Shockat Adam MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · Culture, Media And Sport · Hansard source

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  I recently read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which is a powerful account of life in a concentration camp. There is a poignant part of that book where victims and concentration camp prisoners, talking to each other at the end of the day when they could barely keep their eyes open, go and witness a sunset because its beauty brings out something in them that would keep them going for the next day. The reason I talk about that is that it demonstrates the importance of art, in any shape or form. It can help our young people and those who are looking to improve their ill health. Creative art for young people is routinely treated as discretionary spending: nice if there is money left over, but expendable the moment that there is not. I pay homage to the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who has done a lot of work on this subject. He recently held a roundtable where he showed that ill health currently costs the UK economy £212 billion a year, with 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness. However, arts and health interventions are estimated to return up to £8.56 in social value for every £1 spent. We also know that poor mental health costs the economy an estimated £300 billion annually. Conversely, cultural engagement among 18 to 30-year-olds shows an average wellbeing benefit of £854 per person. Evidence on social prescribing tells the same story in cash terms; reductions in GP and A&E attendance and hospital admissions could represent around a £4 saving on every £1 spent on a link worker’s salary. The 2023 “Creative Health Review” found that the problem is not a lack of evidence, but fragmented funding. I will quickly pay homage to some organisations in my city that are utilising arts to improve the mental health of young people and the recovery of those who are unwell. Since October last year, the Shine programme, launched by the Curve theatre in partnership with the Randal Foundation, has brought drama-based sessions into five Leicester city-centre schools, reaching 250 teenagers in some of our most disadvantaged communities. The early findings from Dr Lyndsey Bakewell at De Montfort University are striking: every student involved has reported doing something they have never done before, and teachers have reported an increase in student resilience across the board. One participating pupil described feeling comfortable speaking in front of others—something that they had always found difficult. That is what early intervention looks like. There is also Talent 25, which is De Montfort University’s extraordinary 25-year longitudinal study, led by Professor Bertha and funded by the Arts Council. It is following 440 children from across Leicester, from birth into adulthood, tracking the effects of regular access to arts and creativity on a child’s development. The early findings are positive among the children now starting school, with researchers reporting no unauthorised absences and parents describing real, lasting changes in their own lives, reduced isolation—

