Sojan Joseph MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I welcome this Government’s progress on reducing NHS waiting lists in physical health, but there are currently 1.6 million people on mental health waiting lists. People are eight times more likely to have to wait 18 months for treatment if their condition is mental rather than physical. Research by the charity Rethink Mental Illness shows that long waiting lists can lead to deterioration of symptoms, suicide attempts and people dropping out of the workforce. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on mental health waiting times so that we can address this crisis in our NHS?

• 6 May 2025 · Trade Negotiations · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that by securing the best deal that India has ever agreed, the Government have put UK businesses in an incredible position to take advantage of the rapidly growing economy?

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

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  I have previously raised in this House how the use of Operation Brock to queue freight lorries heading to Dover on the M20 causes disruption to large parts of my constituency. My constituents are not against it being used as an emergency traffic-calming measure, but I have been extremely disappointed by the decision of Kent county council and the Kent and Medway resilience forum to routinely deploy it over the school holidays—this time, it will last until 22 April. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on traffic management, so that we can discuss how measures such as Operation Brock should be used only as a last resort?

• 28 Mar 2025 · Water Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot and on bringing forward this Bill, which deals with such an important topic. He deserves great credit for continuing the national debate on the quality of our waterways. I know from the many emails I have received since my election in July that my constituents in Ashford, Hawkinge and the villages are angry about the state of our waterways, and they have every right to be angry: the latest figures for my constituency show that the waterways that were polluted by sewage 1,127 times in 2023. This was allowed to happen as a result of 14 years of mismanagement and weakened regulation of the water industry by the Conservatives. The polluting of our local waterways has a real-world impact: it risks damaging our ecosystems and having an impact on people’s health. Not long after I was elected, I was contacted by a primary school in my constituency. At the end of the summer term, the school had a lovely tradition of taking some of its children to paddle in the Great Stour, which runs near the school. However, the school contacted me to say that when it took children to the river at the end of last year, 25% of those who had splashed and paddled were ill within 24 hours. I will give another example. A constituent who regularly swims in the channel off the coast of the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) contacted me to express his deep concern about the amount of sewage that was allowed to be pumped into the sea from the combined sewer overflow. Those are just two examples of how pollution has been permitted in our waterways. This unacceptable and unforgivable destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed to happen, but that is exactly what the Conservatives did when they were in power. Many of my constituents contacted me in advance of the Bill’s Second Reading to let me know how important water quality is to them. Water is a resource that we all rely on, and they rightly feel that the system is failing them, with polluted waterways, declining service standards and increasing bills. Water companies are failing to deliver for their customers and the environment, and the public have rightly had enough. I welcome how, since my hon. Friend the Minister and colleagues entered office, they have taken immediate measures to address the failures of the last 14 years, including ensuring that funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced. I was pleased to see that compensation for households and businesses will be doubled when basic water services are affected. I was proud to support the Water (Special Measures) Bill, and I was delighted to see it receive Royal Assent last month and pass into law. The strengthening of the enforcement regime is an important sign to the water industry that things have changed under this Labour Government and that Labour Members will not tolerate the poor standards of the last 14 years. I want to see a fundamental transformation of our water industry. I also want the waterways in Ashford, Hawkinge and the villages, as well as the rest of the country, to be cleaned up and restored to good health. I will not, however, support my hon. Friend’s Bill, as the measures that he proposes go too far. I do not think it is the right time for them. This is an important issue, and we need to talk about it, but I am not convinced that bringing water services into public ownership would guarantee better services. We have heard, seen and experienced that in our NHS. What happened there? We brought in NHS England to fix the problems and now, 14 years later, we are getting rid of NHS England. We have heard hon. Members talk about standards in our schools and the standard of our roads. Is it the right time for the measures in the Bill, or is it time to take responsibility and undertake the action that Labour came into government for? In eight months, we have moved fast and taken strong actions. Should we not give those new Acts time to come into effect and see if things get better?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q4. Medina from Lyminge in my constituency is registered blind. She recently told me how she had been failed by the broken social security system left behind by the Conservatives. She faced great difficulties getting support from Access to Work, which is essential across my constituency, and was not helped to find paid employment. It is so important that disabled people who want to work are supported to do so. What is the Prime Minister’s message to Medina and others like her, who have been abandoned and shut out of employment for far too long?

