Lords
Proceedings
10 September 2026
Jobcentre Plus and National Careers Service: Merger
My Lords, regardless of whether the two services merge, evidence shows that people who are providing the service for people with learning disabilities lack knowledge and training. What specific requirements will be in the new contract and service to ensure that staff are fully aware of the requireme…
Lords
Proceedings
9 September 2026
NHS: Agency Medical Staff
My Lords, while the Minister talks about reduced agency spending, which is welcome, total temporary workforce costs remain largely unchanged, seemingly displacing into bank premiums, overtime and other insourcing. Will the Minister commit to publishing the total combined costs of flexible staffing, …
Lords
Proceedings
20 July 2026
2 contributions
People with Learning Disabilities: Acute Illness
My Lords, enough is enough. Currently, with everything in place, people living with a learning disability still die on average 20 years earlier than their non-learning disabled peers. The key missing part of the jigsaw is a statutory independent review of every such death, legally compelling NHS tru…
My Lords, every question that has been asked has shown that the system is failing: people are still dying. The key point is that the accountability mechanism is missing or is too diluted to work. Why do the Government allow this system, which kills people early, to continue? What has the Minister no…
Lords
Proceedings
9 July 2026
Artificial Intelligence: Vaccine Technology
My Lords, if a foreign tech firm uses NHS patient data records to train its AI to discover a new vaccine, what mechanisms will the Government put in place to ensure that the NHS is not charged full market price for those vaccines?
Lords
Proceedings
9 July 2026
UK Migration
My Lords, there are roughly 7,000 vacancies for doctors in the NHS. According to the BMA’s records, nearly 2,000 registered refugees have a medical qualification, and some of them have been waiting over two years for their asylum application to be processed. Would it not be a good idea to have a sys…
Lords
Proceedings
1 July 2026
Pharmacy Closures
My Lords, community pharmacy has lost thousands of full-time pharmacists in recent years, and many have been recruited directly to other parts of the NHS that can afford to pay more. What more can the Government do to support community pharmacists to minimise this internal displacement and help keep…
Lords
Debate
1 July 2026
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
My Lords, before I start, it is worth remembering that in the middle of all this conversion therapy are individuals who are dealing with trauma. It is beholden on all of us to dial down the volume and discuss this much more calmly.
We on these Benches welcome this Statement and the publication of t…
Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
2 contributions
Healthcare Services: Acute, Primary and Community
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Walmsley; I will pick up on her final theme. I thank my noble friend Lady Janke for initiating this important debate. As the vice-chair of the APPG on Pharmacy, I think the case for extra investment has been made by both her and my nob…
My point was that flexibility is taken away when national directives come down, forcing ICBs to spend money on acute and emergency care.
Lords
Proceedings
25 June 2026
2 contributions
Puberty Blockers Trial: Consent
My Lords—
My Lords, the review from the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, warned that having no formal medical routes risks driving families towards unregulated online pharmacies and private clinics abroad. Given that an indefinite pause of the trial left some highly vulnerable young people in a state of clinical li…
Lords
Proceedings
24 June 2026
Resistant Hypertension
My Lords, following on from my noble friend’s question and the Minister’s answer, there is no definition in the department of preventable spending. Will the new modern service framework determine a definition of what preventable spending is so that it can be tracked over time to see whether preventi…
Lords
Proceedings
17 June 2026
Integrated Care Boards: Budgets
My Lords, that is all well and good, but financial transparency is the bedrock of accountability. Yet in the answer to a recent FoI request, 80% of ICBs indicated that they could not identify their spending on learning disability services. Will the Minister acknowledge that without the basic financi…
Lords
Proceedings
11 June 2026
Misinformation: Social Market Foundation Report
My Lords, once people get into the rabbit hole of disinformation or misinformation, the algorithms keep contributing to and multiplying the problem. Is it an option to look at the Government legislating that, every so often, the large tech companies have to press an “algorithm set to zero” button, w…
Lords
Proceedings
3 June 2026
Equality Act 2010: Code of Practice
My Lords, I thank the Minister for this Statement on a profoundly important yet sensitive matter. When we debate the updated code of practice, we must remember that at the heart of this issue are fellow citizens. If we listen closely, we find that people affected by the code are driven by exactly th…
Lords
Proceedings
2 June 2026
Windrush Compensation Scheme
My Lords, victims of state problems such as the Post Office Horizon scandal and the infected blood scandal have been given fully funded, independent legal support. What makes this so different that there is no equity for these people?
Lords
Proceedings
1 June 2026
For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers
My Lords, given that the Government’s own impact assessment on the guidance notes the real-world problems that will still impact some women and trans individuals, by what measures will the Government be evaluating the impact of these challenges and whether the guidance actually meets its aims and am…
Lords
Proceedings
18 May 2026
Healthy Life Expectancy: England
My Lords, people with a learning disability enter periods of multimorbidity and chronic illness 20 to 30 years earlier than those without a learning disability. What are the Government going to do to stop this national scandal?
Lords
Proceedings
28 April 2026
Pension Schemes
My Lords, I am agnostic about insourcing or outsourcing. What I want is good service for the pensioners. Just to give an example of how insourcing might not always go right—and I appreciate that the Minister will probably have to write to me on this, because I am going slightly tangentially—the NHS …
Lords
Proceedings
28 April 2026
Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update
My Lords, today, we learned of an un-minuted meeting at which senior advisers to the Prime Minister bypassed Civil Service oversight to green-light a known high-risk appointment. Can the Minister tell the House how this meeting was within the normal due process and who gave the order to exclude the …
Lords
Proceedings
28 April 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
My Lords, one of the implications of what has happened in the Middle East is that the United Arab Emirates has announced that it is withdrawing from OPEC, which will have an impact on global oil market volatility. In the light of this new scenario, are the Government planning to take extra steps to …
Lords
Debate
23 April 2026
2 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
The Minister is making the case in her answer that local discretion is required to move from one model to the other depending on local circumstance, rather than being centrally prescribed by Westminster.
Lords
Statutory Instrument
21 April 2026
2 contributions
Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) (Revocation) Order 2026
My Lords, I am pleased to respond to this regret Motion for the Government. Before turning to the order itself, I think it is worth setting out the wider context for the local government reorganisation programme. We are on track and making good progress, including elections scheduled this May for ea…
The postponement was done at the request of the councils concerned, which had concerns about capacity. I think some of them may still have those concerns, but we are supporting them through that process. As my noble friend Lord Davies has said, decisions have been taken in the past to postpone elect…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
2 contributions
Learning Disabilities: Health and Social Care Access
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who put their names down to speak in this important short debate, which for me is rather a raw one. This debate is not to ask for more of the same; to do so would be to sign death sentences for thousands more individuals with a learning disability. The system does m…
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and thank him for securing this important debate and for his deeply powerful and moving speech.
One day in 2018, I was walking down a south London street, trying desperately to get through on the phone to my older sister’s GP in the West Midlan…
Lords
Oral Questions
25 March 2026
Media Freedom Coalition
Welcome to multilateralism—it does throw up these issues from time to time. Personally, I take the view that being in the club gives you a greater chance of being able to exert influence and have those very direct conversations face to face rather than less directly. But each case should be taken on…
Lords
Oral Questions
23 March 2026
Migraine Care: 10-year Health Plan
We constantly review and discuss with pharmacists the range of conditions they cover. It has been one of the highly successful ways of making community-based care available, and we certainly want to continue to work with pharmacists. It is also important to note that more modern treatments are avail…