will end with this: we have rightly seen compensation for the infected blood scandal, which I mentioned at the start of my remarks, the Post Office scandal and the Grenfell disaster. Those all involved innocent people whose lives were turned upside down, whether physically, mentally or worse, through no fault of their own. I fail to see how the mesh and valproate scandals do not meet the same criteria, and I encourage anyone opposed to compensation to consider that.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the first anniversary of the Hughes report on valproate and pelvic mesh. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. It is a delight to see such a well-attended debate and a packed Public Gallery, as this is a very important topic. Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the publication of the Hughes report. Thanks to that report, we now understand what the potential compensation schemes for women and children impacted by the mesh and valproate scandals could look like. I will briefly break convention to say how grateful I am for the passion and hard work of our Patient Safety Commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, who—gosh!—has not managed to get into the public Gallery. Somebody might want to tell her there is a spare chair. Can somebody make sure she is allowed in, because it is her report we are discussing? [ Interruption. ] There she is. I thank our wonderful Patient Safety Commissioner, who has thankfully now been let into the room. It is great to see so many campaigners, who have been a great help and source of expertise and support to me over many years. I particularly thank Kath Sansom from Sling the Mesh, and Janet Williams and Emma Murphy from the Independent Fetal Anti-convulsant Trust, or In-FACT, as well as many more—too many to name. I am also glad to see Charlie and Lesley Bethune, who have tirelessly campaigned on behalf of their daughter, Autumn. They have travelled all the way down from Scotland. Their MP, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), cannot be here today, but he sends his sincere apologies. They would welcome an undertaking from the Minister and the UK Government to engage with those affected in Scotland, recognising that this is a UK-wide issue. Like so many others, they would also welcome progress on a response. Every Member present will have a constituent who is affected by one of these health scandals. At least 7,000 children have been harmed by the drug valproate since it first came on to the market in 1973, with an estimated further 28 per month exposed to it, and at least 40,000 women across the country have been injured by mesh. It is important to note that the actual figures are likely to be much higher due to a lack of awareness and many parents being reluctant to label their children. Putting an exact number on these things can therefore be extremely convoluted and difficult. Regardless, these are not just statistics: behind each number is the story of a woman who trusted a healthcare professional and was horrifyingly let down, a woman or a child who has been damaged irreversibly, a woman who has had to alter her life to accommodate for the physical, mental and financial toll of these scandals.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb). I am so happy that his name was drawn in the private Member’s Bill ballot, and that he has chosen this excellent subject and most important topic for his Bill. As my hon. Friend said, school food has been available for almost 120 years. That is thanks to an MP for Bradford —little known by most—called Fred Jowett, who introduced the concept in his private Member’s Bill in 1906. My hon. Friend follows in the footsteps of a great man, and I thank him for that. Free school meals have existed in one form or another for the best part of 80 years, meaning that countless generations of children have received a hot, nutritious meal at lunch time. They are life-changing for pupils—no one knows that better than I do. Growing up as a recipient of free school meals, from almost the day I started school to the day I left school, the knowledge that there would be food at lunch time gave my mam, me and my brothers the security that I would not be hungry going into the rest of the school day. I echo the feelings of stigma that my hon. Friends the Members for Crawley and for Telford (Shaun Davies) have spoken about. I also recall having a different dinner ticket and, even worse, having a different meal queue to stand in. Our queue was served after the paid-for children were served; it is horrifying, I know. I am glad to say that that does not happen any more—children are not separated in such an abhorrent way—but the stigma is still very real and alive today, no matter how hard schools try to alleviate it through cashless systems and so on. Ask any child in school, “Who are the children on free school meals?”, and they will look to them straightaway. They all know. I have been to many schools over 20 years; I always ask them, and they always nod sheepishly that they know—sometimes because they are that very child, but sometimes because they know who those other children are. That stigma never leaves you; it stays with you, and in the sixth richest economy in the world, we should not be subjecting our children in school to that stigma any longer. We are all aware of the countless, cross-cutting benefits of free school meals, so I will not waste the House’s time by relisting them all; I will only say that, from increased attendance to attainment and more, free school meals are a multifaceted policy with widespread benefits across society. I am proud to be the founder and current chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food since 2010. The group was instrumental in shaping the universal infant free school meals scheme, along with the authors of the school food