Commons
Westminster Hall
4 December 2025
Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Dame Siobhain. I sincerely thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this debate, for his thoughtful remarks and for his advocacy on this subject over many years.
As we have heard, an …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 December 2025
Criminal Court Reform
I am hoping that, for the avoidance of doubt, the Justice Secretary can rule out any changes to inquests with a jury, which are required when the deceased has been detained by the state. These inquests are also subject to agonising delays for bereaved families. Given those delays, what plans does he…
Commons
Oral Questions
1 December 2025
2 contributions
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
10. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the adoption and special guardianship support fund.
Alison Roy is a constituent of mine. She is a therapist and works with adopted children. Last week, she drew to my attention the BBC Radio 4 programme “File on 4” on the impact and state of adoption, which highlighted that more than 1,000 adopted children have been returned to care in the past five …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
26 November 2025
Engagements
Q2. University Hospitals Sussex currently has 350 people well enough to go home, but occupying beds. That is the same number of beds as in Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath in my constituency. The reason they cannot go home is that there is no social care package for them to go on to. This i…
Commons
Debate
25 November 2025
3 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
I am interested in how far the hon. Gentleman would propose to go. Would he advocate the abolition for the Mayor of London?
My amendment 34 is simple but vital. It would strengthen the ability of all our communities not only to bid for assets of community value but to make informed, responsible decisions when doing so. At present, communities have a right to bid, yet, absurdly, no guaranteed right to view. We ask our tow…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Proceedings
24 November 2025
Ministerial Code
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) said, dealing with the Department of Health and Social Care over the past year or so has been an exercise in opacity. One thing that we have struggled with has been the 50% cuts to NHS integrated care boards. That has left hon. Members…
Commons
Oral Questions
20 November 2025
2 contributions
Passenger Rail: Performance Improvements
21. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of passenger rail performance.
My Mid Sussex constituents are frustrated by the number of cancellations, particularly on Thameslink services. One of the reasons for those cancellations is driver shortages; in particular, sickness rates are running at 15% to 20%. The operator has told me that it is now paying private healthcare pr…
Commons
Westminster Hall
20 November 2025
3 contributions
Unpaid Carers: Inequalities
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) not only for securing this important debate on Carers Rights Day, but for all her work championing carers since her election to Parliament.
I welcome yesterday’s publication of the terms of refe…
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend’s excellent point. It is regrettable that there seems to be only one person that the Government like to call on to do very important work across a number of different areas.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 November 2025
5 contributions
Parkinson’s Disease
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I would like to begin by thanking the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for securing this debate and for making such a well-articulated case for why more needs to be done to support people with Parkinson’s. I also thank him for ment…
My hon. Friend makes her point very well, and I agree with it.
Rather than repeat what other hon. Members have said, I will move to identifying the three or four main areas that the Liberal Democrats want to highlight, hopefully giving the Minister more time to address the many points that hon. Mem…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 November 2025
Business of the House
Hon. Members who watched “Newsnight” last night will doubtless have been moved by Sir Michael Palin’s interview about his wife Helen’s final days and passing in a hospice. The package reveals what is known to many Members: the hospice crisis of funding, cuts and beds being closed. In the light of th…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 November 2025
Water Sector Reform
My constituents are fed up. They are fed up of paying rising bills and adhering to hosepipe bans, and of being told to be mindful of how they use their water while leaks go unfixed and water shortages remain. This autumn, people in Mid Sussex came within three weeks of standpipes being needed, despi…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
Rural Railway Stations: Step Free Access
Wivelsfield station in my constituency was also promised money in January 2024 under the Access for All scheme, and to date no more information has been forthcoming. Does my hon. Friend agree that what the Conservatives did in 2024 was nothing more than pork barrel politics?
