Zöe Franklin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. New clause 1 seeks to ensure that racial disparities in the use of community treatment orders are properly understood, monitored and addressed. We have known for many years that black individuals are disproportionately subjected to coercive powers under the Mental Health Act 1983, including detention, restraint and community treatment orders, yet progress has been painfully slow. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review within 12 months of the Bill passing and to publish the findings within 18 months. It would look specifically at whether certain racial or ethnic groups are over-represented among those who are subject to community treatment orders, and whether there are disparities in outcomes—including treatment effectiveness and patient experience—across racial groups. The aim is not just to collect data, but for meaningful scrutiny of how coercive community powers are applied and whether they are serving all groups equally. The 2018 independent review of the Mental Health Act found that black individuals were more than eight times more likely to be placed under a CTO than white individuals. That is not a minor discrepancy, but a structural injustice. The review also raised concerns that CTOs were not necessarily used because they are clinically effective, but because they are seen as a way to manage risk, particularly where racialised assumptions come into play. We must ask, are CTOs truly supporting recovery, or are they disproportionately used to control and surveil? Are they fostering trust or fear in mental health services? The new clause would give Parliament the information we need to answer those questions. It would set a timeline for transparency and create a foundation for future policy reform that is rooted in fairness and equality. In the absence of this new clause, we risk continuing a system where racial injustice is baked into mental health practice, without sufficient oversight or accountability. If this Government are serious about tackling racial inequality in mental health, they will have no objection to this basic measure of review and reporting. We have discussed specific disparities in previous clauses, but new clause 3 aims to ensure that systematic and sustained action is embedded in the way that mental health services are run. The disproportionate detention and coercive treatment of black and minority ethnic people under the Mental Health Act has been evidenced for decades, yet progress on addressing these inequalities has been too slow and too inconsistent across the country. New clause 3 takes a structural approach. It would require each mental health provider to appoint a dedicated senior lead to take responsibility for reducing inequalities within their services—not in name only, but through published plans covering staff diversity, culturally appropriate advocacy care planning and the use of advance choice documents. It would also ensure that frontline staff receive ongoing training that equips them to recognise and respond to disparities and uphold anti-discriminatory practice, with regular refreshes to ensure that this learning stays live. Importantly, it would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish an annual report breaking down how the Bill is used across racial and other demographic groups, and what progress is being made to close those gaps. This is not about creating more paperwork; it is about requiring leadership, transparency and accountability at every level, from clinical teams through to Government. If this Bill is to earn the title of a reform, it must act decisively on the most pertinent inequalities in the system. I urge the Committee to support the new clauses.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would introduce a dedicated veterans’ mental health oversight officer, recognising that those who serve or have served in the UK or Commonwealth armed forces face distinct mental health challenges that are not always adequately met by the current system. Far too many veterans experience post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety or substance misuse that, sadly, is linked to their service. Yet they are often treated within a system that does not fully take account of those experiences, and they are sometimes detained under the Mental Health Act without the benefit of trauma-informed, veteran-specific pathways of care. New clause 9 seeks to change that. It would create an independent officer, tasked with monitoring the use of the Mental Health Act in relation to veterans, advocating for tailored assessment and care linked to veterans’ service history, promoting alternatives to detention where appropriate, particularly through veteran-specific services, and reporting annually to Parliament on outcomes including rates of detention, recidivism and systemic barriers. It is not just about oversight; it is about respect and responsibility.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his comments, for the recognition that individuals in the LGBT community clearly have concerns about the way that mental health care is provided, and for the commitment to addressing those. I hope that at some point he will be able to advise on the timeline for looking to resolve the issue of the unreliability of data; it is crucial that we have accurate data in order to ensure good outcomes and improvements in mental health care. However, in the light of the Minister’s comments and commitment on the issue, we will not press the new clause, although I look forward to observing closely, as this Bill continues through the House, how it will address the current inequalities for the LGBT+ community. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 22 National strategy on mental health units “(1) The Mental Health Act 1983 is amended as follows. (2) In Part VIII (Miscellaneous Functions of Local Authorities and the Secretary of State), after section 118, insert— ‘ 118A National strategy on mental health units (1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of the Mental Health Act 2025, publish a national strategy to set out how the Government will ensure that all relevant mental health units meet or exceed ‘good’ safety standards as assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). (2) A strategy issued under this section must address the following matters— (a) recruitment, retention and training of mental health staff, (b) patient-to-staff ratios, and (c) safe staffing levels during crises and night shifts. (3) Following publication of the strategy, a report on implementation progress must be laid before Parliament annually. (4) For the purposes of this section, a ‘relevant mental health unit’ is a facility used for treatment under this Act.”— (Dr Chambers.) This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy, followed by an annual progress report, on how the Government will ensure that all mental health units used for treatment under the Mental Health Act 1983 are rated “good” or above by the CQC. Brought up, and read the First time .