plan, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, and we are still in discussion on the best delivery of the universal primary breakfast club programme. We—I, the MPs involved and all the stakeholders, who I think number 300 now—all want the early adopter to be a huge success. The all-party parliamentary group met only yesterday, and the Wilson Room was packed. The group is always well attended by school food stakeholders: we had around 50 in attendance yesterday, but I have known us to fill Committee Room 14 with 80 to 100 attendees, and I hope the Minister knows he has an open invitation to attend when his diary allows. The early adopter scheme, due to roll out to the first 750 schools this April, will show us where lessons can be learned for a smooth introduction to all primary schools next year—but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley has already said, this Government can and should go further. We can make marginal, low-cost improvement to the statutory free school meals scheme that we already have by introducing an opt-out system, as outlined in the Bill. We will capture around 200,000 children who are eligible for this crucial support but are not currently receiving it. Admin barriers should not mean that one in 10 students whose household income is already below the £7,400 threshold before benefits, miss out on free school meals support when they need it most. This auto-enrolment Bill cannot be seen as extra spending. Government funding already exists for the children who are not claiming this statutory support, so it is the lowest of low-hanging fruit. Moreover, increased free school meals uptake unlocks, as we have heard, a whole host of other benefits, including vital pupil premium funding of up to £1,455 extra per child. If this House wants to talk about better education funding, surely unlocking funding that already exists is the most logical and economically efficient way of doing that? In closing, extending free school meals by automatic registration to these most needy 200,000 children should be a no-brainer for any Government and a moral imperative for this Labour Government. I hope to see this Government and this Minister rectify that at their earliest opportunity.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) on securing this important debate. Several decades ago, the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine bore strong parallels to each another. They both faced large-scale terrorist insurgencies with urban warfare tactics that had never been seen before, deeply polarised populations and horrific damage wrought on innocent lives. Most importantly, they shared the fact that many sceptics painted the fighting as the product of ancient and intractable religious disputes, and thus hand-waved away any prospects of peace. But today they look very different. Opposed interests on the island of Ireland now have a legitimate political channel and dialogue through the provisions of the Good Friday agreement, while conflicts between those on the territory of Israel and Palestine arguably reached their highest intensity in over half a century prior to the recent ceasefires. Of course, each historical experience is unique, and it would be an oversimplification to take the comparison too far, but I believe we must always bear the Northern Irish example in mind in our approach to an international fund and wider peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine, especially considering our country’s first-hand experience of the disastrous consequences of unresolved conflict. In particular, I propose two major ways that we stand to gain from thinking about the troubles. First, we can learn the lessons of the Irish peacebuilding experience. Although negotiations over Israel and Palestine, such as those that led to the Oslo accords, have been largely top down and sometimes entirely secret projects of men in smoke-filled rooms, the Good Friday agreement was far more inclusive, paying attention to left-out voices, the unconvinced women and the international community. Much of the credit for getting civil society engaged in Ireland must go to the International Fund for Ireland, which our own Jonathan Powell has called “the great unsung hero of the peace process”. Fact-finding visits to Northern Ireland by Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organisations found that the IFI’s strategic approach to funding—with an independent body, tight public-private donor co-ordination and field officers from the affected communities—made all the difference. Civil society was the glue that brought communities together and has continued to hold them together despite the increased uncertainty of recent years. Although I have to finish my speech due to the time limit, I want to acknowledge that, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the new fund would have to be considerably greater.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Women’s Health · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) for securing this important debate, and for her excellent opening speech. There are so many things that I want to talk about, but for time’s sake, I will focus my remarks around the importance of women being believed by healthcare professionals, and the detrimental effect on women when that is not the case. The UK has the largest female health gap in the G20, and that is attributed in part to the misdiagnosis of conditions in women. It is absolutely shocking that eight in 10 women in this country report not being listened to by healthcare professionals. [ Official Report, 4 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 4WC.] (Correction) Those discrepancies extend beyond the confinement of the consulting room; they actively reinforce beliefs among wider society that women’s symptoms, no matter how debilitating, are normal. That is likely to prevent so many women from seeking medical advice, ultimately putting them at risk. Therefore, that widespread problem does not just perpetuate systemic misogyny but directly impacts women’s health outcomes and endangers their lives. Published in August 2022, the 10-year women’s health strategy for England included a six-point plan on how to improve health outcomes and the way that the healthcare system listens to women. No. 1 on the list was to ensure that women’s voices are heard. In the month of the first anniversary of the publication of the excellent Hughes report, there is no better time to speak on an apt example of what happens when women’s voices are not heard. