Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
29 June 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
This Government have set out to change culture across the DWP in order to make it far more focused on people, not faceless processes. However, in my constituency of Worcester, people are finding that when DWP services have made mistakes, the reaction continues to be delay, denial and sometimes outri…
Commons
Statutory Instrument
16 June 2026
Draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026
In my constituency, we have already paid dearly the price of waste crime and seen its impacts on our city and the surrounding area, so I really welcome this measure. I think most people would expect that we use digital tools these days to track, trace and gather data on the movements of value stream…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
15 June 2026
Topical Questions
T7. The Department for Education has recently released new guidance for local authorities on the role of family hubs. It describes a significant departure from conventional delivery models; there will be a high degree of network and partnership delivery, not only with public bodies, but with the vol…
Commons
Westminster Hall
18 March 2026
Royal Mail: Performance
Many people in Worcester are very frustrated by the delays in the Royal Mail service, which are impacting their healthcare and their access to money. However, having spoken to Citizens Advice, I know that this is not an issue of the moment, nor one restricted to Worcester; it is much bigger than tha…
Commons
Debate
5 March 2026
2 contributions
Palliative Care
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for leading on this topic.
I have seen palliative care fail. My mum, Alison, had ovarian cancer. She died lonely and in dreadful indignity in a hospital ward intended for recovering liver and kidney patients. She felt a burden to …
My hon. Friend is entirely right. We need far better integration across those services. I was heartbroken to see that the palliative care that my mother was receiving seemed to have been outsourced to charities, and was not being provided by the NHS at all. That specialist care ought to be something…
Commons
Debate
3 March 2026
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
A few of my colleagues have been offering jokes. I was not able to prepare detailed remarks, so I hope they will forgive me if I just wing it. [Laughter.]
Although we have discussed decarbonisation a number of times in this debate, it has not been said yet that the Bill is about addressing the clim…
Commons
Proceedings
23 February 2026
3 contributions
Kinship Carer Identification
Sometimes, a child’s birth parents cannot look after them. Around 100,000 children in the UK are looked after by the state, and most of us are familiar with the concepts of adoption and fostering. But it is estimated that well over 100,000 children in the UK are being raised by members of their exte…
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising good cases and good examples that we might like to follow. I also appreciate his having spoken to me beforehand about his experiences with the situation in Northern Ireland.
I would like to share the experiences of Clare. She said:
“I rushed into A&a…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Statutory Instrument
21 January 2026
Draft Medical Devices (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2026
I am very pleased that the Government have taken this approach of listening carefully, responding and trying to build a solution that is manageable and predictable, with a phased transition. As an engineer, I know that safety of products is absolutely paramount. Features such as post-market surveill…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 January 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Patients in Worcester are struggling to access urgent care. Far too many are falling through gaps in our system, with devastating consequences and huge amounts of double work, and patients feel that they have to travel too far for treatment. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the results…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
12 January 2026
Topical Questions
T8. Families in Worcester are trapped in damp and mouldy homes. Disabled tenants are stuck without facilities and access, and repairs are going unaddressed—all because Platform Housing refuses to get its act together. What can we do about failing social landlords such as Platform?
Commons
Oral Questions
Energy Security and Net Zero
6 January 2026
2 contributions
Gas-fired Power Stations
3. What estimate he has made of the cost of building new gas-fired power stations.
The National Energy System Operator’s clean power 2030 plan relies on unabated gas power stations, without a clear plan for their decarbonisation after 2030. The forthcoming hydrogen strategy presents a natural opportunity to set long-term goals for the wider integrated energy system, including hydr…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 December 2025
6 contributions
Online Safety Act 2023: Repeal
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard.