• 13 Mar 2025 · Mental Health Support: Educational Settings · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this debate, and I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for it. I know from experience that our mental health system is overstretched and under-resourced. In fact, there has never been so much demand for mental health support from children and young people. In June, the number of active CAMHS referrals in England was a record 840,000. It is clear that this Government inherited a crisis in children and young people’s mental health. We all want young people to be happy, healthy and safe, and to be equipped with everything that they need to achieve and thrive as adults. But with half of mental health issues developing by the time that young people reach the age of 14, and three quarters before the age of 24, early intervention in mental health support for children and young people is essential.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Seventeenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member think that, if we bring in an agency from outside the NHS—from the private sector—this will become like a business?

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

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  I welcome the announcement that there will be a public inquiry into what led to the tragic killing of three people in Nottingham in 2023. This follows the publication of the independent mental health homicide review into the case last week. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate or statement to consider the findings of the review to ensure that, while the public inquiry takes place, important lessons are learned immediately in every part of the mental health system to prevent similar cases?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Are you aware of any reported incidents of the misuse of medication that has been administered? As you explained earlier, patients can take the medication to their home. Dr McLaren: We were made aware of one situation in Queensland last year. The eligible patient was given the medication, but they ended up in hospital and died from their disease. Their husband then went home, took the voluntary assisted dying medication and died. That was obviously a tragedy and no one wants that to occur, so I do not want to be flippant in talking about it, and I hope my comments are taken in the way they are intended. We know that spousal suicides occur when people die, and we have had one case across Australia compared with thousands of successful cases of voluntary assisted dying conduct. No other cases have been evidenced, so the rate of that is incredibly low. The voluntary assisted dying team in Queensland, on the same day that they became aware of that case, put in steps to ensure that it would not happen again, which I believe included the required return of the medication. We also have to balance the autonomy of having the medication available to patients at 2 in the morning, when they have an exacerbation of their pain and say that enough is enough, instead of waiting for business hours when the doctors are available to come and sit with them. It is a very delicate balance and there will always be that risk. I think the balance is struck well and the safety can be upheld by still providing the patients access to their own medication.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. I welcome the efforts this Labour Government have made to reset our relationship with the European Union and to seek to remove unnecessary trade barriers. The trading links between the UK and mainland Europe are of particular importance to my constituency, so will the Prime Minister support my efforts, and those of other Kent colleagues, to restore an international train service to Ashford International station to help economic growth in my constituency, Kent and the wider south-east?

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  Addressing backlogs in the NHS, together with changing the current hospital-centric system, will be of central importance in ensuring the long-term sustainability of our health system. Under the Conservatives and the coalition Government, we had more than a decade of under-investment, coupled with a disastrous top-down reorganisation, which caused the high level of backlogs that we currently see across the NHS. While working in the NHS throughout that period, I saw at first hand the dire impact that the reorganisation had on our health service, and how it led to waiting lists at a record high and patient satisfaction at a record low. That was underlined by the recent analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research, which shows that 25 times more people waited in A&E departments last summer than in the same period in 2009. In its analysis, the IPPR described long waits for healthcare as the “new normal” for many NHS patients. I welcome the measures that my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary and his team of Ministers have already introduced to address this issue. I also welcome the measures that the Prime Minister announced this morning. Thanks to this Labour Government, the NHS in England will receive a record £25 billion investment, which will support the Government in meeting their target of 40,000 extra elective appointments a week. I pay tribute to the dedication of my former colleagues across the NHS, who are working hard to treat patients as quickly as possible and cut waiting times. There is evidence of that happening in my area of east Kent. For example, at the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, an average of 84 patients per day were medically able to be discharged in November 2023 but had nowhere to be medically discharged to; in November 2024, the figure was down to an average of 58 patients per day. In the hospitals in east Kent in November 2023, just over 2,000 patients were treated in corridors for more than 30 minutes; in the same month last year, the figure had fallen to just over 1,600 patients. Although the figures are going in the right direction, they are still far too high, and no one working in our NHS would claim otherwise. The staff in the health service will keep doing their best to clear the backlogs, but it will not happen until we see less of an emphasis on patients being treated in our hospitals. We need to see more focus on and resources for community-based services to help reduce the pressure on overburdened hospitals, as well as changing the system so that people are treated closer to where they live. As a former mental health nurse, I believe this must also include more timely interventions to treat those in need of mental health support. Currently, not only do too many people end up being treated in hospital, but once patients are there, the absence of enough suitable community-based facilities means it is difficult to discharge them. This leads to further blockages and backlogs in the system. