Simon Opher MP: speeches

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Speeches

25 Jun 2025 · GP Funding: South-west England · Hansard source
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The ARR scheme in my practice at May Lane surgery in Dursley is employing newly qualified GPs who provide a lot of extra appointments for the surgery, so the scheme is working quite well for newly qualified GPs.
24 Jun 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source
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This morning I heard from my medical colleague, Dr Rebecca Inglis, of Healthcare Workers Watch, that a GP in Gaza was killed by Israeli soldiers—shot in the head, Mr Speaker. He is just one of 1,200 healthcare workers who have been murdered by Israeli forces. Countless others have been unlawfully detained and tortured. Israel is deliberately destroying the Palestinian healthcare system. Will the Minister please raise these issues with his Israeli counterpart?
24 Jun 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source
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1. What steps he is taking to support the provision of medical aid in Gaza.
23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty Taskforce · Hansard source
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In Stroud, after 14 years of austerity, over 4,000 children are living in poverty. A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report stated that after removing the two-child limit, the next most effective way of reducing child poverty is to get rid of the benefit cap. Would the Minister be willing at least to review the benefit cap?
23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty Taskforce · Hansard source
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13. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the child poverty taskforce on levels of child poverty in Stroud.
16 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Support: Schools · Hansard source
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In the Stroud area, six schools are now teaching mental health first aid to 16-year-olds. Many students have received a form of qualification, which they can use for applications to jobs and university. At Rednock school, these students are wearing coloured lanyards so that other students can recognise them and ask them for help with their mental health. Would the Minister support and extend this innovative scheme?
16 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Support: Schools · Hansard source
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14. What steps she is taking to improve mental health support in schools.
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend give way?
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Lady give way?
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend give way?
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Lady give way?
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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It is important to realise that if there are any suspicions around an assisted death, a coroner can still be involved. The new clause does not exclude that, but it stops the automatic referral to a coroner.
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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If my hon. Friend looks at the statistics, he will see that it is usually the better-off in society who choose assisted dying, not the less well-off.
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend accept one more intervention?
13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Lady give way?
11 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source
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Q2. In Gloucestershire, after 14 years, waiting lists for both physical and mental health are finally falling. Last week I hosted a roundtable with young people and heard how music and arts programmes, such as Gloucester’s fantastic Music Works, are transforming mental health outcomes. I also chaired a Comedy-on-Prescription panel at South by Southwest with Lu Jackson and Jonathan Pie, utilising laughter to improve wellbeing and reduce waiting lists. Can I ask the Prime Minister to back our campaign for creative health, and urge him to go further in reducing waiting lists for all patients?
9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source
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I agree with some of the things that the hon. Member is saying, but we all want to build faster. Under the local district plan in Stroud, we have been waiting four years for our housing plan, and this Bill will free us from the quagmire that is our current planning system. Last Friday, I met representatives of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and the Severn Rivers Trust, who have serious concerns about part 3 of the Bill. Does the hon. Member agree that we should have a short pause on part 3 and keep some of it?
3 Jun 2025 · Protesters: Sentencing · Hansard source
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10. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of reviewing sentencing for peaceful protesters.
3 Jun 2025 · Protesters: Sentencing · Hansard source
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Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of a functioning and healthy democracy, but people in Stroud and across the country felt that the legislation passed by the Conservatives in 2022 limited the right to peacefully protest. One of my constituents, Adam Beard, with whom I have worked for over five years in my GP surgery, was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison for planning a peaceful protest. Given all the prison overcrowding, will the Minister consider whether peaceful protesters could at least avoid custodial sentences?