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on first do no harm, mesh, Primodos, valproate, I campaigned for justice and compensation on behalf of the thousands of women who live with the consequences every day of what happens when women’s voices are not listened to. The mesh scandal in particular exemplifies that perfectly. To set the scene, it is believed that 40,000 women in this country could be affected by mesh damage and complications, and 10,000 of those women have been left with disabilities, as the mesh has cut into their organs and nerves. I hear from mesh-impacted constituents who describe desperate situations of poverty, depression and isolation as a result. Many have lost their jobs, their marriages and their trust in a service that is supposed to be there for us when we are sick, not make us sick. Perhaps even worse was the treatment of those women when they realised that it was the mesh that was causing their health complications. The women then report being gaslit, undermined and ridiculed when trying to sort out a mess they had no part in making, or even consenting to in most cases. Among the thousands of mesh-injured women is my own mam. I personally sat next to her at our local hospital and watched her be gaslit and undermined by her original surgeon when she first sought help with her pain and symptoms. Despite now having had her mesh removed by the wonderful Dr Suzy Elneil in London, the complications sadly do not stop there. The way mesh attaches to our organs has been likened to the way that chewing gum gets caught in our hair, so it is almost impossible to fully remove it. As such, regardless of the removal, my mam, now 80, is still struggling and in her own words, will never be the same again. The important point is that had my mam and the thousands of others affected been men suffering horrendous pain as a result of a medical procedure, I do not believe that dismissal on such a scale would have occurred. Nor do I believe that compensation and recognition of the scandal would be such a painfully slow process. Before I finish, I put on record my gratitude to my friend who recently retired from the other place, Baroness Cumberlege, for all her work on this issue. I will leave it there, as I am out of time.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q14. A significant part of the dreadful legacy left by the previous Conservative Government is the chronic underfunding of transport infrastructure, especially in the north-east, as we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah). Does the Prime Minister agree with me and the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, that redevelopment of the disused Leamside line would reconnect Gateshead with north Durham, and that increasing the capacity on the east coast main line would help to bring the Metro to Washington in my constituency, bringing much-needed jobs, growth and opportunities to my region?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Coalfield Communities · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent opening speech on a topic that is so important for all our communities. I am sure that he is as shocked as I am to learn of the severe health inequalities in coalfield communities; the average life expectancy is around a year less than the national average, and around three years less than that in the south-east. For the north-east, it is even worse. Does he agree that for these communities, these health inequalities are the long-term legacy, and that is why we need to ensure that coalfield communities are properly supported, even in this day?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Coalfield Communities · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has mentioned commuting and infrastructure. Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), those things are important in connecting people from Durham to jobs in Washington at Nissan, and at other great companies there, such as Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems. Does he agree that there has been under-investment for years in the infrastructure that he is talking about, and especially in transport infrastructure, which makes projects such as the Leamside line, which our Mayor of the North-East supports, so important for creating the connectivity that we need?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Coalfield Communities · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the publication of the Hughes report, which found that the children left disabled by valproate and the women injured by pelvic mesh implants for life should be given urgent financial compensation. One year on, we are yet to see an official Government response to that report. The Leader of the House will know how important it is that women are listened to by healthcare professionals. Surely she agrees that when they are dismissed and left physically damaged by those who were supposed to have protected them, financial redress is deserved. Will she grant a debate in Government time to allow MPs from across this House—we all have constituents who have raised this with us—to discuss the recommendations of the all-important Hughes report to mark this significant occasion?