• 15 Jun 2026 · Brain Cancer · Hansard source

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  I will begin by paying homage to a young girl by the name of Eiliyah: when her tumour took over her right hand, she began to learn to draw with her left, because she loved arts and crafts more than anything else. When she could not dart around any more, she started to bum-shuffle everywhere. She was unfortunately diagnosed with DIPG, one of the most aggressive childhood brain tumours known to medicine. The family had a bit of hope but, before proper treatment could start, the tumour returned again. Her family could only watch as she lost her movement, her speech, her sight and finally her ability to eat. She died on 2 May this year, surrounded by those who loved her. She was just a child. Eiliyah’s aunt asked me quietly to speak for her today, but I would like to speak quietly also for my own sister, only a handful of years older than me, who went from full of life to grade 4 glioblastoma and then death in under six months. During that time, she was barely offered any treatment at all, and what she was offered was decades old. That is the heart of the problem: as we have heard today, brain cancer is the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, yet our survival rates lag behind most of Europe. Nowhere is that cost clearer, as we have heard, than on tissue freezing, so will the Minister commit to a national standard for tissue freezing? I ask the Minister for three things: first, to increase brain cancer research funding urgently and substantially, with ringfenced investment for diseases such as DIPG; secondly, to ensure that every patient can access whole-genome sequencing; and, finally, to enshrine the right to try—the right to reach clinical trials, innovative treatments and immunotherapies even when standard treatment has failed. Treatments have not meaningfully changed in decades. Eiliyah deserved better; my sister Shahida deserved better; Owain deserved better; the families who will hear the words “brain cancer” for the first time this week deserve better. I urge the Minister to act, and to act now.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Community Pharmacies · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this debate. She, the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) and all colleagues have dispensed some great ideas today. [ Laughter. ] Sorry, but it does not end there. The Minister and Members may be aware—I might not have mentioned it enough—that I am one of the only practising optometrists to be a Member of Parliament, and optometrists share many of the concerns and challenges that our pharmacy colleagues face. I surpass the hon. Member for North Somerset in having been a community-based optometrist for nearly three decades. I want to address many of the points that have been made. First, our GPs are facing real burnout. There is a lag in the number of GPs who are qualifying and taking up positions. In lower socioeconomic areas, of which there are many in my Leicester South constituency, there are 1,985 patients per GP. There are 300 more patients per GP in those areas and, as has been mentioned, pharmacists really do plug the gap, saving 38 million GP appointments and doing incredible work. The Government’s 10-year health plan is built on the bold premise of shifting care out of hospitals and into our communities. We all support that ambition—of course we do—but we cannot deliver care in the community if we are not allowing community infrastructure to thrive, and that is precisely what is happening to pharmacies at the moment. Since 2017, England has lost more than 1,400 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, which is a net loss of 15% of the entire network. In Leicester, five pharmacies have shut down in the last calendar year alone. There are now fewer than 10,000 pharmacies open in England, and nearly 64,000 opening hours a week have disappeared since 2022. Between 2021 and 2025, the sector lost 3,000 full-time equivalent pharmacists. Funding was cut in 2016 and held flat for eight years, and the sector has absorbed real-terms cuts of 30%. Pharmacies, unlike other businesses, cannot pass on their costs to their customers. They cannot manage demand by extending their waiting lists, and 90% to 95% of their income comes from the NHS. They are, in effect, trapped. We all welcome the £340 million uplift announced for 2026-27 and the decision to begin integrating independent prescribing into Pharmacy First and the Pharmacy Contraception Service. Those are welcome steps, and everything of that nature is going in the right direction. However, NPA analysis shows that 8.9% is needed simply to allow pharmacy budgets to stand still—to absorb the national living wage, employers’ national insurance contributions, inflation and business rates. The settlement is just 1.3 percentage points above that threshold; it does not close the £2 billion funding gap that the NHS’s independent review identified a year ago. Much of the uplift will be swallowed by costs before a single patient sees any benefit. I am not just here to outline the problems, as there are positives. Community pharmacies represent one of the greatest untapped opportunities in modern healthcare, and I say that as someone who has seen community-based clinical practice at work. Independent prescribing is, as the sector rightly calls it, a generational opportunity. Pharmacists already have the clinical skills. With the right framework and investment, they can manage long-term conditions, initiate and adjust medicines and take pressure directly off GPs—not as a stopgap, but as a genuine, permanent part of the primary care team. Beyond prescribing, pharmacies are ideally placed to deliver integrated healthcare and lifestyle services, such as smoking cessation, weight management, hypertension case-finding and alcohol interventions. In my experience in community eye care, the closer we embed clinical services in high street settings, the better the uptake by patients who would never otherwise engage with the NHS. Pharmacies are trusted, accessible and visited regularly—far more than any GP surgery. Medicine optimisation is another point. With an ageing population on complex polypharmacy regimes, pharmacists conducting structured medication reviews can reduce harm, cut millions of pounds in waste and improve outcomes. This is not aspirational; it is proven. We are simply failing to fund it at scale. I have a repeat prescription for the Minister. First, publish a road map to close the pharmacy funding gap with above-inflation increases—not in one year, but as a sustained multi-year commitment. Pharmacies cannot plan, invest or recruit without it. Secondly, match investment in retained margins with real action on medicine pricing. The UK is an unattractive market for global suppliers, and medicine shortages flow directly from that. That is a patient safety issue. Thirdly, be genuinely ambitious on independent prescribing. The autumn roll-out into Pharmacy First is a start, but we need a shared vision of what full deployment looks like in this Parliament, with the funding to match. Finally, address the workforce crisis by setting out concrete steps to grow the pharmacy workforce in parallel with any expansion of services. New services on the backs of a depleted workforce will fail.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  We all cherish the NHS, and all of us in this Chamber have a duty to ensure that anybody who does not believe in the basic principle that care should follow need, not wealth, must be nowhere near the jewel in our crown that is the NHS. I begin with primary care—or, indeed, the glaring inequality in primary care. Practices in the most deprived areas carry, on average, 300 more patients per fully qualified GP than those in the least deprived. That gap has grown by 50% since 2018. In Leicester—my constituency and my home—there are 1,985 patients per GP, which is significantly above the national average. The Bill introduces a statutory duty to reduce health inequalities and, under clause 24, to produce neighbourhood health plans, but a plan without the workforce to deliver it is a plan in name only. I must also declare my interest as a practising optometrist. Clause 14 gives integrated care boards new responsibilities over primary care services, and the Bill transfers commissioning of NHS sight tests from a national framework to individual ICBs. I completely understand the logic of localisation, but I have already seen what happens in practice. In Coventry and Warwickshire, a community urgent eye care service that was diverting more than 13,000 A&E attendances per year was withdrawn at the end of 2025. In Hampshire, community glaucoma schemes have been moved back into hospitals. This is the postcode lottery in action. Glaucoma affects approximately 700,000 people in the UK, with about half of them walking around undiagnosed. It causes irreversible sight loss, it increases the risk of falls, and it carries serious long-term costs for both the NHS and social care, and we now have the technology to address it more efficiently than ever. The iStent inject device can be inserted during routine cataract surgery in a single procedure, treating both conditions simultaneously. This is exactly the kind of innovation that the 10-year health plan calls for, yet uptake is inconsistent because there is no national commissioning guidance. I urge the Government to ensure that the single patient record supports consistent clinical decision making across the glaucoma pathway, and that integrated care boards are required, not merely permitted, to commission those procedures. The Bill also abolishes NHS England, and we have heard much about that. History gives us cause for concern, especially when it comes to private finance initiative arrangements, which have cost the NHS tens of billions of pounds over decades. Let me end by saying something about the Palantir question. The creation of a single patient record is welcome, but the vessel matters as much as the vision. The £330 million NHS federated data platform contract, awarded by the last Government and inherited by this one, raises serious and unresolved questions, and it must be addressed.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Government Procurement Strategy · Hansard source

