Baroness Watkins of Tavistock — Hansard

Lords Proceedings 7 July 2026

Historical Forced Adoption

My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal and the Prime Minister for the tone and the detail in this Statement. However, the NHS was 68 on Sunday and many of the babies were born in NHS facilities. I was 19 when a baby was taken away from a young person at Princess Beatrice Hospital in London, against h…

Lords Proceedings 6 July 2026

National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation

My Lords, like others I recognise the kindness and compassion that the majority of staff in our health service deliver, but as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care rightly said: “We must break the cycle of recommendations sitting on a shelf gathering dust”. The Minister has already ma…

Lords Proceedings 18 June 2026

Livestock Grazing on Dartmoor National Park

My Lords, I declare my interest: I live on Dartmoor. The publication within the local and national newspapers has caused real concern. We cannot measure natural habitat against the other advantages to Dartmoor of the ponies, particularly tourism. Dartmoor prison is currently shut and, in my opinion,…

Lords Proceedings 10 June 2026

Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for so ably chairing the committee, and for her excellent introductory speech covering the findings that most of us will probably repeat in part. I intend to concentrate on health and disability issues…

Lords Proceedings 3 June 2026

Alzheimer’s Disease: Diagnosis and Access to Experimental Drugs

My Lords, will the Minister comment on the Government’s position on the rollout of anti-obesity drugs? The preliminary findings indicate that they will reduce the amount of dementia in future populations. Although that is experimental, it is really important that we look at it.

Lords Proceedings 21 May 2026

Offshore Oil and Gas: Venting and Flaring

My Lords, can the Minister explain whether, when calculating emissions from the UK, we estimate the emissions associated with imported oil and gas? If not, why not? The initial suggestions are that increasing our production would, in global terms, reduce the amount of emissions associated with our o…

Lords Proceedings 20 May 2026

King’s Speech

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. I welcome the proposed legislation regarding social housing and health outlined in the King’s gracious Speech, as I believe that they are inextricably linked. I declare my interest as chair of the Look Ahead housing associat…

Lords Debate 27 April 2026

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Motion A1 and my amendment on social media. Discussions have taken place with the Government and I thank them for their engagement, but we have not yet reached an agreement and I will put this matter to a vote today. I note the change from “may” to “must”, but it is not a …

Lords Oral Questions 23 April 2026

Home Ownership: First-Time Buyers

Shared ownership has a very important role to play in supporting households into home ownership that would otherwise struggle to purchase a property on the open market that meets their needs. We are aware, of course, that some people who have entered shared ownership have faced challenges. I thank t…

Lords Committee Stage 21 April 2026

Cancer Outcomes in the UK

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, a fellow nurse. I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on securing such a timely debate. There is a lot to commend in the National Cancer Plan for England , but, speaking as a nurse and a workforce researcher, I …

Lords Proceedings 14 April 2026

Middle East

My Lords, yesterday’s Statement refers to the fact that Britain needs to be energy independent and that we need to take control of our energy bills. Will the Lord Privy Seal comment on whether His Majesty’s Government are considering increasing gas reserve capacity, which I have found is low compare…

Lords Debate 27 March 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords—

My Lords, I am broadly supportive of tightening the issue of ensuring that people’s conscience and beliefs are recognised and I support people who are prepared to work with patients who are, I remind the House, terminally ill adults wanting an end-of-life story that is different from full, extensive…

+1 more contribution in this session

Lords Proceedings 26 March 2026

Arrangement of Business

My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting—I must stress that one is expected—the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume, at the very latest, after 10 minutes. We are very tight for time if we are going to get the fourth debate in today. La…

Lords Debate 20 March 2026 3 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I just wanted to stress, particularly for Hansard , that the people we are talking about are ultimately going to die from the illness they have had. Therefore, when the noble Lord has referred to them not wanting to die, he means that they do not want an assisted death.

My Lords, we have already had extensive discussion about the multidisciplinary team involvement. In 50 years of nursing—not all in clinical—I have never heard a doctor come out with, “You’ve definitely got six months to live”. There are much more subtle conversations. I accept that people with MAID…

+1 more contribution in this session

Lords Debate 18 March 2026 2 contributions

Crime and Policing Bill

Could I further clarify and ask a question? Is it not true that if any doctor or nurse is doubtful when telemedicine is happening, they will ask that person to come in to be seen?

Could I further clarify and ask a question—

Lords Committee Stage 16 March 2026

Media Literacy (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

My Lords, before we were interrupted, several noble Lords had asked about social cohesion. On 9 March, MHCLG published the Protecting What Matters strategy—which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned and which was the subject of the Statement during dinner break business this evening—a cross-gov…

Lords Oral Questions 16 March 2026

NHS: In-house Software Capabilities

The straightforward answer is that we are doing exactly that. It is important to say that our front-line digitisation—our move from analogue to digital—is not something for the sake of it; we are doing it because it is improving efficiency and outcomes. For example, a 94% coverage of electronic pati…

Lords Oral Questions 10 March 2026

Student Loan System

I think the noble Baroness has outlined her views very clearly. Obviously, I cannot answer the questions that she raises today. There is no doubt that there is a strong feeling that previous generations did well, but I point out to her the small numbers of people in our generation, particularly wome…

Lords Oral Questions 2 March 2026

NHS: Violence Against NHS Staff

Again, I am very sorry to hear of the experience that the noble Baroness had and should not have had. Sadly, I am sure that she was not—and is not—alone in having had such experiences. We have zero tolerance towards violence, bullying and intimidation, and I would regard that as being an instance of…

Lords Proceedings 27 February 2026

Arrangement of Business

My Lords, I want to make the point that the Companion asks us not to read long speeches if people have already made the points in the section that we are discussing. When we were dealing with the Mental Health Act, which I think was equally important, I had written long speeches that I then reduced …

Lords Debate 6 February 2026

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

I want to draw attention to the fact that I raised this issue two days previously in Committee. It is essential that we retain staff, particularly nursing staff, who would object to anything to do with assisted dying. That can be achieved, as I said earlier, by enabling people, when they do their ad…

Lords Oral Questions 4 February 2026 2 contributions

NHS: Corridor Care

My Lords, we have introduced new data collection on corridor care, which will be published shortly for the first time. We are taking sustained action to reduce the use of corridor care, ensuring that there are safeguards for patients in the interim to still receive high-quality and safe care with di…

Let me say at the outset that corridor care should not be normalised; it is not what we want to see as routine. The reality is that we cannot eliminate it entirely—I think that is understood—but the current situation is not as we would want it to be. In addition to the Urgent and Emergency Care Plan…

Lords Oral Questions 29 January 2026

Public Trust in National Politics

The noble Baroness raises a genuinely important point about the next generation, which will be dealing with some of these issues for decades to come. With regards to the specifics of her question about our plans for student fees, I am afraid that I do not have that information available, but I will …

Lords Debate 28 January 2026

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support the amendment in principle. I wonder whether we could get one or two simple targets to measure as indicators of potential poverty. Yesterday, a new report came out called, It’s L ike T orture: Life in Temporary Accommodation for Neurodivergent Children and t…

Lords Committee Stage 12 January 2026

Pension Schemes Bill

There is a Division in the House. The Committee will adjourn and resume after 10 minutes. The Division has been cancelled. If noble Lords are content that everybody is back who needs to be, the Committee stands resumed.