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on adult social care, I welcome the fact that this Government recognise that without addressing the social care crisis, more and more people will be left without the care they need and further pressure will fall on the NHS. I am also pleased that the Government have announced an immediate £86 million boost to the disabled facilities grant for this financial year. That is in addition to the £86 million that was announced at the Budget. Together, this funding means that thousands more people will be able to make the improvements they need to their homes so they can live more independently.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Indefinite Leave to Remain: Healthcare Workers · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on his excellent speech introducing this important debate. Members will know that before being elected to represent my home constituency of Ashford in July, I had spent the previous 22 years working in the national health service. As someone who also made the journey to work in the NHS from a foreign country, I will draw on my knowledge and set out in my short contribution why I support the e-petition and would back reducing from five years to two the time a foreign healthcare worker has to wait before qualifying for indefinite leave to remain. I would make the point that since I came to the UK in 2001, the rules have changed and people who have the same aspirations as I did now risk finding themselves excluded. As we all know, the NHS is reliant on overseas workers. In the NHS workforce survey in June of this year, just under 30% of NHS staff in England reported having a non-British nationality. However, without proper incentives to both recruit and retain those workers, the employment deficit is likely to worsen. For example, in the years to June 2022 and June 2023, more nurses from the European Union and the European economic area left the NHS than joined. The picture is similar for healthcare workers from the rest of the world. In the year to June 2022, 4,702 healthcare workers left the UK, and for 2023 it was 6,610. In the year to June 2024, 7,957 workers left the UK. The cost of recruiting and training an overseas nurse is anywhere between £50,000 and £70,000, while for a doctor it can be roughly £250,000—only for them to be tempted away by other countries with more attractive recruitment and retention policies, such as Australia and Canada. As the cost of living crisis has worsened over the past decade and a half across the country, especially in the south-east, where my Ashford constituency sits, stagnating wages and rising costs have not been a good incentive to keep staff in the NHS workforce. This issue is also impacting patient care. Losing experienced staff is a big loss for the NHS. It takes 12 to 18 months for managers and matrons to train a newly joined staff member, so losing them in two to three years’ time is a big loss for the hospitals. Given those factors, we must rethink our retention strategy as a whole. Keeping in the United Kingdom skilled workers, especially those who have been the subject of large Government investment, is a vital step towards keeping our NHS alive and making it fit for the future. Therefore, granting healthcare workers indefinite leave to remain after two years rather than five is a necessary measure to solve the retention crisis identified by Lord Darzi in his recent independent report into our NHS. By making a special case for healthcare workers and allowing them to make this country their permanent home after two years, we would show the importance of their roles in the NHS and our gratitude, as a nation, for their decision to come to the UK to train, learn and work in our healthcare sector.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the first Labour Budget for nearly 15 years. I must disclose that I worked in the NHS for the past 22 years as a mental health nurse. As a result of the Budget, the NHS will receive the largest rise in day-to-day spending outside the pandemic since the last Labour Government. The additional £22.6 billion over two years will play a major role in cutting waiting times from their current unacceptably high levels. We all know that money on its own will not be enough to create an NHS fit for the future, so I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that it is important that the increased investment outlined in the Budget comes with the necessary reform of the NHS. On that point, I was pleased to see that there will be more than £2 billion spent on healthcare technology and digital investment to run essential services and drive improvements in NHS productivity. I believe that will have widespread support from my former colleagues working in the NHS. If we ensure that all trusts have access to electronic patient records, that will not only be much better for the patient, but will increase staff productivity, freeing up more time to treat patients. When I paid a visit to the William Harvey hospital in the Ashford constituency in August, 19 patients were being treated in corridors. That is deeply concerning, as during the summer there is supposedly less demand on the A&E department. This money will be well received in hospitals such as the William Harvey. I was pleased by the recent confirmation from the Health and Social Care Secretary that there will be more details on the new hospital programme in the new year. I would like to make a strong case for the William Harvey and the other hospitals in the East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust. In 2019, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, he promised that east Kent would get a new hospital. Proposals were drawn up for either a new hospital in Canterbury or upgraded facilities at the William Harvey hospital and the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate. Despite what Boris Johnson said, last year the Conservative Government broke that promise. At the time, it was reported that at least £210 million would have to be spent over the next five years on essential improvements to hospitals in east Kent just to maintain safe services. As we look to deliver an NHS fit for the future, I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that money spent patching up ageing buildings would be better invested in improving standards for patients in east Kent. I therefore hope that the proposals and promises from the previous Government can be reconsidered. The choice made by the Chancellor to invest in the country’s future and fix the broken public services left by the Tories is a clear rejection of that party’s failed policies, so I welcome the Budget.