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  I appreciate much of the statement that the Minister has made regarding procurement. I will deflect his attention to textile procurement, especially as the Ministry of Defence has contracted £37 million-worth of military gear to foreign factories, including in China. Some £23 million-worth of NHS personal protective equipment is manufactured abroad. All the while, my constituency has factories and a workforce, and we are ready. We are suffering with a cost of living crisis, so can I ask the Minister to consider onshoring textile procurement?

• 16 Apr 2026 · NHS Federated Data Platform · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear: as a practising optometrist, there is nothing more wonderful than touching a button and a patient’s data going to the right people, and I am sure that the Minister will agree. The patient can then be treated appropriately and on time. However, the Darzi and Sudlow reviews, which were published last year, confirmed that our health data system is broken and fragmented, which costs patients dearly. The public overwhelmingly supports better data sharing and so do I. In my opinion, the question is not whether we need data sharing, but who is responsible for this modern-day oil? As has already been said, Palantir was named after the seeing stones from the book “The Lord of the Rings”, the palantíri. Those stones possessed enormous power. However, I want to be fair about them. The stones themselves were not good or evil; they were powerful instruments of vision. In the right hands, they brought clarity and wisdom. The problem, as Tolkien understood it, is never the stone itself; it is who is holding it. Let us have a look at who is holding these stones. As has already been mentioned, Alex Karp said this year that Palantir wants “to scare our enemies and on occasion kill them.” The co-founder of Palantir, Peter Thiel, has written that he no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible. He has said that the NHS is making people sick and that the British public’s love for the jewel in our crown—the national health service—is a form of Stockholm syndrome. Those are the stated beliefs of the men at the top of a company that we have handed £330 million to, and a £1.5 billion strategic partnership with the British state. And Palantir’s ambitions do not stop there. Its chief operating officer has spoken of a future where Palantir software is inside every missile and every drone. In Gaza, Amnesty International has named Palantir as a contributor to the war crimes and genocide being committed there. In fact, when a protester confronted Palantir’s CEO about the killing of Palestinians—100,000 and counting—in Gaza, he replied that the dead were “mostly terrorists, that’s true.” Over 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza and the CEO of the company that holds our NHS data calls them “mostly terrorists.” It is not just the NHS that is affected. Palantir is the second largest AI supplier to the UK public sector by contract value. It has contracts with the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, local authorities and local police services, including those in Leicester South. The Palantir contract review comes in early 2027, so the window is still open. I want to share a scan with a specialist and get an answer before my patient leaves the room; every clinician in this country wants that and every patient deserves it. But the seeing stone is only as safe as the hands that hold it. Choose those hands carefully.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Over the weekend, it was my pleasure to attend the Beat the Odds event in my constituency, which amalgamated 36 grassroots mental health organisations that support people from all backgrounds and of all ages and help those who have sadly fallen through the cracks. The message from those organisations was overwhelmingly clear: they need more financial support. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that grassroots organisations receive funding to deliver frontline services that save lives?