• 10 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 4, page 10, line 5, at end insert— “ 125FA Training standards (1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision about training standards for responsible bodies and individuals working with people with autism or a learning disability in— (a) mental health hospitals; (b) places of safety designated under sections 135 or 136 of this Act; (c) crisis accommodation; and (d) such other settings as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. (2) Regulations under subsection (1) must— (a) specify minimum training requirements; (b) require training to be co-produced with people with autism or learning disability and their families or carers; (c) require regular refresher training; and (d) include training on de-escalation techniques and alternatives to restraint. (3) The Secretary of State must publish guidance about the standards set out in regulations under subsection (1). (4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.” This amendment would require the Secretary of State to produce guidance on minimum training standards for staff working with people with autism or learning disabilities in mental health settings and require that training be co-produced with people with lived experience and their families. Amendment 25 was, again, tabled by my esteemed colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. It would require the Secretary of State to produce guidance on minimum training standards for staff working with people with autism or learning disabilities in mental health settings, and would require that the training be co-produced with people with lived experience and their families. I suggest to all colleagues on the Committee, particularly those who heard my hon. Friend’s passionate speech on Second Reading, that we need to reflect and learn from the tragic story of his constituent Declan, in which insufficient training sadly contributed to Declan’s death. Autistic people in hospitals risk being subject to unnecessary restraint, over-medication and solitary confinement. That raises real concerns about whether there is sufficient training available to staff working with them. I acknowledge that enormous numbers of incredible professionals work with individuals who are in crisis, but when such tragedies happen, we need to reflect on whether training is sufficient. Across mental health hospitals, places of safety and crisis accommodation, training is crucial to ensuring good outcomes for those in crisis. Some 92% of people with learning disabilities or autism in hospitals are detained under the Mental Health Act, yet many staff lack specialist understanding. Research shows that training is most effective when it is developed with people with lived experience. The amendment would ensure that all staff working with autistic people and people with learning disabilities receive specialist training. It would require co-production with families and people with lived experience, with which Conservative colleagues have already said that they agree. That would include mandatory training in de-escalation techniques and alternatives to restraint; create consistent national standards, rather than the unfortunate postcode lottery; and address fundamental staff knowledge gaps that contribute to inappropriate treatment. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment, which would enable us to ensure that those providing crucial mental health support to those in crisis have the appropriate training to prevent tragedies like the loss of Declan.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Easter Adjournment · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to take part in this Easter Adjournment debate. I always find that these end-of-term debates really enlighten me about fellow Members of the House, their constituencies and the issues that are important to their constituents. Before I talk about something close to my own constituency and heart, I associate myself with the contribution of the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) and the thanks that she gave to Surrey police. My own borough team in Guildford has been fantastic, just as hers has been, in supporting our town centre by dealing with antisocial behaviour. I note the absolutely cracking contribution and egg-cellent Easter puns from the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer). I will stop there with the Easter puns and move on to my constituency. I will use my time to highlight an issue in my constituency that has both national and local significance. I hope that action on the issue will not just resolve it in Guildford, but help to drive long-term change in the way we support charities and businesses during multi-year infrastructure projects. Many Members will be aware of the extensive redevelopment works taking place at junction 10 of the M25, near the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Wisley. The redevelopment works started in November 2022 and were due to finish in summer 2025, but sadly it has been confirmed recently that that will not be the case; they will finish in approximately spring 2026. That is four years of disruption for local residents and businesses. Ultimately, the project should improve the junction, but—it is a very big “but”—there have been serious consequences for RHS Wisley and our much-loved local café, Ockham Bites, alongside frustration and disruption for local residents in