• 31 Oct 2024 · High Street Businesses · Hansard source

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  Small and independent shops are the lifeblood of our high streets, and they make the communities in my Ashford constituency special. Far too many high street businesses have been feeling the squeeze over recent years, which has led to empty units being an all too familiar sight. I welcome the measures announced in yesterday’s Budget, particularly the reform of business rates. Will my hon. Friend update the House on what the Government are doing to empower local communities to acquire empty units?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Mental Health Support · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered improving support for mental health. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd, and I am pleased to have secured this important debate. As today is World Mental Health Day, it is particularly appropriate that we have the opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues and the mental health system in this country. It is important to reflect on how far we have come in this country in removing the stigma around mental health, and I hope this Parliament will play its part in continuing that progress. However, if we are to do so, we must be honest about the many challenges we still face. I also want to declare a personal interest: before being elected in July, I spent 22 years working in the NHS, primarily in mental health. One of my main motivations in standing for Parliament was to play my part in building an NHS fit for the future. Improving support for mental health will be an integral part of that. With that in mind, I want to put on record my thanks to my former NHS colleagues working in the mental health system. They do an incredible job in incredibly difficult circumstances. It is important to say at the outset of this debate that any criticisms of the current system are not directed at the workforce. Without their hard work and dedication, the problems faced by those in need of mental health services would be far worse. I know from my own experience that in recent years, their work has often been made more difficult by policies imposed at a national level by the last Government. Even when it was clear that those policies were having a detrimental impact, Ministers were unwilling to make concessions. Although the mental health workforce has expanded in recent years, it has only reached the same number of staff as it had when the last Labour Government were in office in 2010. More needs to be done regarding the recruitment and retention of staff, as underlined by the high number of vacancies. NHS data shows that in September last year, there were 28,600 vacancies, amounting to 19% of the total workforce and causing an increased reliance on agency staff. In the year to September 2023, there was a 19% turnover in the overall workforce. Those figures from the King’s Fund highlight the extent of the recruitment and retention crisis. From my work as a manager in mental health services, I know that experienced staff play a vital role, and a vast amount of time has to be spent recruiting new experienced staff when they move on to different posts. That has meant that often the most challenging environments have been run by staff with the least experience. That obviously has a negative impact on patient care and can lead to an increased incidence of aggression and abuse of staff. It is therefore not a surprise to see staff shortages having a negative impact on staff morale. The King’s Fund has shown that in in-patient services, staff regularly work extra hours or additional shifts and often find themselves in environments and with patients they are unfamiliar with. Similarly, staff in community services say they are worn out and find their work frustrating and stressful. For 14 years, we have had a string of Prime Ministers and Ministers speaking about achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health in the NHS. While I do not doubt the intentions behind achieving that goal, after 14 years of Conservative Government we do not have that parity. Indeed, as Lord Darzi made clear in his excellent report: “There is a fundamental problem in the distribution of resources between mental health and physical health. Mental health accounts for more than 20 per cent of the disease burden, but less than 10 per cent of NHS expenditure.” Although there has been increased investment in mental health services at a higher rate than the overall NHS budget, there is still a large gap between resources and demand. It is little wonder that all the talk of parity has seemed little more than warm words. I genuinely hope that under this Government things will finally change. I should point out that when we talk about waiting lists, those waiting in the mental health system are never included. Will my hon. Friend the Minister say something about that and explain how the Government plan to put parity of esteem into practice? Can he also say whether the Government will continue to increase investment in mental health services at a higher rate than the overall NHS budget during this Parliament? Lord Darzi’s recent report states that around 3.6 million people are in contact with mental health services, and in April this year around 1 million people were waiting for mental health services. As he makes clear, it has become all too normal to have to wait a long time to access mental health services. The NHS’s own