4. What steps she is taking to help improve passenger rail performance in Cumbria.
The energy coast rail line in Cumbria is in desperate need of upgrading. It has Victorian-era signalling, and parts of the track suffer from coastal erosion. Upgrading the line would be of huge benefit to passengers, improving the reliability and speed of journeys, and to critical freight for the nu…
CommonsOral QuestionsWork and Pensions23 June 2025
T5. When the under-25 universal credit rate was first introduced, the justification for it was that young people were more likely to be living at home, but there is a group—care-experienced young people—for whom that is often not the case. A transformational decision by this Government would be to b…
Today’s announcement of the expansion of the warm home discount is extremely welcome and will benefit many people across west Cumbria. One of the first meetings I had with Ministers after the election was with my hon. Friend. Could she set out more detail about how the really welcome warm homes plan…
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and happy birthday; you were born only a few months after the opening of Calder Hall, the world’s first civil nuclear power plant, so you share that.
The Secretary of State has made the major decision, which is incredibly welcome in west Cumbria, to unlock up to 200 acres of …
I am working with local business and political leaders across Cumbria to make the case for much-needed investment in upgrading the Cumbria coast, or energy coast, rail line. This line is essential for two national endeavours: the Barrow shipyard and the nuclear decommissioning work at Sellafield. We…
It is humbling to contribute to a debate with contributions like that from the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). I pay tribute to him for sharing Declan’s story in this place, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for her very personal contribution.
I…
I thank my constituency neighbour for suggesting the types of solutions that we should look at. Some areas of the country have much higher rates of suicide than others, and we know far too little about why those areas have those trends.
Around half of children in care are expected to have some sort…
T6. West Cumbria, like many parts of the UK, is a dental desert. In some communities, urgent dental access centres have proved to be a real success at building up dental services, so will the Minister support my campaign to introduce an urgent dental access centre in west Cumbria?
11. What steps his Department is taking to implement neighbourhood health centres.
I thank the Minister for her answer. Workington suffers from some really poor health outcomes and has an incredibly fragmented health system. I have worked with local leaders in my constituency to pull together a plan for a new neighbourhood health centre called the Workington health zone, based aro…