villages around the junction and everyone who has had to travel through it. While the two places are very different in scale, both have seen a significant loss. Ockham Bites is losing £600 a day, and RHS Wisley predicts that by the end of the project it will have lost £11 million. These financial losses were highlighted in the early days of the project but dismissed on the basis that current legislation compensates only on the value of property, not for loss of business. For RHS Wisley, the loss has had far-reaching consequences. Plans for new arboretums have been delayed, funding for scientific research has been reduced and community outreach programmes have been scaled back. The impact goes beyond my constituency and the garden itself through to the communities around Guildford and other RHS sites across the country. They are being forced to consider cuts to training opportunities, with a projected 10% reduction in workplace student horticulturalist positions over the next two years. I am sure that Members of the House will be very sad to hear all those things about RHS Wisley. I know that residents in my constituency, as well as people across the country, feel strongly about this issue. A petition that is currently live has 92,000 signatures, and that number keeps increasing. I pause to thank my colleague Baroness Benjamin, who has been highlighting this matter in the other place, for the answers she has gained from Members of the House of Lords on the issues surrounding the problem at RHS Wisley. Will the hon. Member for Wellingborough and Rushden (Gen Kitchen) encourage the Transport Secretary to respond to my request to meet me and representatives of RHS Wisley? Returning to Ockham Bites and its fantastic cakes and tea, it has suffered big financial losses for a small business. There have also been problems with water, and all those things combined have forced the owner to make serious personal and professional adjustments, including relocating their home and dealing with heightened stress levels. These two businesses’ stories are of very different scales, but they highlight a serious flaw in current legislation. We should not be leaving small businesses, charities and other organisations struggling financially and potentially failing due to multi-year infrastructure projects. Not only are those organisations the lifeblood of our communities; they are fundamental to our economic success. I hope that Ministers will agree to meet me and work to find a way to support those businesses, and commit to reviewing the legislation to ensure that their stories are not repeated and that future multi-year infrastructure projects are delivered without leaving key parts of our local economy and community behind. I want to close on a positive note in this afternoon’s fantastic debate by giving a cheeky little encouragement to everyone in the Chamber, if they have not yet experienced RHS Wisley or their local RHS garden, to please go and enjoy them during the Easter recess. I also echo my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) in encouraging Members and the public, when enjoying the great outdoors, to be fire safe. Finally, I hope that all Members of this House and all the staff, security and police have a restorative Easter, and I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for leading the debate.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  I agree; we need to look carefully at this issue, particularly where public money is being used. Across the board, we need to end the practice of abusive NDAs. It is an outrage, and I ask the Government today to act decisively. We have waited too long for a ban on NDAs in cases of abuse, harassment and discrimination. Protecting corporate reputations should not come at the cost of human dignity. Since its formation, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority has been a crucial force in fighting this abuse, working to expose harmful practices and advocate for transparency and accountability. If its efforts to become a prescribed person are successful, it would provide legal safeguards for whistleblowers, helping those bound by NDAs to speak out without fear of retribution. By its very existence, CIISA makes it harder for misconduct to be hidden away, forcing perpetrators and institutions to think twice before engaging in exploitative behaviour. Unfortunately, despite its vital work, CIISA faces the threat of closure due to financial barriers. Its request for just 0.1% of a company’s profits—a mere fraction of what other regulatory bodies operate on—is being met with obstruction, delays and shifting goalposts. If CIISA is forced to shut down, it will send a clear message: creative industry workers, despite generating £124.6 billion in 2022, do not deserve a safe and respectful workplace. I have two requests for the Minister. First, will he please act to ensure that CIISA has the funding it needs to continue its work to protect people in the creative industry and prevent the industry from sliding back into silence, fear and impunity? Secondly—we will hear this again and again today—will he please take the action we have been waiting far too long for and ban abusive NDAs outright? No one should ever be forced to choose between their career and their dignity, so it is time to end the use of NDAs as a weapon against justice, and ensure that those who have suffered can speak their truth without fear, without penalty and without being erased.