data shows that in April this year, 10% of people who had been in contact with mental health services and were waiting for their second contact in adult community mental health services had been waiting for at least 116 weeks. All the evidence indicates that today we have a mental health system that is overstretched and under-resourced. In fact, there has never been so much demand for mental health support, with one in four people experiencing a diagnosable mental illness each year. Figures from the British Medical Association indicate that last year there were a record 5 million referrals to mental health services in England. That is up by 33% on the number of referrals in 2019. The increase in the prevalence of depression over the last decade is a good example of how our mental health as a nation has got significantly worse. In 2012, the prevalence of depression was 5.8%. By 2022 that had more than doubled to 13.2%. In my own constituency of Ashford the figure was even higher, at 17%. Given the increased prevalence of mental health issues, I was pleased that in the first King’s Speech of this Labour Government we saw mention of legislation to modernise the Mental Health Act 1983. The proposed legislation has been welcomed across the sector. It is an important opportunity to improve care and strengthen safeguards for people who are admitted to mental health hospitals. I hope the new Bill will address the fact that someone who is black or living in a deprived area is almost four times as likely to be sectioned under the Act. Will my hon. Friend the Minister tell me when we can expect to see the Government’s legislation introduced in Parliament? As Lord Darzi identified in his report, the lack of capital investment in places where people are sectioned means that a lot of those places are unsuitable, outdated and unsafe. From my own experience, I know that nurses, managers and matrons spend a lot of time trying to get capital works done in an NHS trust. People living with a long-term physical condition are 50% more likely to suffer from mental ill health, while those with Parkinson’s disease are twice as likely to be at risk of suicide. That underlines the importance of a wholesale change so that support can be accessed at an early stage. Too often, people can access support only after they have ended up in crisis. NHS figures show that in July there were just over 40,000 new urgent, very urgent or emergency referrals to crisis care teams. At that point, the treatment that patients receive is not only more intensive for them, but more costly for the NHS. The difficulty of accessing mental health services explains why increased numbers of people who require support end up being admitted to accident and emergency departments. To illustrate that, I will use the example of my own integrated care board in Kent and Medway, which has recently launched several safe havens to provide support for anyone in a mental health crisis. They have helped to reduce the number of people who seek support by going to hospital emergency departments when they experience a mental health crisis. In my constituency, there is not yet a safe haven. That may explain why William Harvey hospital in Ashford has one of the highest rates of individuals presenting with primary mental health needs at an A&E. I welcome plans that are under way for a safe haven at the hospital in the near future. When patients end up in hospital, there are significant difficulties in getting them a bed. This is a challenge in Kent and Medway, but the picture is not dissimilar across the rest of England. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends a maximum occupancy rate of 85% of beds for mental health patients. However, between April and June, the average occupancy rate of the 444 mental health beds in Kent and Medway was 91.7%. Across England, the average occupancy rate was 89.9%. Then there is the issue of discharging patients. When they are clinically ready to leave hospital, there is often nowhere for them to go. That leaves them stuck in hospital, causing blockages in the system. In my own experience, nurses, doctors, managers, matrons and directors spend many working hours looking into moving people out of hospital, when they should be focusing on patient care. I believe that more appropriate housing must be built that is open for people leaving hospital. I urge the Department of Health and Social Care to work across Government to ensure that as the Government’s planning reforms are introduced, that point is taken into consideration. We have seen an increase in adults being treated in hospitals for their mental health, and the situation is the same for children and young people. A recent report from the Education Policy Institute shows that the number of young people admitted to hospital increased by one fifth between 2017 and 2023. As the report indicates, that suggests that more young people are reaching a crisis point and are experiencing multiple admissions. The evidence also indicates that a large number of young people are not getting the necessary mental health support. A survey for Young Minds revealed that at least 60% of children considered to have a diagnosable mental health condition had not had contact with the NHS. Research from the Maternal Mental Health Alliance published last week shows that more than 20% of women will face mental health challenges either during their pregnancy or in the perinatal period. It is clear from the research that many women struggle to