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
Alcohol Duty: UK Wine Sector
Like the hon. Lady, as a south-east MP, I have some amazing vineyards in my constituency, such as Bolney Wine Estate and Albourne Estate. They have told me about the challenges of the 8.5% cap that the hon. Lady has so articulately set out. It strikes me, however, that the previous Conservative Gove…
Commons
Oral Questions
Women and Equalities
5 November 2025
STEM Industries: Female Workforce
Does the Minister seriously believe that cutting funding for the international baccalaureate, a qualification that is proven to keep more girls studying STEM subjects, will help increase the number of women entering STEM industries?
Commons
Westminster Hall
29 October 2025
3 contributions
International Baccalaureate: Funding in State Schools
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing this debate on what we have heard from Members across the Chamber is a really important subject.
Varndean sixth-form college in Brighton is the onl…
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I wholeheartedly agree with her.
The Government say they want to widen participation in higher education and to boost skills, but cutting funding for the IB does the opposite; it narrows opportunity and stifles aspiration. Therefore, I again urge the Minister…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
28 October 2025
2 contributions
Hong Kong: Human Rights Violations
8. What assessment she has made of recent trends in the level of human rights violations in Hong Kong.
A constituent of mine, who now lives in Haywards Heath, came to the UK from Hong Kong under the British national overseas visa route after the deterioration of human rights there left her and her daughter with no choice but to seek safety. She is now deeply anxious about reports that the qualifying …
Commons
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
NHS Menopause Treatment
It is being reported in the press this week that women are being exploited by a menopause “gold rush”, enabled by tech giants such as Instagram. What steps can be taken to ensure that women have access to the very best of information and that misinformation on the internet is brought under control?
Commons
Debate
20 October 2025
Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy
The Secretary of State praises the fantastic FE staff and describes FE colleges as
“no longer a Cinderella service, but rather a system of high esteem”.
How does she propose to do that while still maintaining the pay gap for FE staff compared with teachers in other educational settings?
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
20 October 2025
2 contributions
International Baccalaureate
1. What steps she is taking to ensure the provision of adequate funding for pupils to study the International Baccalaureate.
Varndean sixth-form college in Brighton is the only state-funded IB provider in Sussex. It has warned that, without the large programme uplift, the IB will become financially unviable. Many Mid Sussex students have gone on from Varndean to study engineering, medicine and maths at leading universitie…
Commons
Debate
16 October 2025
4 contributions
Children’s Hospices: South-east England
I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s announcement this morning, in anticipation of this afternoon’s debate, of £80 million of support for children’s hospices over three years. I thank the Minister for listening to the calls of the children’s hospice sector and the Liberal Democrats.
The three-…
I thank my hon. Friend for celebrating the work of Queen’s nurses and fabulous Fia for what she has done in writing a book—I am not sure that I could do that. It is truly impressive, and I am happy to encourage the Minister to buy the book; it sounds like I had better buy it too.
This is about real…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
13 October 2025
2 contributions
Baby Loss
The hon. Members for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) and for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) and the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) must be thanked, not just for securing this debate to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, but for their tireless advocacy to improve maternit…
The theme of this year’s Baby Loss Awareness Week is “Together, we care”, and we do care. We care about all kinds of baby loss, and we care about babies like Austin. Hannah told me:
“We lost an entire lifetime. Our son never had the chance to grow up, to take his first steps, to speak his first wor…
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
Police: Professional Standards
I am an MP from Sussex. We are about to go through local government reorganisation and see the creation of a Sussex mayor, and as part of that process, the role of the police and crime commissioner is going to become redundant. How does the Minister think that new mayoral responsibility is going to …
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 September 2025
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq.
Parents do everything for their children, especially when they have special needs. That is why I am fed up with the demonisation of parents. They are blamed for gaming the system, for having failed as parents, for being too soft, for not putti…
Commons
Proceedings
10 September 2025
Qatar: Israeli Strike
Can the Minister confirm whether the Attorney General will publish any advice that he or the Government have received on whether there have been breaches of international law during the conflict in Gaza?