• 4 Feb 2025 · National Cancer Plan · Hansard source

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  On this World Cancer Day, will my hon. Friend the public health Minister tell me what efforts he is making to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer, such as a bloated tummy, lack of appetite or feeling full, tummy pain or needing to pee more often, in order to increase lifesaving early diagnosis?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Defence Procurement: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. To simplify the point he is making, we should all remember that from small acorns great oaks grow, and even big companies in my constituency such as Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems will have started at some point as an SME. What he is suggesting today would help those SMEs that we all have in our constituencies maybe one day to grow into those grand great oaks.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Competition and Markets Authority Chairman · Hansard source

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  Having spent 15 years dealing with the CMA in my campaign to end the abuse of the secondary ticketing market, I have long felt that the CMA is in desperate need of much stronger and clearer ministerial oversight. Can the Minister confirm today which Minister will have oversight of the CMA, and that it will be an active role, not a role in name only?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Auditory Verbal Therapy · Hansard source

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  I thank everyone who has taken the time to come along and made such excellent contributions on this vital issue. I thank the Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), who spoke for the Opposition, and the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who spoke for the Lib Dems, for listening. I was happy to hear that the Minister will meet AVUK and explore the potential of a pilot. That is great news. I hope that he might also get a chance to speak to Sam today—that would be wonderful. I also hope that, if NICE deems—as we all have—that this therapy is both clinically and economically valuable, he will update the guidance to ICBs. The Minister also mentioned the NHS 10-year plan. I hope he recognises that it has already been nine years since the guidance was updated and that the issue needs urgent attention, perhaps towards the start of the 10-year plan rather than the end of it; otherwise, we will be getting on for 20 years. Today, we have the opportunity—the Minister especially—to change the fate of deaf children in this country. They deserve the same opportunities and outcomes as their hearing peers. That surely cannot be a controversial position. These children are the future. We must invest in them, not only because it is the right thing to do morally, but because any financial investment will produce economic returns in abundance. Mainly, we should invest in them because our children deserve it.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Auditory Verbal Therapy · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the provision of auditory verbal therapy. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship this fine morning, Mr Western. I thank all hon. Members, especially the new Members, who have come along to speak in this all-important debate, which I have the privilege of opening. I thank the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock) and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for attending. I am delighted to see in the Gallery Sam and his parents, whom I met when I sponsored Auditory Verbal UK’s parliamentary drop-in back in October last year—how time flies! At that reception, I was talking to Sam and some of the other young people there, and I asked whether any deaf children had come along, only to be told that all the children I had been talking to were actually deaf, including Sam. That is the difference this therapy can make, and why I am so passionately supporting and making this case today. Sam was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf at five weeks old. It was not until Auditory Verbal UK was recommended to Sam’s parents by a friend of a friend, by chance, that his fate changed forever. With the help of auditory verbal therapy, Sam learned to listen and talk just like his peers. Now 13 years old, Sam can speak and do anything he puts his mind to. He is doing really well at school, I am told, and will enjoy the same opportunities as his hearing friends. For children like Sam, Auditory Verbal UK has been life-changing. Its specialist work and support provided to deaf children and their families is truly remarkable. I am therefore glad to also see representatives from AVUK here today. They will always have my support and should be very proud of the work they do. Sam stands today as living proof that when deaf children and their families have access to early, effective support to develop language and communication, opportunities are transformed. If the Government, or anyone here or watching at home, need convincing of the clear, compelling and existing evidence of the benefits of auditory verbal therapy, they have only to look to children like Sam. Although all deaf children would benefit extraordinarily from auditory verbal therapy, the truth is that they will not all be as lucky as Sam. The current reality is that more than 90% of deaf children under the age of five in the UK are unable to access auditory verbal therapy, because there is little to no provision through publicly funded services. Currently, there are a mere 33 certified auditory verbal therapists in the UK. It is clear that these wonderful therapists, who hold the potential to transform the lives of our deaf children, are sadly few and far between. In the whole of the north-east, there are no qualified auditory verbal therapists. Deaf children in my constituency of Washington and Gateshead South, for example, are unable to access this support through