19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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I am delighted to speak about this new Mental Health Bill. It follows up on the Mental Health Act 1983, which is as old as our Secretary of State, as we heard. What I have heard throughout the debate is that mental health affects us all in some way. It touches all of us, whether personally or through people we know really well. I welcome the greater protections under the Bill, especially for people with learning disabilities. I also welcome early intervention, the stress on out-of-hospital care and the idea of advance choice. People who have repeated psychoses know exactly what they want when they are well. When they become ill, they can become paranoid about their family and their friends, and they are not rational. That is one of the reasons why sometimes they need to be detained under the Mental Health Act. If they have an advance choice document, they can at least say what they would like while they are in a normal state of mind. That is important, and I look forward to that measure. I like the fact that police stations are being removed as a place of safety. I am concerned about how sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act are being used. I notice that there are some schemes in which mental health workers go out with the police and work together with them, and that is crucial. A close relative of mine became extremely unwell, though it was not quite as awful as what happened to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). First, they were sectioned in an A&E department, and then no bed could be found for 48 hours for this poor relative of mine. The heroic nurses and consultants had to look after someone who was acutely psychotic. That simply is not is not tolerable in our system. We need to find a place quickly for people who are mentally ill, and we have to make sure that they get the best treatment, so that they can get better quickly, while protecting the rest of the NHS. This close relative of mine was moved to a bed 140 miles away from her family. We must ensure that we get more sufficient beds and more local provision. I know that will take time, and that mental health provision is not in a good state, but I hope that with this legislation and our new Labour Government, we can change that, so that people do not have to travel out of area for mental health provision. I am impressed by the idea of crisis hubs. I have worked with the Stroud crisis team for many years as a GP, and I have always felt that, given a bit more strength and a bit more resource, they could keep a lot of people out of hospital and from being sectioned, but they need that resource. They also need close working with consultant psychiatrists.
19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source
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That is certainly true, but we need to be careful, because part of the issue is the resources for mental health, rather than the Mental Health Act. We must not blur the two. The current Government are putting 8,500 mental health workers into the system, and I am delighted about that. Hopefully, it will prevent the waits for mental health assessments that people are having to put up with. I want to say something about “appropriate medical treatment” and “therapeutic benefit”, to which the Bill refers. Some 8.7 million people in this country are on antidepressants, and about 25% of those people are trying to get off them. The harm that these drugs can do includes an increased risk of suicide when people are first going on to them and when they are coming off them, as we have seen in a couple of recent, tragic cases. They can also cause fairly long-term sexual dysfunction. I am asking the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to put proper warnings on its leaflets, and I am also asking for a special service to help people come off antidepressants, because doing so is extremely difficult and most GPs are not particularly well informed about the best ways of doing it. It has to be done extremely slowly. My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) talked about ADHD and autism, and what should be done about neurodiversity. I feel that we should be extremely careful in mental health services not to over-medicate people with so-called neurodiversity, and I look forward to speaking to my hon. Friend about that. I had to nip out of the Chamber for half an hour earlier, to talk to the head of a neurodiversity taskforce which will report in July. What I think it needs to do is bring about a much more supportive service rather than going straight for medication, which is what seems to happen when people are referred to private psychiatric clinics. At present, the level of Ritalin-like substances with which people with ADHD are treated has increased by a factor of 500%—and, interestingly, that increase has occurred in social class 1 rather than social class 5. There is something here that we need to get a grip on: we need to provide proper services for people with ADHD. I was interested by the comment from the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) about families. When it comes to mental health, families are crucial, and I would like to adapt the Bill slightly to make them much more central and responsible. The concept of a family could be extended to certain other people whom a person, when well, could nominate, but families are the crux in a lot of psychiatric care. Their input must be valued, and they must be involved. This is a very good Bill, and it is about time we had it. I support all its greater protections, and I believe that it will reduce the number of compulsory detainments.
16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Yes, I am happy to give way.
16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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I am sorry, I cannot give way. I am just going to go through these points very quickly. That is why the BMA is against new clause 1. There is no duty for doctors to raise the issue, but there should not be any ban on them doing so. As I have pointed out, the so-called gagging clause was introduced in Victoria as part of the legislation. However, after five years that has now been removed by an independent review, because it caused confusion and it harmed patient care. I urge colleagues to vote against new clause 1. Let us respect the patient’s right to information, not restrict it. Let us ensure that no patient is left suffering simply because they did not know what to ask, and that no doctor is punished for trying to help.
16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Does my right hon. Friend not see that, in Committee, we were very aware of coercion? That is one of the reasons why we have a social worker on the panel of experts. Additionally, clause 1(2)(b) says it will be necessary to establish that a person “has made the decision that they wish to end their own life voluntarily and has not been coerced or pressured by any other person”. It is very clear in the Bill.
16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Any restrictions around the doctor-patient relationship will harm patients, so I agree with my hon. Friend.

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