Steve Barclay MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

  More

  I fear that I may have read the legislation a little more closely than the Minister. Some media reports suggest what compliance with this regulation would involve for a company. We are talking about conducting an environmental impact assessment beyond national jurisdiction and significant further work. The cost of complying with the EIA requirement could run to a couple of million pounds. For me, the question is not the international ambition—of course everyone in the House wants our marine environment to be protected—but why the Minister is today introducing legislation the cost of compliance with which will be 10 or 20 times the cost of the fine for non-compliance.

• 4 Jun 2026 · General Medical Council · Hansard source

  More

  A nine-year-old constituent of mine, Jack Moate, died in 2015, two months after an operation was carried out on his hips by an orthopaedic consultant at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge. Jack’s mother, Elizabeth, said he spent his final weeks in “constant agonising pain”. At the time, she had been told that his treatment had been properly reviewed and that no concerns had been identified, but an independent clinical review later found “evidence that fatal physical harm was caused”. A nine-year-old boy in constant, agonising pain. As the case has been referred to the coroner, I am restricted by the sub judice rule under which we operate in commenting further on the details of Jack’s case at this stage. It is, of course, vital that the inquest can ensure that the full truth is established. One of the key things I want to achieve through this Adjournment debate, on behalf of Elizabeth, is to encourage the Minister, who is respected across the House, to ask for a full briefing from her officials on the full aspects of this case. It is not constrained by the sub judice rule, so she is able to get that briefing from her officials. I therefore hope that she will be fully sighted on the issues that it gives rise to. What I can talk about at this stage is the wider regulatory landscape regarding clinicians, and specifically the role of the GMC, on which there is currently a live consultation titled, “Reforming the General Medical Council legislative council”. As the Minister will know, that consultation is open until 23 June, so this Adjournment debate is timely. The issues at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust raise serious wider patient safety concerns in the context of the consultation, specifically where concerns are raised but a trust does not act, where a trust does not act even after a whistleblower has raised concerns, and where other clinicians fail to intervene, and where the regulatory oversight does not kick in. It is vital, in the context of that consultation, that the GMC takes the opportunity to review expeditiously how it reforms medical practices that are problematic, and to ensure that they are not strung out over a period of many years, as I will come on to highlight. Where shortcomings in medical practice are discovered, the GMC should act immediately to protect patients, rather than waiting for the outcome of a coroner’s process, which may take many years to conclude, during which time further harm could be caused. I hope the House will revisit the circumstances of Jack’s case once the coroner’s process has been concluded, and I hope the Minister will commit to returning to the House to make a statement at that point, so that the issues that cannot be raised today can be debated without restriction. Alongside that issue with the GMC, I want to raise two further points. My second point relates to the GMC’s judgment, and specifically its poor judgment in relation to antisemitism. The Minister will have noticed her own Department’s response just this morning to Lord Mann’s recommendations to tackle what he describes as “routine ostracism of Jewish people” in the NHS—that is the description from the Government’s adviser. Indeed, Ministers quite rightly have said that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent, yet current GMC practice, to me, falls significantly below the expectations set out in Lord Mann’s report. Given that his recommendations have been welcomed and accepted by the Government in full, there must be an expectation that the consultation, and indeed reform of the GMC, will reflect that. Will Health Ministers require the GMC to change the current threshold for what it sees as a standard compatible with an NHS clinician? Let me give a specific example that illustrates the current gap between the GMC and what I see as the Government’s response to Lord Mann’s report. Just a few weeks ago, the NHS clinician Dr Martin Whyte was seen as fit by the GMC to join the GMC specialist register—a senior role within the NHS. Yet when I was Secretary of State for Health, I reported Dr Martin Whyte to the GMC following abhorrent social media comments. While it is distressing to read them out, I think it is important for the House to hear exactly what this doctor—who has just been put on the GMC specialist register—had to say. For example, he said: “hahaha zeig heil hahaha gas the jews hahaha just kidding but have you seen these youtube videos about the holohoax they’re pretty convincing imo”. That is from a doctor. In another tweet, he said: “Ahaha you thin skinned babyman. How are you still so prominent at the BBC? Did you and Tony Hall kill a prostitute together or something?” Another tweet talked of “Jew banker goblins”—that gives a sense of the character we are dealing with. Obviously, I had a sometimes challenging relationship with the British Medical Association during my time as Health Secretary, but interestingly even it, which Dr Whyte unsuccessfully tried to sue, said that he was someone who could never return to represent it in any elected office. The BMA found him unpalatable—but not, it seems, the GMC. That is not an isolated case. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has said: “Britain’s regulatory bodies are failing the Jewish community. Time and again doctors who spew antisemitic bile online and in the streets are being allowed to continue practising medicine”. Again, that is a flavour of Lord Mann’s report from this morning. There are other examples. I will not go through them all, but I will give just one example. Dr Rehiana Ali, a consultant neurologist who was reinstated just last year, said that the architect of the 7 October attacks was a “legend”, called for Israel to be “dismantled” and claimed that 9/11 was conducted by Mossad. I have no doubt that such examples horrify the Minister, given her good reputation in the House, as well as Members on all Benches. But they do point to why the consultation is timely and why, in response to Lord Mann’s report, we need to see action in respect of the GMC. The third issue that I want to highlight regards the wider poor performance of the GMC. This is an organisation that spends north of £100 million on staff costs—it has got more than 1,700 staff—yet doctors’ fitness to practise hearings are taking, on average, almost two years to process, with a recent increase in cases open for three years or more. That time matters because the NHS must continue to pay suspended doctors in full until they are formally found to be guilty of misconduct or incompetence. It just adds to the grievance that families feel when they see a doctor being paid for years even though there are very serious concerns regarding their fitness to practise—never mind the fact that if they do continue to practise during that time, there may be ongoing risk to patients. Further, in October last year it came to light that the GMC had allowed doctors with restrictions regarding their overseas practice to practise without restrictions here, which clearly can put patients at risk. It is notable that even the Medical Defence Union has called for new legislation so that the GMC can overhaul its processes. Will the Minister use the Health Bill as an opportunity to table amendments for that? If not, which legislation will she use to address some of these issues regarding the GMC? In a spirit of balance, when dealing with regulatory bodies I want to be clear about the important distinction to draw between the sort of cases I have highlighted and those of medics who have made a genuine mistake—often in a highly pressured environment—where indeed we want to encourage a culture of openness and learning. Indeed, I think back to the 2011 case of Dr Bawa-Garba, where I think a lot of the backlash to that and concerns of the wider profession were about the sense that clinical reflections made in good faith as part of learning were being used in legal proceedings, as well as the extent to which a trainee was possibly being scapegoated. I hope the House can see the marked distinction between the grave cases that I have highlighted today and the case of a clinician who, in the heat of a high pressure situation, made a genuine mistake and where the case is addressed in a spirit of openness and transparency. I am sure the Minister can draw that distinction. I hope that I am correct in my understanding that Ministers are minded to give the Professional Standards Authority greater powers, including to ensure that it has the information necessary to make decisions on exercising its right to appeal fitness to practise decisions, and to enable a more agile approach to regulatory performance monitoring. If the Minister confirms that in her response, I would welcome that. How we protect patients better is a long-running issue. I know a number of my predecessors as Secretary of State for Health were focused on this—indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) worked extensively on patient safety when I was his deputy in the Department. For my part, I focused on giving families a stronger voice in the NHS—through Martha’s rule, for example, and increasing data transparency. It is clear from the Government’s response this morning that the current ministerial team is also focused sincerely on how to enhance patient safety, but that does require a regulator that is fit for purpose, and there are significant concerns about the GMC. I hope that the Minister will use legislation before the House, alongside the current consultation, to address some of the concerns I have raised today.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Army Reserve · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That this House has considered the Army Reserve. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. It is also a pleasure to have the Minister in her place; she brings with her a distinguished service record and is recognised across the House as having a genuine commitment to our armed forces. I am sure that she, like me, recognises that the role of the Army Reserve has changed in recent years. When we debate this issue, we are not simply talking about training days with the reserves; they play a much more active role in supporting defence capabilities on a daily basis. In bringing forward this debate, my purpose is not to strike a partisan tone. There is much on which both sides of the House can agree. First, the Government are right to say that the threat to our national security has increased, and increased materially. The strategic defence review is right to focus on expanding our reserves as one of the measures that we need to take. The Armed Forces Bill, despite some of the noise in the media, has a number of sensible measures on updating legislation. There are areas, as a foundation, that all sides of the House can agree on. My principal concern is the gap between the Government’s words and their delivery. In particular, I am concerned about their delivery in the context of negotiations with the Treasury, and in the context of a No. 10 that is perhaps distracted by other issues and not as focused on responding to the national security threat with provisions such as the reserves. I will address that point through three areas: first, the reserve numbers; secondly, a specific issue this year around the Government’s commitment to reserve service days, a material issue on which it would be helpful to hear directly from the Minister; and thirdly, funding prioritisation and to what extent—given some of the media stories regarding the Ministry of Defence and the wider context that it faces—funding, whether for equipment or estate for the reserves, will be ringfenced or secured this year. On numbers, Members on both sides of the House recognise that boosting the number of our reserves is probably one of the best-value options for the MOD in terms of building defence capability. It is what I would regard as low-hanging fruit—something that should be done. The SDR set a modest ambition of a 20% increase, but I think we should be doubling the numbers this Parliament; other countries such as France are doing that—and from a higher base, so up to over 100,000. Even on the Government’s more modest ambition of 20%, if we actually look at what has happened since the general election, there was an initial fall in numbers until the SDR. In that non-partisan spirit, however, let us just look at the numbers since the SDR: in that period, there has been virtually no increase. Since coming into office, the number of reservists fell by 119 personnel—not particularly consequential—but since the SDR, it has risen by just 249. To put that in context, on the Government’s current trajectory, it is going to take 13 years to meet their own more modest target—a target that is a fifth of the French target and that starts from a lower base. In other words, it is going to take 13 years just to add 20% to our reserves, when the French are going to double theirs. The record so far does not match the Government’s words about the increased threat and the importance of the reserves.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Army Reserve · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is right. I represent the rural constituency of North East Cambridgeshire, and I recognise the point that he raises; that plays into the issue of overall numbers and into the second point that I am coming on to, which is about the commitments for the existing numbers. Let me set out the crux of the issue. Media reports suggest that the MOD has been asked to make efficiency savings of £3.5 billion this year. My concern is that quite often, areas of the budget are locked down—they are fixed and cannot be shifted—so it is tempting for the MOD to look to the reserves as an area most able to meet those efficiency targets. The reserve service days could be cut as part of that. That is hugely disruptive because it often means that posts, as they come up for renewal, are delayed and left vacant; it means those who might have planned financially to do a certain number of days find those plans change; and it means those trying to fit in annual leave or commitments with their existing employer find those plans disrupted at short notice. Given that I have heard anecdotal reports of units already being told that their reserve service days may be reduced this year, could the Minister send a clear message to reservists up and down the country that the Government do value their work and the reserve service days, and that there will be no reduction in reserve service days this year? In the overall scheme of things, for a budget of £60 billion, the cost of the reserves is tiny if one is trying to meet those wider budget challenges.

• 17 Dec 2025 · UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister’s statement did not seem to say what the contribution to the EU will be, but media reports suggest £570 million. By opening our borders, we will have youth workers and others coming to the UK at a time of rising unemployment. Could he confirm the amount that will be paid? Will it be more than what will be raised through the family farm tax, which the Budget said will only raise up to £500 million a year, even at the end of this Parliament?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Bronze-age Heritage: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 5 Nov 2025 · Bronze-age Heritage: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

  More

  I pay tribute to my Cambridgeshire colleague, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), for securing this debate. I am grateful that the Minister draws out that distinction. Must Farm, the 3,000-year-old settlement dubbed the “Pompeii of the fens”, is in Fenland in my constituency, yet the funding always seems to go to Peterborough next door. Some of that is logical, but will he clarify what share of this funding will go to Fenland residents so that they can benefit from a discovery in their local authority area?