Commons
Westminster Hall
4 November 2025
Cross-border Healthcare
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) for securing a debate that is really important along both the Welsh and Scottish borders.
It is always a pleasure to respond for the Liberal Democrats.…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
3 November 2025
Topical Questions
T6. I have been campaigning on service family accommodation since shortly after my election, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving it over the past few weeks. However, single living accommodation continues to be a considerable concern. There have recently been reports of rat infestat…
Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
27 October 2025
Topical Questions
T5. The 25-year-old son of one of my constituents unfortunately lost his leg when it was amputated above the knee after a motorcycle accident, but he was awarded personal independence payment and a specially adapted car, and he has been able to rebuild his life. However, in August he was told that t…
Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
27 October 2025
2 contributions
Indexation of Pension Rights
16. What steps he is taking to help tackle the potential impact of the lack of indexation on pre-1997 pensionable service in defined benefit pension schemes on people affected.
I have been contacted by a constituent who, along with her husband, worked for Hewlett Packard. They accrued their pensions before 1997, and now, along with about 50,000 members of the Pre-97 Alliance, they are facing real financial hardship. In 10 years’ time, their pensions will be pretty much wor…
Commons
Proceedings
23 October 2025
Business of the House
A number of constituents have come to see me about adaptations made to their home under the ECO4 scheme, where an installer has received a grant from the Government—from the taxpayer—to hopefully improve the energy efficiency of their home, but what the homeowner has actually experienced is signific…
Commons
Westminster Hall
23 October 2025
NHS Workforce Levels: Impact on Cancer Patients
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this important debate highlighting the issue of staff shortages and the impact on cancer patients and the outcomes that they achieve.
Cancer should be a top prior…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
Topical Questions
Every year we come here to discuss the winter crisis in the NHS, but this summer saw record waits at accident and emergency, with more than 74,000 12-hour trolley waits in June and July. That used to be unheard of. With winter looming and the potential for the A&E permacrisis to be even worse th…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
Maternity and Neonatal Care
Our maternity wards are in a state of crisis, with death and injury rising at an alarming rate. Sadly, this issue is not confined to Shropshire, and there has been a steady drumbeat of maternity scandals, with review after review finding consistent failings across the NHS. Can the Secretary of State…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
20 October 2025
Topical Questions
A serious fire at St Martin’s school in my constituency has left most of its secondary children without face-to-face education for nearly four weeks now. Will the Minister meet me to determine how we can ensure that the buildings are brought back into use as quickly as possible, and how the children…
Commons
Westminster Hall
16 October 2025
World Menopause Day
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this debate in recognition of World Menopause Day, on opening it with such an inspirational speech, and on her tireless campaigning in recent years.
As…
Commons
Westminster Hall
16 October 2025
Health and Social Care Committee
I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) for bringing this statement forward. I am sure that all Members are shocked by the statistics showing that black and Asian women have much worse outcomes than white women in maternity services, but we must recognise that improvemen…
Commons
Debate
15 October 2025
Jhoots Pharmacy
May I first thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for raising this appalling issue? Pharmacies are at the heart of our communities and are relied upon by millions. They are under increasing pressure across the country, where we are seeing irregular opening hours and unanno…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
Leasehold System
As the Minister will be aware, some freeholders find themselves trapped in a leasehold-like situation: the wider estate that they live on is managed by a management company and not adopted by the local authority. They are fleeced in exactly the same way by exorbitant management charges, and there ar…
Commons
Oral Questions
11 September 2025
Transport: Economic Growth
The A483 is critical to economic prosperity in mid-Wales and North Shropshire—it runs between Welshpool and Oswestry—but it has a huge accident blackspot at Llynclys in my constituency, which really holds up the traffic, and local people positively avoid the area. Highways England has said that it i…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 September 2025
Non-surgical Aesthetic and Cosmetic Treatments
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, and to take part in a debate where all the contributions have been so thoughtful. I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing the debate and making an excellent speech about not only regulation, but the wider issu…
Commons
Debate
10 September 2025
2 contributions
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
North Shropshire is a very rural constituency, and it is nestled in against the Welsh border, which is wiggly—I think that is the best way to describe it. That means that my constituents’ experience of using buses can be problematic, and I have tabled some new clauses that I hope the Minister will r…
I am broadly supportive of the Bill, because I think it will do that. My point is that the power to franchise bus services is all very well, but the funding needs to follow the power. Otherwise, constituencies such as mine will not see the improvements for which they are desperate.
Colleagues have …
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
9 September 2025
Topical Questions
T2. Pubs are at the heart of the community in North Shropshire, whether community-owned pubs such as the White Lion in Ash and the Horse and Jockey at Northwood, the Bailey Head in Oswestry, which was the Campaign for Real Ale’s pub of the year, or attached to a microbrewery like the Stonehouse brew…
Commons
Proceedings
4 September 2025
Business of the House
The people of Whitchurch in my constituency will be quite pleased to see the response to my written question regarding the Access for All railway fund, which shows that £280 million has been allocated for the spending review period, but they will be really keen to know when we are getting step-free …
Commons
Oral Questions
4 September 2025
Bathing Waters: Pollution
Run-off from chicken manure is a particular problem in the bathing waters and rivers in Shropshire. I have visited both Harper Adams University and LOHAS Fertiliser in my constituency, which have great new technologies to deal with chicken manure, stabilise it and moving that great fertiliser to oth…
Commons
Debate
2 September 2025
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
It is unclear for some areas, including Shropshire, where they will end up being made to form a combined authority. Shropshire shares borders with Wales and Cheshire, which is in a different region, so there is no clear partner for it. I am concerned that Shropshire will end up being forced into a c…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 July 2025
Future of the Post Office
I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the overall size and shape of the post office network should remain the same so that we can minimise the impact on communities, but in my constituency the size and shape of the Post Office is rapidly shrinking because of the fundamental fragility of the wa…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 July 2025
Glaucoma Awareness
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) for securing this important debate and raising awareness of a life-changing condition following Glaucoma Awareness Week.
The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishma…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
8 July 2025
Road and Rail Projects
The A483 that runs between Welshpool and Oswestry is a key economic artery for the Marches region, but like the rest of North Shropshire’s transport infrastructure, it has been seriously neglected over many years. That has left the crossroad at Llynclys in my constituency as one of the west midlands…
Commons
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Topical Questions
T7. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) raised the issue of the presumption of contact. I have a constituency case where one parent has abused their children and the other parent has had to pay for the supervision of those children. The presumption of contact is not working i…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 July 2025
NHS 10-Year Plan
I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of the plan this morning. After years of Conservative failure, a plan for the future of the NHS is welcome and Liberal Democrats support the Secretary of State in his vision to shift the NHS to a community-focused, preventive service. However, I seek hi…