• 25 Mar 2026 · NHS Continuing Healthcare · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that, during these very difficult times, families want to give their loved ones who are not well all their attention, but these situations are usually so adversarial, involving lengthy legal processes that cost local authorities hundreds of thousands of pounds, only for the decision to be overturned and the family to win in the end?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Meningitis Outbreak · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I, too, would like to express my condolences to the families and loved ones of the two young people who have passed away, and send my best wishes to those who are in hospital. As the father of a daughter at university, I cannot imagine what they must be going through. Many students have expressed to newspapers such as The Guardian their concerns about returning home where they have vulnerable loved ones, citing a mother coming back from hospital or those who live with their grandparents. Does the Health Secretary have any advice for students returning home to loved ones on not spreading the disease to them?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Immigration Policy · Hansard source

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  Over 330,000 people have signed a petition urging the Government to scrap the plan to increase the ILR period from five years to 10 years, especially the retrospective nature of it. This will have a detrimental effect on the core of our society, especially the NHS, and will exploit workers, who will be vulnerable to exploitative bosses. Does the Minister agree with many of his Back Benchers that the Government must stop this cruel proposal taking effect?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Vista is a 160-year-old charity serving people in Leicester and Leicestershire who are suffering from visual disabilities. Last year alone, it served 21,000 people, but sadly, it faces imminent closure if it cannot raise £2 million by the end of March. If that happens, the devastating effect on the national health service and the social care service will be unimaginable, so will the Minister meet me and other local MPs, as well as representatives of University Hospitals of Leicester, to discuss what we can do to save Vista?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Hughes Report: Second Anniversary · Hansard source

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  It is a real honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) for this valuable and vital debate. I pay tribute to all families who have suffered a miscarriage of justice, and in this case to all those who have been impacted by sodium valproate or pelvic mesh. I am especially grateful to my constituent Emma Friedman, and I salute her and her son Andy for educating me about this issue, and particularly about sodium valproate, but also for their real strength and perseverance and their unwavering commitment to justice. Achieving justice should not really be so hard, but unfortunately it is. As the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) mentioned, we have seen this all before: 30,000 people were infected and affected in the contaminated blood scandal in the ’70s and ’80s; 700 hard-working postmasters and postmistresses were falsely prosecuted and their lives destroyed; and billions and billions of pounds were wasted on unusable personal protective equipment during a national emergency. Sodium valproate is an effective drug. It was developed in 1962, and it has transformed the lives of countless people with epilepsy and bipolar disorders. However, it has always been known to cause serious harm when taken during pregnancy, and the risks are stark: around 30% to 40% of children exposed in the womb develop neurodevelopmental disorders and approximately 10% suffer serious congenital malformations, including spina bifida, cleft lips and other lifelong disabilities. The sadness is that 20,000 children in the UK are estimated to have been affected. The concern is that evidence suggests doctors were aware of the risks from the early years. However, according to the minutes of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, it made the extraordinary decision in the 1970s that fully warning women may cause “fruitless anxiety”. The warnings were not given, and the fact that that decision was made after the thalidomide scandal makes it all the more shocking. Some parents report that they were warned about the possible side effects to themselves, but never about those to their unborn babies. That pattern appears to have been repeated again and again. Clear warnings did not emerge until the late 1990s and were only strengthened around 2010. The first GP toolkit was published as late as 2015—and it still did not mandate direct, informed conversations with patients, so GPs simply did not have to tell patients. As has been mentioned already, women were often dismissed. No long-term study was ever conducted; even today, some women are only discovering through their own research why their 30 or 35-year-old child lives with a disability linked to valproate. That is truly shocking, and it is still ongoing—it is not history. The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review chaired by Baroness Cumberlege published its First Do No Harm report in 2020. It concluded that women had been misled and ill-informed, and recommended an independent redress agency, specifically a compensation scheme for those harmed by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. Unfortunately, the Government did not accept those recommendations. In December 2022 the Patient Safety Commissioner was asked to explore options, and on 7 February 2024 the Hughes report clearly called for an independent two-stage scheme providing both financial and non-financial compensation. The Government have yet to respond. Meanwhile, families continue to struggle. In many cases it is the mother, who may herself still be suffering with epilepsy, who is the primary carer of a disabled child. Many families are living in difficult socioeconomic conditions and they are barely surviving. We cannot even begin to imagine the emotional toll and the feeling of guilt that many parents talk about. Many feel that it is their fault. We cannot imagine their mental anguish.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Hughes Report: Second Anniversary · Hansard source