At its birth, the internet was envisaged as a great advancement in a free society: decentralised, crowdsourced and open, it would share knowledge across humanity. As it grew, every one of us would own a platform and our voice. Of course,…
I thank my hon. Friend for his remark. He is entirely right. In my own experience of engineering products, very critically, for safety, it was incumbent upon us to be fully open about everything we had done with those regulating and certifying our products for approval. We had numerous patents on ou…
+4 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
8 December 2025
Child Poverty Strategy
As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on family hubs, I am pleased that Best Start family hubs are at the heart of the strategy, and that the strategy values a fresh approach rooted in place, community and partnership across sectors. This could be a watershed moment that finally breaks t…
Commons
Proceedings
1 December 2025
2 contributions
Budget Resolutions
Will my hon. Friend give way?
This Budget is designed to address the issues that people in Worcester really care about. The first is the cost of living. We will see a typical household energy bill reduction of £150, the first freeze on rail fares in 30 years, and an increase in the minimum wage. The Budget will boost the NHS thr…
Commons
Debate
18 November 2025
Warm Homes Plan
The hon. Lady rightly points out the importance of health in this debate. We face a crisis of warmth, but also a crisis of damp in our housing stock. In a building, ventilation and heating can often sit in tension with one another, yet it is vital that we think about the two together, and about how …
Commons
Debate
15 October 2025
3 contributions
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
I will speak to new clause 1. Context is important, as this Bill is a first step on a long pathway to decarbonising aviation. At the moment, SAF components are blended with existing fossil fuels to create usable aircraft fuel, as I will go on to discuss, but I think it is helpful for us to be aware …
Will the hon. Member give way?
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 October 2025
Pride in Place
The people of Warndon in Worcester feel immense pride in their identity, and they know that for far too long they have been unheard, let down and left behind. This commitment of £20 million to Warndon could be transformative, especially as it is long-term funding over 10 years. However, more than mo…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 October 2025
Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing the debate so well and for mentioning biosecurity.
Badger culling is a very important topic, not least to the campaigners in Worcester who have …
Commons
Oral Questions
11 September 2025
2 contributions
Bus Services
2. What steps she is taking to help improve local bus services.
Worcester has been let down on transport. Our evening and weekend buses have been decimated, leaving our roads congested, our air polluted and our city centre cut off. I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for Labour’s early work, which has already restored some of our local services, but …
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 September 2025
7 contributions
Hydrogen Supply Chains
I beg to move,
That this House has considered hydrogen supply chains.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts, and a great pleasure to see my hon. Friend the Minister in his place. I congratulate him. It is good to see him back at the Dispatch Box, renewing his already well establ…
The hon. Member is entirely right. Ammonia is a very important part of the future energy mix. It is interchangeable bidirectionally with hydrogen and it is a very compact energy carrier. It is a liquid—it is relatively easily handled and stored—but it also, vitally, provides direct injection into th…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
3 September 2025
Diabetes in Sport
Diabetes is a disability that is often hidden and not well understood, and people with it suffer from all the stigma that my hon. Friend has described so well. It is complex to manage, especially being metabolic, and especially in relation to sport, so listening to parents and families, and young pe…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 July 2025
State of Climate and Nature
I thank my right hon. Friend for placing this issue on the agenda. Nothing could be more existential or vital than tackling our climate and nature crises, because we live within the natural system, not outside it. We and nature are in this together, and nothing could be more important, or better for…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 July 2025
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
Like any serious incident, this one had multiple causes, both operational and relating to design. I urge the Minister to ensure that the lessons learned are applied not only to electricity transmission and distribution sites, but to energy storage sites, for which we have an absence of standards. He…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
23 June 2025
UK Modern Industrial Strategy
As an engineer, I am incredibly excited by the vision of engineering, industrial and innovation renewal that the Secretary of State is describing. In Worcester, we have a mission to make ourselves the best city in the best country in the world to start and grow a business. Time and again, though, th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
18 June 2025
2 contributions
Future of the Gas Grid
I take this opportunity to wish my hon. Friend and office mate a very happy birthday. This is a very important debate, and I am grateful to him for securing it. I am looking forward to the discussion and I have much to share later, but for now I emphasise how timely the debate is as we face uncertai…
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. What better birthday present could my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) have than debating such a crucial and timely topic? I anticipate that perhaps, as he blows out the candles on his cake, as someone who cares de…