access support, particularly those from racialised communities, young mothers and those experiencing domestic abuse or living in poverty. We know that intervening early to ensure that people are kept in good health is not only better for the individual but tends to be far less costly. However, until now, efforts to prevent mental ill health have been severely underfunded and they have not been given the priority they deserve. I hope we will see a marked change in approach under this Government. With that in mind, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether greater priority will now be given to community-based support for mental health services. I hope he will agree that the easier it is for people to access mental health services locally, whether in a traditional health setting or through more informal drop-in services, the quicker they will be able to get the treatment they need. Will my hon. Friend update us on the Government’s plans for Young Futures hubs for children and young people? These open-access drop-in hubs will be an important step in providing community-based mental health support for children and young people. Will he say something about the roll-out of those hubs? Our manifesto commitment to introduce a specialist mental health professional in every school will be important in helping to identify mental health conditions early on so that they can be prevented from developing into more serious conditions in later life. Will that include access to counselling? Research from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy indicates that children whose mental health difficulties are initially too complex for lower intensity interventions but not complex enough to be referred to higher intensity interventions, such as child and adolescent mental health services, can easily miss out on the mental health support they need. They could instead be helped by forms of provision such as counselling. All the evidence shows that being active helps people’s mental health. Helping them back to work will also help to grow our economy. Lord Darzi’s report identified that, since the pandemic, the number of people who are economically inactive has increased by around 800,000, with people with mental health conditions accounting for most of the increase. I welcome the Government’s new initiative to work across Departments and create links between long-term unemployment and health. I also hope that they will look to reform the benefit system, ending the blame culture identified by the Secretary of State, so that we can treat people with mental health problems with dignity. I welcome the greater emphasis that Ministers have said will be put on prevention of illness, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to reassure me that the same emphasis will also apply to mental health. As the Mental Health Foundation has said, there is clear evidence that place and the circumstances in which people are born, grow, study, live and work have a powerful influence on their mental health. Therefore, there must be a fundamental reform of the way in which we deal with mental health. We should be addressing the complexity of interactions and relationships, and how they affect individuals, families and communities. Rather than starting from the point of treating mental health, we should put the emphasis on creating a society that prevents mental ill health in the first place. Beginning with central Government, I want to see a co-ordinated approach to developing effective policies to protect people’s mental health. With that in mind, the priority that this Government have already given to cutting pollution and building high-quality houses is welcome. I also welcome the proposed pre-watershed junk food ban and the steps that Ministers are taking to create a smokefree society. Going forward, I want to see greater cross-Government working to address the social determinants of our mental health. In the coming months, the Government are set to publish their 10-year plan for the NHS. As my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues work on that, I hope that they will consult with campaigners and organisations working in mental health, as well as representatives of the workforce. By doing that, the Government will be able to grasp the opportunity to transform the way we approach the issue of mental health, ensure that there is true parity of esteem and provide real, meaningful change in the mental health system.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I recently paid a visit to the William Harvey Hospital in my constituency, and saw 19 patients being treated by staff in corridors. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on overcrowding in hospitals, and on what the Government are doing to fix the broken NHS that the Conservatives have left to the country?