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  Yes—that is the least that we can do. Sodium valproate is effective, as was powerfully demonstrated by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), and women must not abruptly stop taking the medication, as that can be seriously dangerous. However, this issue represents a serious failure of communication between regulators, GPs, specialists, fertility clinics and pharmacists. We must modernise the safety system, with better data sharing, digital alerts, clear warnings on packaging and, above all, mandatory one-to-one consultations so that every woman of child- bearing age understands the risks and the alternatives. Mistakes will always occur in medicine, but how quickly we acknowledge them, learn from them and compensate those harmed is the true mark of a progressive society. The current Health Secretary, when in Opposition in February 2024, expressed frustration at how slowly justice was progressing. Those words must now be matched with action.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Glaucoma Care (England) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the detection, treatment and monitoring of glaucoma by optometrists in England; to make provision about the full integration of optometry and ophthalmology services for the purpose of glaucoma care in England; and for connected purposes. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a practising NHS optometrist. I also thank the Minister for Care for coming to the Chamber for this valuable debate. As a practising optometrist of many years, one of the heartaches of the role is this: during a routine examination, I can detect a condition that will forever change the life of the person who is sitting in my chair, and the patient is blissfully unaware of it. That is exactly what glaucoma does—it changes lives quietly, and often without warning. Glaucoma is known as the thief of sight, and for a very good reason. It damages the optic nerve at the back of the eye, with each nerve fibre representing a different point in the visual field. Because the loss begins in the peripheral vision, people often do not realise that anything is wrong until it is too late. If Members would like a glimpse of what an advanced glaucoma sufferer sees, may I ask them to cover one eye completely and, with the other eye, to look through an aperture created by their hands and touch their fingertips to their palms? As the condition progresses, the aperture gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until eventually nothing is left. Imagine trying to navigate a busy high street, to cross a road or simply to move safely around one’s own home. This is not simply theoretical; let me give the House two brief but very real examples from my experience. I saw a woman who on two separate occasions was hit by a car from the side while driving her own car, before she finally came in for an eye test. She was unaware that there was a problem, because she could see number plates and road signs perfectly. What she could not see was the side of her vision eroding. Another heartbreaking experience when a pensioner came to me with a handbag packed with what looked like her life savings. Cash in hand, she explained that she would spend whatever it took if I could just give her a pair of glasses that would allow her to see her two loves: her love of painting and her grandchildren. Unfortunately, no amount of money would be able to restore her sight, because glaucoma, as well as being silent, is usually irreversible. Glaucoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness in the UK. Over 700,000 people are affected by it, and, even more concerningly, more than half of them are undiagnosed. That is 350,000 people walking and driving around, not knowing. It could be any one of us, or someone we love or work with. Indeed, a former Liberal Democrat Member of this House, Paul Tyler, was not diagnosed until a routine eye test. In its early stages, glaucoma rarely has symptoms, and there are rarely any warning signs—just a silent, slow theft. By the time it is noticed, the damage is usually permanent, and the loss has far-reaching consequences. People lose not only their sight, but their independence and their ability to drive, read, cook and even leave their house. Falls increase and isolation grows, and then come the emotional and mental health impacts: fear, depression and the loss of identity. Furthermore, with an ageing population, we face a growing crisis. Glaucoma cases are expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades, with a growth rate that outstrips the ageing population. A study from 2017 suggests that over the next 20 years, glaucoma cases will rise by 44%. That is hundreds of thousands more people who will need care, follow-up and support, and I fear that data will prove to be an underestimate. Let me be blunt. Patients are losing their sight not because care does not exist, but because the pathway is broken and the follow-up is delayed. I recently saw a patient who was referred to the hospital and diagnosed with glaucoma. That bit was absolutely fine—the initial appointment happened—but the follow-up was postponed and then they missed an appointment. This meant that, by the time they came to see me again a year later, they had