Commons
Oral Questions
Health and Social Care
14 July 2026
NHS Trusts: Digital Infrastructure
I spent a day last week with the palliative care team at William Harvey hospital in Ashford, which serves a large chunk of my constituency, and I was amazed by how much time they spent gathering and sharing information. They were clicking through on really old systems, all on pdf, which takes up a h…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
13 July 2026
Violence against Women and Girls
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to echo your tribute to a predecessor of mine, Ann Widdecombe. She was an exceptionally effective Member of Parliament, has been a really tough act to follow, and is very fondly remembered in the Weald. On behalf of my constituents, whom she served for decades—a r…
Commons
Proceedings
6 July 2026
2 contributions
Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on whether the Government are planning to change the law to deport Rochdale grooming gang leader, Shabir Ahmed.
Shabir Ahmed has committed some of the most despicable crimes imaginable. As the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, he was responsible for grooming, trafficking and raping children as young as 12 years old. He was jailed in 2012 for 30 counts of child rape. His victims were promised that when…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
6 July 2026
2 contributions
Support for Veterans
8. What steps he is taking to support veterans.
Twiggy Roberts, who is a veteran himself and runs HX Motors in my constituency, training other veterans to maintain and customise Land Rovers, says that he hears a lot from veterans of his generation about their frustrations as they try to gain access to the mental health services that they need and…
Commons
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Asylum Accommodation
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, which confirms what we have suspected since last week: this Government are planning to put more illegal migrants into sites across the country.
Some of those sites are due to host illegal migrants until 2030, yet the Government did not think …
Commons
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Prisoner Early Release
In June, 20 grooming gang perpetrators were jailed for offences in West Yorkshire, which included the rape and abuse of three girls of whom the youngest was aged just 12. Abbas Kaji was sentenced to just seven years for rape, and Mohammed Ishtiaq Hussain to just eight. All too soon, these vile men w…
Commons
Proceedings
25 June 2026
Points of Order
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that the Home Office is due tonight to announce 12 new asylum seeker centres across the country, with no statement to the House or notification to Members here. This is a very, very important issue for our constituents. I seek your guidance on how we mig…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 June 2026
Abuse of Customer-facing Workers
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) on securing the debate.
As others have noted, the abuse faced by many people working in customer-facing roles is deeply distressing. We should all be concerned by the rise in a…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
8 June 2026
Immigration Rules: Economic Impact
The latest estimates indicate that 627,000 non-EU migrants, mostly from low-income countries, came to the UK between December 2024 and December 2025. Meanwhile, 61,000 Brits aged 16 to 24 left the UK, as did another 65,000 aged 25 to 34. In recent years, for every young Briton who has been employed,…
Commons
Proceedings
8 June 2026
Water Companies
I know that the Minister is acutely aware of the terrible problems we have had with South East Water; we have discussed it recently. It cannot supply water in the winter because it is too cold. It cannot supply water in the summer because it is too hot. The chair and the chief executive have both st…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
19 May 2026
Violence against Women and Girls
I welcome the Minister to her place. Almost the first thing the Prime Minister’s new adviser on women and girls did after she was appointed was to say on social media that Arooj Shah, the recently defeated leader of Oldham council, should be given a peerage. She did so despite the fact that Shah spe…
Commons
Debate
27 April 2026
Dunmurry Police Station Attack
We can all agree that the public should be protected from anybody who is willing to use violence against innocents and the police to get what they want, but I wonder how the right hon. Gentleman intends to enforce that. What message does he think it sends to those who have had the courage to protect…
Commons
Debate
22 April 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
I was very sorry to hear the story that the hon. Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) shared. I will speak about a different aspect of the Bill: schools and admissions.
Good schools, and the good teachers who run them, are exceptionally precious. At its best, a good school truly can transform th…
Commons
Debate
21 April 2026
Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I both asked the Prime Minister whether he knew about Peter Mandelson’s role as a director at Sistema when he appointed him to be the ambassador to the United States. Given that the Prime Minister did not answer our question then, I wi…
Commons
Debate
20 April 2026
Security Vetting
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked this question, but I do not believe that she received a response. Was the Prime Minister aware that Peter Mandelson was a director of Sistema before he was appointed?
Commons
Debate
15 April 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)—my constituency neighbour—has repeatedly and effectively highlighted, the mandation power in this Bill is a shocking power grab. She is also right to say that, regardless of the apparent guardrails that the Government have now i…
Commons
Oral Questions
14 April 2026
Topical Questions
T9. The changes that the Government made in January to prioritise British graduates for NHS training places were very welcome indeed, but the current system of random allocation demoralises and disincentivises our brightest graduates, and it causes profound uncertainty for people at the start of …
Commons
Debate
18 March 2026
Fuel Duty
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech as usual. Is she aware of analysis from the Taxpayers’ Alliance that says the average household will pay £40,000 in fuel duty over a lifetime under the Chancellor’s plans? That is several thousand pounds more than the median disposable income for a househ…
Commons
Oral Questions
17 March 2026
Transparency in Court Proceedings
In February, the Government ordered Courtsdesk to delete the largest archive of court records in the country—an essential tool for transparency in the justice system. The Government changed their minds about that, which was incredibly welcome, but we do not yet have a clear sense of what they intend…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 March 2026
Rural Roads
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) for securing the debate.
The condition of rural roads is an ever-present issue for those of us who represent rural constituencies. In the Weald of Kent, wher…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
12 March 2026
Defending Democracy Taskforce
There is much to welcome in the Security Minister’s statement. I thank him for advance sight of it and, more broadly, for his update on the work of the defending democracy taskforce, and I join him in remembering our colleagues who lost their lives in service of the public.
As the Minister rightly …
Commons
Debate
11 March 2026
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Since the Government announced their tax raid on family farms, they have made numerous false claims about the policy and what it will mean for farmers. Raising the threshold, as the Government propose today, does not fix the fundamental wrongs at the heart of this awful policy. I will speak in favou…
Commons
Debate
10 March 2026
Courts and Tribunals Bill
We have heard a great deal from Government Members about the necessity of these court reforms. They say that in order to tackle the backlog in our courts, we need to curb jury trials, but previous statements from Ministers betray the Government’s true intentions. On 7 January, standing at the Dispat…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
4 March 2026
2 contributions
Engagements
Q11. The Government’s proposed terms of reference for the inquiry into rape and grooming gangs are fatally flawed, as victims and survivors have pointed out. They will not address the role that race and religion played in motivating these crimes or lead to prosecutions for those involved in the cove…
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe the Prime Minister has inadvertently misled the House. I seek your guidance on how to get him to correct the record for claiming that I said something that I did not.
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 March 2026
Healthcare in Rural Areas
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) for securing this debate on such an important topic.
Any Member who represents a rural constituency can attest to the practical challenges that our healthcare system fa…