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to make my maiden speech in the House as the first ever Labour Member of Parliament for Ashford. I am delighted to be called to speak in this important debate. I congratulate all new Members who have delivered their maiden speeches today. I am beyond grateful and deeply proud to have this opportunity to do so, and I am excited to represent a community such as Ashford, which is waiting upon change—not just any change, but change that speaks volumes. I was excited to commute to London after I was elected, but I was shocked at the expense of £93 for an hour-long train journey. That is the same as it would cost me to get my weekly groceries at a bargain shop in Ashford. Luckily, we have more and more bargain shops opening for business in Ashford. I intend to press for the implementation of policies that will maintain and restore our town’s natural beauty, as well as introducing more local businesses to help Ashford to thrive and bring back its prosperity. I take joy in representing such a diverse community as ours and, coming from Kerala, a southern state in India, I am proud to have been selected by the people of Ashford. Ashford has been a market town since the middle ages and is home to a hospital named after the renowned physician William Harvey. It is a major hospital for those within east Kent. Many rely on that establishment to deliver many forms of healthcare, but recently it has been overcrowded yet understaffed. Having worked in the NHS as a mental health nurse for the past 22 years, this is a subject I hold close to my heart, and it is certainly something I would like to look into. I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Damian Green, and the work he has done for Ashford over the past 27 years, as well as acknowledging his impressive record in the House, having been First Secretary of State, Minister for the Cabinet Office, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice and, finally, Minister of State for Immigration. I have great respect for the successes he had, such as working on a cross-party basis with local councillors to bring an excellent skills-focused college to Ashford, attracting more keen students to the heart of the town. He also supported work to convert the previously derelict Newtown Works into a film studio and he has helped to protect the Kent countryside, both of which I value dearly, as protecting the beauty of the constituency is vital. I would also like to acknowledge Damian Green’s efforts in campaigning to bring back services to the continent from Ashford International train station, which is a personal target of mine. I believe Ashford would benefit from restoring that international travel, as it previously heightened tourism and the number of businesses, both foreign and local, situated in the town. I am pleased that the King’s Speech highlighted the idea of a better relationship with Europe through the creation of a new policy, which will assist in bringing international travel back to Ashford. Ashford has great connectivity to London, thanks to the development of HS1. As a result, more people have chosen to move towards Ashford and make it their home. However, the infrastructure has simply not caught up. GP surgeries, dentists, housing, roads and schools need improvement, and I will campaign on these issues as the new Member of Parliament. As there have recently been boundary changes to my constituency, I would also like to pay tribute to my other predecessor, Damian Collins, who represented the parts of Folkestone and Hythe that are now within the new Ashford constituency—namely, Hawkinge and surrounding villages. I am glad to embrace the natural beauty and historic significance of these areas. RAF Hawkinge was important during the second world war and, as the closest operational airfield to France, it was used during the battle of Britain to defend against enemy aerial attacks. I could go on and on about the constituency’s unique and vibrant towns and villages. As the House can tell, I am very content and very proud to represent these areas. Our farmers play a valuable role both locally, in rural areas of the constituency, and in the wider economy. Importantly, they help to provide food security, stabilising the agricultural sector. However, they also face workforce shortages and are being hit hard by increasing energy costs. I am pleased that the King’s Speech contains a Bill to create the publicly owned Great British Energy, which will reduce energy bills in the long term. It is clear that our public services are in decline. The NHS faces many problems. Staff lack morale, and mental health services, in particular, are deteriorating. My career background is in the NHS and mental health, so this is close to home. I have seen children as young as nine years old self-harming, and I have seen many people, young and old, end their life while waiting for treatment. This is a serious issue, and it must be addressed. It is clear that, in recent years, the importance and value of our NHS has not been highlighted, so its maintenance has not been prioritised. We face an ever-growing yet ageing population, leading to hospital overcrowding and a heavy dependence on social care, which is itself hanging by a thread. Yet the hospitals are severely understaffed and hugely underfunded, to the point that we can no longer fulfil people’s demands or catch up with these growing issues. After hearing His Majesty’s Speech, I am reassured that a new Bill will be introduced to address mental health and learning difficulties, and that the Government have already taken the initial steps. This is a necessary step towards reaching a better NHS and a better future in which we can get people back to work, supporting economic growth. Finally, I thank the members and supporters of Ashford Labour party for their work to secure this historic victory in Ashford, as well as extending my thanks to my wife, Brita, and our three children. I am incredibly proud to be standing here on behalf of my constituents, and I look forward to working with those around me, from all parties, to make the change that our country desperately needs.