lost a significant amount of their visual field, to such an extent that even their central vision—their acuity—was affected. That anecdotal example corroborates the findings of major chains such as Specsavers. The problem is that current waiting list data provides a measure only of first appointments, not of the ongoing care that is vital to chronic conditions like glaucoma. We need published data on follow-up waiting times, because that is where sight is being lost. Here is the reality. Hospital ophthalmology is one of the largest out-patient specialities in the NHS, with 8.9 million appointments a year in England between 2023 and 2024. It is estimated that glaucoma care accounts for about 20% of all hospital eye service appointments, with around 1 million visits annually across England alone. In 2024-25, it was reported that 600,000 people were on a hospital waiting list for an ophthalmology appointment. However, the ongoing care, such as the need for regular planned follow-ups for glaucoma patients, is often overlooked, with the numbers not hitting the headlines like those waiting for an initial assessment or surgery. NHS hospitals cannot carry this load alone. Thankfully, this is where the Government’s own NHS 10-year plan—in particular its ambition to shift care out of hospitals and into the community, and its focus on prevention, not sickness—closely aligns with the transformation needed in glaucoma care. There are over 14,000 qualified optometrists in England, providing more than 13 million NHS-funded eye tests. They are trained, regulated and ready to help. Community glaucoma services, led by appropriately qualified optometrists with the approved equipment, have already demonstrated the ability to reduce hospital appointment referrals by up to 71%. If implemented nationally alongside an optometry-based glaucoma monitoring service, it may be possible to release 300,000 hospital appointments every year. That is not a one-time saving; glaucoma is a chronic condition, and these are recurring appointments for people who are living with the condition, not cured of it. Making full use of the skills and capacity already in primary care takes significant pressure off hospital services, enabling them to focus on tasks that can be managed only in a hospital. This could save the NHS an estimated £12 million annually. At present, 10 integrated care boards have no glaucoma case-finding or referral management services. Many patients in those areas who are referred to hospital could instead be retained in primary care optometry with appropriate commissioning, rather than being added to the existing waiting lists. Even more concerningly, 21 ICBs—half of them—do not commission a glaucoma monitoring service in the community and rely simply on the hospital eye service to follow up glaucoma patients for the rest of their lives. That is where the sight loss occurs, as the hospitals simply do not have the required capacity. This is a postcode lottery that punishes the vulnerable, especially when people from black and Asian communities are up to four times more likely to develop glaucoma and often have the least access to timely care. Unlike in Wales and Scotland, where a “shared care” service for glaucoma is commissioned by every health board, optometry-led and properly integrated between primary care optometry and ophthalmology, often the approach of NHS commissioners in England is hospital-led. The recent draft “Getting It Right First Time” model, developed with minimal input from primary care optometry, risks reinforcing England’s hospital-led approach and undermining the Government’s own ambition to shift care from hospitals to the community. We also see worrying behaviour at ICB level, with several ICBs removing the limited community glaucoma services that they had in place to make short-term savings. That is extremely myopic. Given the ongoing financial pressures on ICBs, we do not expect individual ICBs to make significant progress in commissioning optometry-led glaucoma pathways that fully integrate optometry and ophthalmology without clear direction from the Government. The total cost of visual impairment in the UK is estimated to be £26.5 billion, and it is set to rise to £33.5 billion by 2032. Glaucoma alone accounts for £750 million. That is not just a cost to the NHS, but a cost of lost productivity, informal care and diminished quality of life. This is a silent epidemic, but it is not inevitable. What am I asking for? What can be done to begin to tackle this silent epidemic? Fundamentally, I am asking for a national direction from the Department of Health and Social Care to ICBs that they should commission a uniform primary care glaucoma service that utilises qualified high street optician practices. Only by doing so will we end the postcode lottery in glaucoma care. We already know what works, we already have the workforce, and we already have the technology. We now need clear direction and political will. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Shockat Adam, Marsha De Cordova, Jim Shannon, Brian Leishman, Jeremy Corbyn, Ayoub Khan, Iqbal Mohamed, Mr Adnan Hussain, Paulette Hamilton, Mark Pritchard and Adrian Ramsay present the Bill. Shockat Adam accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 March, and to be printed (Bill 369).