• 12 Sept 2024 · New Housing: Environmental Standards · Hansard source

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  Thank you for calling me, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) for bringing forward this important debate, and for her extensive speech, which was full of sensible suggestions and thoughts. I thank the Minister for his attendance. Heating our homes is one of the most pressing issues facing the UK right now. The cost of living crisis has sped up the urgent need to improve the environmental standards of our homes to keep people warm and stop people having to choose between heating and eating. For far too long, households across Britain have been forced to make impossible choices: heating their homes or putting food on the table. It is a disgrace that in one of the world’s wealthiest nations, millions are living in cold, damp homes that are too expensive to heat and are harmful to their health. Developers are not meeting the environmental standards we need for a sustainable future. That is unacceptable. The Liberal Democrat manifesto said that all new homes need to be zero-carbon and fitted with solar panels. That rooftop revolution would make use of the vast dead space on roofs across the country, generating clean energy right where it is needed. Yet developers continue to submit plans that ignore these opportunities, and homeowners are the ones who pay the price. In my own constituency of Guildford, a developer recently submitted plans for news homes, without including heat pumps. That is bonkers. We know that there will be no new gas boilers in newly built homes after 2025, so why are developers continuing to insist on submitting plans with gas boilers? All new homes will require alternative heating systems such as heat pumps. By allowing developers to cut corners today, we are passing the costs of upgrading homes on to future homeowners, who then face the high costs of retrofitting—not to mention the ongoing burden of high energy bills. Developers need to take responsibility, and this House must put the onus on them to do so. Developers are putting homeowners in the position of having to foot the bill for improvements that should have been made when the buildings were first built. Building for the future is not an option; it should be a requirement. We need to incentivise developers to act now, but we must also back up those incentives with strong legislation to ensure that new homes meet zero-carbon standards. This about more than just the build cost; we need to consider the lifetime cost of these homes. How efficient are they for homeowners over time? For example, a house might be cheaper for the developer if it is built to lower standards, but if it is inefficient, the homeowner is left paying high energy bills for years. Making improvements at the building stage—for example, installing solar panels and domestic energy storage, and ensuring that the home has proper insultation—means that the fear of opening energy bills becomes a thing of the past. The Liberal Democrats have shared our plan for a fairer deal on new homes and heating. We want homes that do not make people sick, where heating bills are not thought of with fear, and we want every new home to be built to the highest environmental standards. We have two key policies that we encourage the Minister, and his colleagues in the Labour Government, to consider seriously. The first is our 10-year energy upgrade programme, which will begin with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes, and then ensure that every new home is built to zero-carbon standards. We, as Members of this House, know that local authorities play an integral role in our society, so let us give them the power to deliver that, ensuring that it is rolled out efficiently and where it is needed most. Councillors and local residents understand local need, so if there is local need, let Parliament make it work for local residents. That raises the question of why we are discussing this, when it should have been sorted out many years ago. Conservative failure in government has left households high and dry during a cost of living crisis. Families are struggling to pay their bills, and, instead of support, they are met with rising energy costs and poor-quality housing. Britain’s “warm homes” infrastructure has dry rot, and this plan will cut it out. The evidence is clear: UK homes are among the least energy-efficient in Europe, with some of the oldest housing stock on the continent. Nearly 40% of our homes were built before 1946, compared to 21% in Italy and just 11% in Spain. Many of our homes are expensive to heat, and inefficient at that. This is not just a financial burden or an environmental issue; it is a public health crisis. The NHS spends an estimated £1.4 billion every year treating illnesses related to living in cold or damp homes, with wider societal costs reaching a staggering £15.4 billion. By upgrading homes with free insulation for low-income households, we can ensure that no one must choose between a warm house and a full stomach. By installing heat pumps and making homes zero-carbon, we will not only reduce emissions but make our homes greener, fairer and more affordable to live in. The second idea that we encourage Labour colleagues to get behind is getting landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties. We would require landlords to upgrade it to EPC C or above by 2028, because British tenants are living in housing that is making them ill. It is unacceptable that 35% of fuel-poor households are in the private rented sector, where more than 1 million people struggle with fuel poverty, and an ever-increasing number of private renters live with dangerous mould and damp. I am ashamed to say that that is also causing children to die each year. Inaction from the previous Conservative Government has left people trapped in homes that are harmful and costly to heat. It is appalling that last year, more than 8,000 new homes were built in England with an EPC rating below band C. That cannot be allowed to continue, and I strongly advise the Government to remember the promises they made on it while electioneering earlier this year. Our plans for landlords are a fair and green message: under Liberal Democrat proposals, Parliament would be able to ensure that children and vulnerable families did not have to suffer because of poor housing standards. We want legislation that requires landlords to upgrade properties to EPC grade C or above, and we want homes to be built with higher EPC ratings from the start. Let me be clear: these measures are about not just improving homes, but restoring dignity and health to those who live in them. Alongside these proposals, we want social tariffs, and we need to decouple electricity prices from wholesale gas. We need to address the fact that we are building homes that do not meet environmental standards that look to the future instead of the past. We have a cost of living crisis and a climate emergency, and we need to invest in a future where homes are energy-efficient, affordable to heat and zero carbon. Given that the Government intend to remove winter fuel payments to pensioners, it is all the more pertinent that we insulate people’s homes from the very start to prevent them from struggling with their bills and to prevent elderly people from freezing during the winter. If we had insulated homes when they were built, as we are advocating, perhaps we would not have needed this debate. We should ensure that everyone’s home is warm. These changes would make a real difference to people’s lives by lowering energy costs, improving public health and tackling the climate crisis head-on. It is time we delivered homes fit for the future and homes for the heatless, supporting those who are struggling to make ends meet. It is time, through our environmental standards for the building of new homes, to make our isles greener, fairer and thriving for everyone. I emphasise that, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said, we must think about the long-term cost of the homes that we build, not the cost of building them today.