Commons
Committee Stage
17 June 2025
9 contributions
Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership, Sir Desmond, especially on such a warm day. I hope that there is not too much hot air in the Committee to keep us even warmer.
Clause 22 will introduce a series of important amendments to the operation of community treatment orders under the Mental H…
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. Some later clauses try to address a problem where a patient was consenting to a community order, but the restrictions were so tight that it worked out as deprivation of liberty. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that knowing what is necessary is i…
+7 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
16 June 2025
Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report
One of the reasons I was not supportive six months ago, in January, of the Government’s strategy was that it could not compel local inquiries to bring forward witnesses, which is key. Listening to our questions carefully, could the Home Secretary clarify whether those local inquiries will be able to…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
16 June 2025
2 contributions
School Estate
4. What steps she is taking to help improve the school estate.
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I draw his attention to the process for getting some of that funding. Battling Brook is a small primary school in the heart of Hinckley. It is well loved, but it has had problems with two of its classrooms having damp and falling into disrepair, so the s…
Commons
Committee Stage
12 June 2025
28 contributions
Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)
I will resist the temptation to go back to the start of my speech; I am sure that the Committee’s memories of it will have lasted over our short lunch break.
I was saying that although the Government’s reforms are, on the whole, positive, we must remain vigilant. The consideration of risks must be …
The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and an excellent observation, and she clearly understands the rationale for the amendment. I just wonder, given that the use of a CTO is currently a clinical decision, why we find ourselves facing this problem in the first place. Ensuring a review and putt…
+26 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
12 June 2025
13 contributions
Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)
It is a pleasure to be here on day two in Committee. I will first address clause 5 and then the Government amendments.
The clause marks significant reform to the legal foundations of mental health detention in this country. At its core, the clause seeks to update the grounds for detaining individua…
My hon. Friend is spot on about training. It is one thing to enshrine these measures in primary legislation; it is another thing to have the training and interpretation that go with them. One of the reasons that we have not tabled an amendment on the matter, as yet, is that there could be some conce…
+11 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
10 June 2025
17 contributions
Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
I also want to assess the amendment that could potentially have been tabled. The Opposition were struggling to see how it would fit in, and it looks as if there is a crossover with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Can the Minister set out why he felt that it did not quite fit into this area and how it …
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the Minister for his collaborative tone on some of the difficult amendments that we have discussed.
I will open where the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar), left us o…
+15 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
10 June 2025
29 contributions
Mental Health Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)
The Minister makes a fair point about best practice. However, did the Government consider any mechanism for how best to share best practice across areas? Especially as the Bill also covers Wales, as heard this morning, it might be useful—across the integrated care boards—to understand the Government…
The Minister makes a good point about the differences in the country, one of which is how the Care Quality Commission looks at the standards. Especially as the CQC is under new leadership, will it be taking a role in looking at how best practice is implemented while ensuring standards?
+27 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
3 June 2025
3 contributions
Dementia Care
I think we have established that dementia is a thief, not once but twice: first of the mind, then of the memories, leaving the greatest pain not with the sufferer but with those who remember. I thank the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing such an important debate and for spea…
If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I am going to canter through what we have done in the past 14 years, because it was, after all, under the premiership of Lord Cameron that the challenge on dementia set the ambition for England to be
“the best country in the world for dementia care and support an…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Statutory Instrument
2 June 2025
2 contributions
Draft Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Hub and Spoke Dispensing etc.) Regulations 2025
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart.
I will not go through everything the Minister set out, but we are amending the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 and the Medicines Act 1968 to enable hub and spoke dispensing.
The regulations before the Committee will improve seven key a…
Of course, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, with his august history as a pharmacist. My job in the Opposition is to raise these issues with Ministers for consideration. At the heart of my point is that, by choosing only one model and not offering two, we are closing down the opportunit…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 May 2025
Diego Garcia Military Base
I respect the expertise of the Defence Secretary, so I hope he can help me here. The ICJ said that it was a non-binding decision. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is the court that he is worried about. The country will wonder why he would not challenge this in the court, stand by it…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 May 2025
Mental Health Bill: Legislative Scrutiny
I commend the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) and his Committee for the report. We on the Opposition Benches will be looking favourably at it, especially as the Bill goes into Committee. I have one technical question. He talked about restraint for people who have autism and learning disabi…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 May 2025
Business of the House
Last Friday, I was lucky enough that my private Member’s Bill was the second Bill listed. Unfortunately, it was timed out—rightfully so—for the assisted dying Bill. Two of my constituents, Roux and Ada, have been in contact with me about my Bill, which is about dog-on-dog attacks. I must declare an …
Commons
Debate
21 May 2025
10 contributions
Immigration
Will the Minister give way?
