Commons
Westminster Hall
4 September 2025
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I warmly congratulate my friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) on securing this debate and for so brilliantly outlining the issues at the start. I pay tribute to her tireless campaigning, alongsid…
Commons
Debate
2 September 2025
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Communities such as Teddington in my constituency will very much welcome the new community right to buy. At Udney Park, playing fields have lain derelict for more than a decade. However, although the Bill makes provision for what happens when there is a disagreement over price, it is silent on what …
Commons
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Topical Questions
I echo the Secretary of State’s remarks about the tragedy in Minehead. My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.
Every parent who puts a baby into childcare wants to know that they are safe. In the light of the crucial role that CCTV played in the harrowing case at Twickenham Green nurse…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Early Years
May I join Ministers in thanking our school and college staff up and down the country for their dedication? I wish them happy and restorative summer holidays.
Children with special educational needs who started reception last year were over a year behind their peers, according to the Education Poli…
Commons
Debate
16 July 2025
2 contributions
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
I welcome this opportunity to talk about giving every child the best start in life. I suspect there are not many people in this Chamber who would disagree that every child, no matter their background or needs, deserves the very best start in life. It is our duty as elected representatives and policy…
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches tried to put forward an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to extend the profit cap that the Government have proposed for children’s social care homes run by private equity firms to the special schools…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 July 2025
State of Climate and Nature
The Secretary of State rightly says that British leadership matters and that the choices we make as a country will have an impact on future generations. I do not doubt his personal commitment to tackling climate change and delivering net zero, but is he sure that all his Cabinet colleagues are on th…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
14 July 2025
Deprived Areas: Funding
It is absolutely right that funding follows need, but may I gently urge the Minister to look at how the proposed new funding formula for local authorities affects boroughs across London, given that it does not consider housing costs, which we know are the biggest driver of poverty and deprivation in…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
Educational Attainment of Boys
Can I start by warmly congratulating the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this incredibly important debate and on his powerful and insightful opening speech? It behoves all of us to spend more time on this topic, so I am grateful that he has made me look into it more than …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 July 2025
Children’s Social Care
I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee on this report and thank her and the Committee for their work on it. I particularly welcome the recommendations on kinship care, which mirror closely the measures in the ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced in this place three years ago and which we…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
7 July 2025
2 contributions
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
Every child deserves to have the very best start in life possible, so I welcome any measures to tackle inequality and improve support for the early years and for families. I therefore welcome today’s announcements both on the hubs and around the early years workforce and helping to raise the profess…
And rule out scrapping EHCPs—
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 July 2025
Parental Leave Review
I welcome the review and, in particular, the fact that it will look at leave for kinship carers. The Minister knows that I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues have long campaigned for statutory paid leave for kinship carers, given their sacrifice and given how many fall out of the workforce when they…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
1 July 2025
Ten-year Infrastructure Strategy
The infrastructure plan reiterated the Government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow, a project that the Chancellor has repeatedly stated will be privately funded. However, given the vast amount of rail and road infrastructure that will be needed to support a bigger Heathrow, as well as the hu…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2025
Welfare Reform
My constituent Steve had been a fit, active working person until about a year ago. Since then, he has been debilitated by ME, which has left him able to get out of the house for only about an hour every fortnight. Even getting dressed leaves him needing a lie down. PIP is already difficult for peopl…
Commons
Debate
24 June 2025
3 contributions
Department for Education
I congratulate the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), on securing this important debate on the Department’s estimate. Given the constraints you just mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker, and how the Department’s remit is huge, I want to touch on a c…
The Conservatives’ decisions cast a long shadow over our schools and colleges. Although the Government trumpeted £4.7 billion for schools in the spending review, they failed to mention that school budgets will see an increase in real terms of only 0.4% over the spending review period. When I speak t…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
20 June 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Much of the debate on this Bill has focused on dignity, control and choice. Over the past six weeks, I have had to confront those concepts head-on while watching a very close family member unexpectedly lose most physical capacity overnight. It is difficult when someone you love deeply, who has been …
Commons
Westminster Hall
19 June 2025
Social Mobility: Careers Education
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) on securing this important debate.
There is general consensus in the Chamber that every young person, no matter their background or needs, should have the opportunity to fulfil t…
Commons
Debate
13 June 2025
3 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Even though I am not opposed to the principle of assisted dying, I have a number of deep concerns about the content of the Bill, the process by which we are legislating for such a monumental change and, importantly, the context in which it would be enacted, given the numerous challenges facing our h…
I actually think the stats the hon. Member cited undermine his own argument, because all the data shows us that the members of the communities I am talking about are less likely to access the healthcare services they need and therefore, less likely to end up accessing assisted dying. The hon. Member…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 June 2025
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The sanctions on the appalling extremists Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, while extremely overdue, are welcome—we on these Liberal Democrat Benches have been calling for them for some 16 months now. The Minister acknowledged in his statement that there is cross-party support for a two-state solution. He also…
Commons
Debate
10 June 2025
2 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
It is an honour to speak in this important debate. I will address three amendments that stand in my name: amendments 88 and 89, which go together and relate to hope value, and new clause 107, which relates to the disposal of public land.
Amendments 88 and 89 are linked and represent a simple yet im…
Will the Minister give way?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 June 2025
Free School Meals
I, too, thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.
I warmly welcome this announcement, which will make such a difference to the lives of children up and down the country. We know the impact that free school meals can have. A hot, healthy meal in the middle of the day helps children to l…
Commons
Proceedings
3 June 2025
Thames Water
Thames Water is teetering on the brink, investors are running for the hills and my constituents are paying the price for its mismanagement through soaring bills. All the while, it is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a proposed sewage recycling project at Teddington lock on the River Thames…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
2 June 2025
Topical Questions
In my constituency, we have seen the parks police slashed from Bushy Park and rates of theft and knife crimes soaring. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned last week that the Home Secretary will not meet her laudable targets on neighbourhood policing, tackling knife crime and tackling violenc…
Commons
Proceedings
22 May 2025
School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations
Each and every week, I hear from teachers and school leaders in my constituency and across the country. In my time in this place, never has their outlook been as gloomy as it is right now. After years of underfunding and neglect from the Conservatives, schools now face a double blow of underfunded n…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
20 May 2025
2 contributions
Vulnerable Families: Tax System Support
13. What steps she is taking through the tax system to support vulnerable families.
I thank the Minister for his response, but what short and long-term assessments have Ministers made of the cost to the taxpayer of the deep cuts in grants for therapy for some of the most vulnerable and traumatised children in our country through the adoption and special guardianship support fund? G…
Commons
Westminster Hall
20 May 2025
Adoption and Kinship Placements
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) on securing this important debate; she and I are both passionate about this issue, and I know she cares about it deeply.
I will start by reminding colleagues—as many ha…