publicly funded services. This postcode-lottery approach to healthcare is simply unacceptable. This is the situation in spite of public research that shows that a huge 83% of adults from the north-east believe that auditory verbal therapy should be available to all deaf children via publicly funded services. We know the therapy works and that there is public support for its roll-out throughout the country, so what are we waiting for? Raising awareness that support is out there is just the first hurdle, because if impacted families are aware of the therapy but have no qualified therapists in their area, their challenges persist. Even Sam’s journey from discovering auditory verbal therapy to completing it was far from smooth sailing. With no access to the therapy via public services local to him, he and his family had to travel weekly to Oxfordshire from Eastbourne so that they could access this life-changing therapy. Not all deaf children and their families can afford the privilege of time or money to go to such lengths every week, as much as they may want to. Certainly, not all deaf children have the privilege of having a qualified therapist in their area, which is a clear problem. We absolutely need to address that inequality of access. To extend access, we need to train more specialist practitioners in auditory verbal therapy. By equipping a small proportion of the speech and language therapists, audiologists and teachers of the deaf who are currently working in the public sector with additional skills in this approach, we can enable every family who wants their deaf child to learn to listen and talk to access auditory verbal therapy through publicly funded services close to where they live. Training is already happening, with UK professionals already qualified and others on their training journey. This is possible only thanks to the fundraising efforts of the charity Auditory Verbal UK, including two teachers of the deaf in the north-east who remain in training. There is a clear route for professionals to become trained in auditory verbal therapy, as well as a cohort of public sector professionals who can then share their experience of training and how it has enhanced their practice. Research points towards the fact that as a result of pursuing the training and qualifying as listening and spoken language specialists, professionals recognise significant growth in their knowledge and skills, equipping them to train others who can then do the same—the “train the trainers” model. There are around 50,000 deaf children in the UK, and 7,200 of them are under the age of five. They currently face the prospect of lower academic achievement and employment, and they are at a higher risk of poor mental health, bullying and social exclusion. Deaf children are almost twice as likely as all children to complete their first year of school without having achieved a good level of development in relation to the early years foundation. The statistics clearly highlight a stark difference between hearing and non-hearing peers in quality of life, educational attainment, employment rates and mental wellbeing. If the moral argument is not convincing enough, surely no one can deny the huge economic returns. Economic analysis based on His Majesty’s Treasury guidelines shows that an investment of just £2 million per year for the next 10 years for training a proportion of the existing public sector workforce could deliver a whopping £152 million of economic benefit to the UK. That is a massive £11.7 billion over a 50-year period. The economic savings are huge, including £3.4 billion through less need for one-to-one support throughout primary school; £1 billion of increased employment; £4 billion due to increased quality of life; a £7.5 million decrease in Government support; and £30.5 million saved through avoided injury. It is a small economic investment that will transform the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in this country, while also bringing us huge economic returns. Surely this is a no-brainer. So long as the UK remains unconvinced, we are falling behind as other countries trailblaze the way. Auditory verbal therapy is already state-funded in countries including Australia, New Zealand and Denmark, and the success rates speak volumes. In 2022, following a successful Government-funded pilot in Denmark that showed that 84% of children acquired age-equivalent spoken language after just three years of AVT, compared with 30% previously, auditory verbal therapy became part of the standard healthcare system there. The irony is that here in the UK we are now training many Danish professionals in AV therapy to deliver it to children in Denmark, despite being unable to support our own workforce to enhance their skills to get those outcomes for children here in the UK. That cannot be right. I thank the Minister for his time and leave him with three questions. First, what scope is there for the UK to implement a pilot scheme, in the same way that Denmark did, at least to prove the transformation potential of this therapy in a couple of areas, for those who remain unconvinced? Secondly, will he commit to supporting the need to increase access to auditory verbal therapy, and provide the investment needed when the funding allows? Thirdly, will he meet the deaf children and families charity Auditory Verbal UK, from which representatives are here today, to hear at first hand about the impact of early support, and the charity’s tangible plans to enable families to access the therapy wherever they live in the UK? I thank the Minister in advance and look forward to hearing the other speakers. I look forward to the Minister’s response after he has listened to colleagues’ perspectives in this very important debate.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Auditory Verbal Therapy · Hansard source