Will the Minister give way?
+8 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
21 May 2025
7 contributions
Business and the Economy
Exactly to that point, is it not a shame that for the first time ever since records began in 2012, the number of new businesses registered at Companies House has fallen? The exact risk-taking behaviour that we need to grow the economy is not taking place; is that not a damning indictment of what thi…
The problem with the Employment Rights Bill is not only its implied cost and the red tape it will introduce, but the fact that it is a poor piece of legislation in the first place. The Government’s own regulatory independent commission has said that eight of the 23 criteria are not fit for purpose. …
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
21 May 2025
2 contributions
US-UK Economic Prosperity Deal: Northern Ireland
7. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the US-UK economic prosperity deal on Northern Ireland.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his answer, but there seem to be wildly different interpretations of what the deal means for Northern Ireland. Will he clarify what it means for imports and exports in the light of the impact of EU tariffs? Was that explicitly discussed at the EU-UK summit…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
20 May 2025
UK-EU Summit
The Labour Government cannot answer how much the Chagos deal cost. The Labour Government cannot answer how much NHS England has cost. Can the Prime Minister tell us how much this reset deal will cost, and that there will be no further expenditure to the EU?
Commons
Debate
19 May 2025
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
A rough road is not the same as a collapsed bridge. Both slow you down, but one stops you entirely. There is a simple distinction that is often missed in the public discourse: the difference between mental wellbeing and mental health. Every one of us faces challenges that affect our mental wellbeing…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 May 2025
2 contributions
World Asthma Day
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.
I would also like to place on record my thanks again to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Those unkind might say he chases the spotlight of Westminster Hall, but they would be grossly mistaken: he chases purpose, which is why we…
The Minister mentioned spirometry. Could she comment on FeNO, and if not, could she write to us? The guidelines are built around that, but access is going to be an issue.
Commons
Proceedings
14 May 2025
Ministerial Code: Compliance
I was here on Thursday, responding as shadow health Minister to the debate on brain tumours. The debate was brought forward because of the delay to the statement on the US trade deal. We were waiting for almost an hour for that statement. Can the Leader of the House confirm that there was no pressur…
Commons
Debate
12 May 2025
3 contributions
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
rose —
The last Government introduced the idea of having age verification. That is important, because the evidence supports the suggestion that some young men claim to be younger than they are. Many other countries use medical age verification systems. Does my right hon. Friend have a reason why the Govern…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
8 May 2025
Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment
I start with a personal apology to my constituents on this VE Day. While I cannot stand there in person among those marking our victory in remembrance in Hinckley and Bosworth in north-west Leicestershire, I am carrying out the very duty that people gave their lives to protect. The sacrifice of thos…
Commons
Oral Questions
6 May 2025
2 contributions
Health and Social Care Reform
This Government have been in power for 10 months. Two months ago, Labour postponed the cross-party talks on social care. When will they be rescheduled?
I thank the Secretary of State for that change, making the process no longer cross-party. The Government have said that the changes will not be implemented fully until 2036. Only this week, the Health and Social Care Committee released its new report on social care and the huge cost of inaction. The…
Commons
Debate
30 April 2025
5 contributions
Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill
I defer to my right hon. and learned Friend’s experience, but is there not an argument for every case to have a pre-sentence report in order to truly understand what an individual has faced and whether there are any mitigating factors? I appreciate that that could create a backlog for these services…
Is the fact not that the sentencing guidance said that a pre-sentence report would normally be considered necessary, and then went on to talk about race and religion? Making those distinctions immediately apparent in sentencing guidance, which could mean that a white Christian male would be treated …
+3 more contributions in this session