• 13 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Failed private finance initiative schemes from the noughties in three Leicester hospitals resulted in the NHS being sued for almost £30 million, despite no work being carried out. Leicester hospitals are still without any new buildings. I ask the Minister that expensive, inefficient financial packages—£60 billion of private money costing £306 billion of taxpayers’ money—not be utilised for future projects.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Sudan: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  It appears that, once again, children are paying the price of man’s folly. According to Save the Children, over 1,200 children were killed in 2024, rising to 1,700 last year, mainly by explosive devices. At a hospital in Khartoum, one in six casualties are children with shrapnel to the head, limbs or abdomen. As a United Nations penholder on Sudan, will the Minister draft a child-focused resolution on protecting the most innocent?

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

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  Earlier this week, Baroness Amos published her interim findings on maternity care in England. Unfortunately, some of the readings are absolutely harrowing, and I apologise for the graphic nature of the following accounts. Women were left for hours to bleed out in toilets, and their concerns about a lack of foetal movement were completely ignored. There is a disturbing trend, which appears to show that women from black and Asian backgrounds receive notably worse care. The investigation into maternity care at Leicester royal infirmary has been postponed, but many mothers have told me that they felt ignored on when and where investigations should take place. May I ask the Leader of the House to please make time for a Back-Bench debate, or a debate in Government time, on the state of maternity care in England?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Public Contracts: Trade Union Recognition · Hansard source

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  On determining awards for public contracts, what steps are being taken to prioritise UK firms in public procurement, especially for the provision of vital equipment, like personal protective equipment, in our NHS?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the Government’s abolition of the two-child benefit cap, but it should not have taken 16 months—it should have been the first act of a Labour Government. I will speak first about the national health service. It is the jewel in the UK crown, but under consecutive Governments, millions of pounds of public money has gone to waste on interest payments for PFI schemes—that is money that should have been spent on frontline care or paying for doctors and nurses. PFI was a costly failure that lined the pockets of private consultants and contractors at the expense of NHS patients and staff. Now, it appears that the Government are planning to do the same again but expect different results. Failed PFI schemes from the noughties, for three Leicestershire hospitals, saw the NHS sued for almost £30 million by the favoured consortium despite work not being taken and not a single hospital being built. Leicester’s three hospitals are still without any new buildings, as Ministers have pushed their development into wave 2, way beyond the original 2030 target, more than 30 years after the need was first identified. Coventry hospital, which was built, costs £1 million a week alone. The law was even changed to ensure that private contractors were paid before our NHS staff. Since the inception of PFI, around £60 billion of private money has gone into 700 PFI projects. In return, the Government will pay £306 billion. Those escalating costs eat into the NHS budget and leave less for frontline services. Secondly, I will speak about private providers. As an optometrist, I have referred people for cataracts surgery because the waiting time is much shorter and it makes sense to do so, but unfortunately the transfer of taxpayer money to the private sector reduces resources for NHS services and ultimately limits its ability to treat patients effectively. The Government have apparently set aside £2.5 billion—and that is set to rise to £16 billion—for private services That is disappointing, as they could have used the Budget to expand NHS capacity by building new facilities, rather than buying out private sector clinics, but they did not. They could support local authorities and not-for-profit organisations to take over social care, but they have not. These are political decisions that have consequences in the long run. Thirdly, I would like to speak about the deal with Palantir on data sharing that the Health Secretary is pressing ahead with. I have had patients contact me who are really concerned about data sharing. In fact, two of them wrote to me in the last week because they are really frightened that they have to opt out of this. It seems that our data is a commodity that is going to the highest bidder. I would also quickly like to touch on hospices. I am running out of time, but LOROS hospice in my constituency is serving 1.2 million people in Leicester with only 18 beds—

• 17 Nov 2025 · Parkinson’s Disease · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that early detection is key to fighting this disease? Is he, like me, encouraged by research from Moorfields eye hospital and University College London that found that a scan of the retina—the back of the eye—can detect Parkinson’s disease seven years before any symptoms present?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In recent years, there has been a real increase in racist attacks in this country, including on our NHS staff; they have seen a rise of 55% in such attacks. Recently, two Sikh women were not just racially but sexually abused. Does the Home Secretary fear that implementing asylum policies like those in Denmark would exacerbate the problem, and embolden those who would create hate on our streets?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Support for Victims of Crime · Hansard source

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  A constituent contacted me in a severe state of distress, understandably, because she is a victim of sexual abuse. Unfortunately, her distress is compounded by the fact that her criminal trial date has been postponed not once but twice, while her perpetrator is walking free in her neighbourhood. This is causing her immense anxiety and impacting her mental health. Will the Solicitor General outline what support the justice system can give to my constituent and other victims of severe sexual violence, especially given long court delays, and what steps she will take to ensure that no victim is left to feel abandoned by the system again?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Huntingdon Train Attack · Hansard source