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  Am I right in thinking, from what the Minister has just said, that he will issue revised guidance following today’s debate? Am I right that the Government, having given an extra £26 billion to local areas, will give them guidance that they should be looking to commission these services on a much bigger scale, so that we have more than 33 AVT therapists?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  This has been an excellent and wide-ranging debate, and I am so happy to have the opportunity to speak in it. I commend the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), who I have worked with over a number of years, for his excellent speech. It is always really hard to talk about oneself, but he did it with grace. Listening to his really thoughtful contribution today will have helped a lot of people—it has definitely helped me. As hon. Members know, I am a huge supporter of school food. I make lots of contributions about it in this place; I believe that it should be universal, for all the reasons that I will go on to discuss. It is not only about stigma, poverty alleviation and all of that, but about the health benefits that all children eating healthy school food would bring, especially in regard to their diet and obesity. Looking at schools up and down the country, the food that they serve is far too inconsistent. We have seen some brilliant examples across the country—we have all visited schools in our constituencies that serve a variety of salads and nutritious hot meals—but others are serving things like pizzas, burgers or chips far more often than they should be doing under the school food standards. That is damaging the health of a generation. The report by the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee, chaired by the wonderful Baroness Walmsley, discussed the fact that too many secondary schools in particular were serving up food that was not preparing students for the rest of their school day. As Members across the House know, this is where the school food standards should come in. However, a study by Impact on Urban Health shows significant differences between what is mandated by the school food standards, what appears on menus, and what actually ends up on plates. In fact, 60% of secondary schools have been found not to follow the school food standards at all. In other words, the school food standards exist on paper, but not on plates. That is why, across the sector and in this House, we have been calling for proper enforcement of the school food standards. This Government must end the postcode lottery in what children get to eat at lunchtime. There is no greater priority for this Government than raising the healthiest generation of children ever. This is a matter of health: one in three children are already at risk of future food-related ill health, such as type 2 diabetes or heart disease, by the age of 10. Existing Government initiatives are already going above and beyond to combat that, and providing a free breakfast to every primary school child will ensure that pupils are starting their day nourished and ready to learn, but there is more to be done. The Department for Education has reported that 11% of families nationally who are entitled to claim free school meals have not applied to receive them. This means that between 240,000 and 470,000 children in England—the figure seems to vary depending on who you talk to, but it is a large number—are missing out on their statutory right to a free school meal. This is due to barriers such as complex applications, language or literacy challenges, stigma and low awareness. An auto-enrolment plan, as outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) in his private Member’s Bill—the Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill—and by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) in his opening speech, would solve the problem. Many local authorities have already had massive success, but data-sharing challenges or bureaucracy should not prevent children from eating at school, especially when they are entitled to a free school meal. Because free school meals are a statutory scheme, Government funding should already exist to provide the up to 470,000 missing children with a school lunch, so this should not be seen as a spending commitment. That funding also unlocks vital pupil premium funding. Since 2016, Sheffield city council has unlocked £3.8 million of extra pupil premium funding every single year to support 5,400 children. Small tweaks like auto-enrolment really can have huge impacts on thousands of children’s lives. Another concern that must be addressed is the scarily low eligibility criteria for free school meals. Households must be earning less than £7,400 a year before benefits to be entitled. That leaves out up to 900,000 children who are living in poverty by any measure but are not in receipt of that crucial support. We have heard examples of children pretending to eat from empty lunchboxes, hiding in the playground because they do not want others to know that they do not have any food or money for lunch, or asking their friends for an extra sandwich for their friend who never has any food for lunch. We must bring the eligibility criteria in line with universal credit, which would provide those 900,000 children with a hot, nutritious meal at lunchtime. Surely that is the least we should be doing in one of the richest countries in the world. In an ideal world, we would follow the example of the London Mayor and extend free school meals to all primary-age children, with the ambition of a universal offer. This would level the playing field and eliminate inequality at lunchtime, while also ensuring that all children eat healthy, nutritious meals, setting them up for a healthier life as adults with lower rates of obesity. As we have heard, that would save up to £35 billion a year. It is a win-win, surely. These progressive steps, empowered by the new breakfast club programme, should be taken when funding allows. The results would speak for themselves, delivering on our ambitious manifesto commitment for the UK to be raising the healthiest generation of children ever. Surely they deserve no less. They are our future, after all.