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  Does the Home Secretary share my deep concern that when incidents such as this occur, certain political commentators and, sadly, certain politicians race to set the narrative behind such attacks as ethnicity-based, faith-based or, ideally, both, rather than focusing on the key crime indicators, such as socioeconomic deprivation, the disintegration of youth services, addiction issues, lack of funding for our police forces and lack of mental health support facilities? Does she agree that those factors matter much more than ethnicity, faith or the migration status of the perpetrator?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Vehicle Headlight Glare Standards · Hansard source

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  It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank the hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. I declare that I have personal experience with this issue as a practising NHS optometrist, so I can say with some clarity that it is of great importance and concern, with potentially significant consequences. Many of my patients have told me of their utter despair when they want to drive at night. Some only take the keys out if it is a real emergency, while others have abandoned it altogether, which feeds into the narrative that elderly people in particular will not go shopping or go to the pharmacist to pick up medication. That can result in loneliness and other problems. There are also those who continue to drive despite knowing that night driving is really difficult for them. That becomes a matter of life and death, as some of the statistics bear out. As an optometrist, I have only anecdotal evidence, but although excellent research has been done by the College of Optometrists, the Association Of Optometrists and the RAC, among others, it does not take an expert to know the link between eyesight and safety for everyone who uses the road. I want to focus on two intertwined challenges: the impact of modern car lighting, and the lack of research and subsequent legislation around it, and the failure of our system to ensure that drivers meet basic vision standards. Modern vehicles are brighter than ever. LED and xenon technologies have replaced many older halogen bulbs. They are much brighter and more efficient, and provide better clarity on the road for the driver, but unfortunately the increased brightness comes at a cost, which is a rise in glare and dazzle for other road users. The RAC, drawing on Government collision statistics, reported that since 2013, an average of 280 crashes a year in Britain have involved dazzling headlights as a contributing factor. Six of those crashes a year involve a loss of life. Campaigners believe that the real figures could be a lot higher. The shift from halogen to LED, combined with higher headlight positioning because of SUV cars, is part of the problem. Experts at the light and health research centre at Mount Sinai hospital in New York have identified three factors driving the problems: the rise of taller vehicles, incorrect alignment of lights and the blue light of modern LED bulbs. Due to their shorter wavelength, they can potentially scatter more light in the eyes, and are more uncomfortable than other light forms. No research, as far as I am aware—there have been some anecdotal studies and very small-scale studies, but nothing conclusive—confirms that they help night driving. The RAC also found that it takes 68% of drivers—this is really worrying—up to five seconds to recover after they have been dazzled, and more than 11% say that it takes six seconds or more. That is the time it takes to travel 160 metres at 60 miles per hour, without any clear vision. That is worse for anyone who has other eye health conditions, such as corneal opacity at the front of the eyes, cataracts or macular degeneration problems, but also a dirty windscreen or glasses lenses. The greater, and quieter, threat is the number of drivers who already have poor or unsafe vision and continue to drive anyway. According to statistics by Mortar in October 2024, one in seven people knows of a relative, friend or co-worker who they believe is breaking the law by driving despite poor eyesight. Almost 30% of motorists admitted they would continue to drive even if they knew their vision was below the legal standards. More than a quarter said they are worried about someone they know who drives despite having poor vision. These figures are deeply concerning, and reveal that our current, self-referral system is failing and many people either do not know their vision has declined or choose to ignore it. Earlier this year, a coroner in Lancashire issued a prevention of future death report following a fatal crash caused by undiagnosed sight loss. We need to change the legislation and have more research done on lighting.

• 29 Oct 2025 · Gaza and Hamas · Hansard source

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  It appears that this ceasefire is going in the same vein as previous announcements on ceasefires—primarily one side, the Palestinians, cease; the other side, Israelis, continue to fire. Some 20 Palestinians have been killed every single day since this so-called last ceasefire. Last night was the most violent, with more than 104 Palestinians killed and the targeting of a cancer patient camp. We all appreciate the Minister coming in week in, week out to answer these questions—I certainly do—but given that the UK has not stopped arming Israel since the genocide began, can he confirm how many export licences to Israel have been granted in Labour’s time in office?