Commons
Westminster Hall
15 April 2026
Cost of Heating Oil
A constituent got in touch who had been in hospital over the winter and then in a care home while he convalesced. He finally got home and is now having to pay for carers twice a day. He is 70, and he has no spare money. His heating oil has run out, and he is being quoted twice the price he paid in S…
Commons
Committee Stage
14 April 2026
5 contributions
Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)
The Minister is making an impassioned plea for trying to equalise the system. Does she not share my concern about the Government’s proposals? Person A could be accused of sexual assault on the tube, and have never been in any criminal justice situation, while person B could have had a string of offe…
The Minister may have misunderstood my point. If person A and person B have committed the exact same offence—they might have done it a day apart, in the same place, in the same circumstances—but person B has previous record, they are more likely to be heard in front of a jury trial. With person A, w…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
14 April 2026
Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)
I will speak about the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to clause 1. The main reason why clause 1 should not be included in the Bill is that it fundamentally transforms the relationships that defendants have with the justice system. It is really important to make it clear that we are talking about defe…
Commons
Debate
13 April 2026
2 contributions
SEND Provision and Reform
My hon. Friend mentions under-resourcing. At West Sussex county council, the department just put an answerphone message on its system saying, “We are overwhelmed. We cannot take any calls today.” Does he agree that the parents who are navigating the system and often describe it as a “fight” do not h…
Does the hon. Lady agree that there is so much untapped potential in the parents who are currently trapped at home trying to support their children who are not being supported into schools? When I hosted a recent roundtable with parents in my constituency, I met ex-teachers, teaching assistants and …
Commons
Debate
13 April 2026
Southport Inquiry
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. It is truly heartbreaking to know that there were so many missed opportunities to stop the Southport attack. My thoughts today are with the bereaved families whose young daughters were so cruelly taken from them and with the many other v…
Commons
Westminster Hall
24 March 2026
Women’s Safety in Rural Areas
My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech about how we build in this country and the considerations we need to make. In my constituency, we have a large-scale development called Minerva Heights that was planned to be built in phases. Lighting down St Paul’s Road, which connects phase 1 to other c…
Commons
Westminster Hall
24 March 2026
2 contributions
Endometriosis Services
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. She has been a doughty campaigner not only for children’s health but for women’s health over many years. I am pleased to see her in her place. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott…
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend about research into gynaecological conditions. If we invested as much into women’s health as we have done over many decades into men’s health, maybe we would not have so many different types of Viagra and we might have a response to women’s health.
Clinici…
Commons
Westminster Hall
23 March 2026
Court and Tribunal Transcripts
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken so thoughtfully on this important topic. I especially thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for representing the Petitions Committee; he has certainly done his homework, an…
Commons
Oral Questions
17 March 2026
Topical Questions
I associate the Liberal Democrats with the Secretary of State’s condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPPs, have been used by the rich and powerful to silence victims and undermine the free press in this country. Anyone engaging in publi…
Commons
Oral Questions
17 March 2026
Victims’ Rights
The family courts urgently need reforming so that victims, especially those of domestic violence, are not experiencing a system that is being used by perpetrators to continue to control and abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner reported that 73% of hearings in the family courts involved evidence of…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 March 2026
Rural Roads
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his impassioned speech about the state of our roads. I was recently speaking to a driving instructor in my constituency who literally relies for his livelihood on having a car that is on the road. Every day that his car is taken off the road, he loses £250 of income, a…
Commons
Debate
12 March 2026
International Women’s Day
The hon. Lady raises Nancy Astor, of whom there is a statue in Plymouth. There are 11 statues for people to view in my constituency, but none are of women. Does she agree that it is important that women throughout history are also represented in statue form? Would she therefore join my campaign to e…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
12 March 2026
Business of the House
Developers building in Bosham, Earnley and Bracklesham in my constituency were given planning conditions that did not allow them to move residents on to the new developments until there was sufficient waste water treatment works capacity. Well—surprise, surprise—there is no extra capacity at the was…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
12 March 2026
Parental Rights at Work
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for infant feeding and inequalities. One of the key barriers to women returning to the workplace occurs if they continue to breastfeed their children. A lot of workplaces …
Commons
Oral Questions
11 March 2026
Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation
As has been well established today, the blame for failures does not lie with postal workers, who are doing all they can to deliver a service. It lies with a private company that is telling its staff to prioritise parcels, but then pretending that is not its policy. My Chichester constituents have re…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 March 2026
Rough Sleeping: Families with Children
The hon. Member is right to highlight the resource challenges that local authorities have. From an outward perspective, my Chichester constituency is a very affluent area, with lower levels of homelessness, but in 1989 a gentleman died on our streets, and so a charity called Stonepillow was formed. …
Commons
Debate
10 March 2026
7 contributions
Courts and Tribunals Bill
The Liberal Democrats will be voting against the Bill, and we have tabled a reasoned amendment that sets out why we fundamentally disagree with the approach of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Courts Minister to tackling the Crown court backlog. Our views have been well aired in this place over the…
Joanna Hardy-Susskind put it well today, when she said:
“I have seen the adjournment of two rape trials this year. It’s only March. Nothing in Lammy’s proposed Bill would have saved the trial dates in either case. Nothing.”
Barristers across England and Wales are reporting delays to their cases be…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 March 2026
Healthcare in Rural Areas
The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point about development. In the rural village of Bosham in my constituency, a resident was recently told that they would have to wait four months for a GP appointment. Meanwhile, they have seen plans come online for the development of 300 homes behind the GP surg…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 March 2026
Middle East
We must not conflate the appalling actions of Iran with those of the Iranian people, who have spent years fighting at great risk for change—and intensively over the last couple of months. The severe repression under the ayatollah has led many of them to actually welcome the actions of Trump and Neta…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
2 March 2026
Phone Use in Schools
Last week, I spent time with teachers and students from Chichester high school who have implemented the use of lockable magnetic pouches. Students told me that this had improved their focus in lessons and, interestingly, that the number of bathroom breaks had halved. Their use has reduced the pull o…
Commons
Westminster Hall
25 February 2026
Student Loan Repayment Plans
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this issue disproportionately affects women and those who have caring responsibilities? I have a constituent who was successfully paying down her student loan. She took a few years off to have children, and when she came back to the employed world, her bill was big…
Commons
Oral Questions
24 February 2026
Access to Mental Health Services
After my young constituent was left in limbo between child and adolescent mental health services, health services and neurodevelopment pathways, with nobody claiming responsibility for her healthcare needs, her mum called 111 to get some advice. The advice she was given was, “If you’re not happy wit…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
23 February 2026
Local Government Reorganisation
West Sussex county council should never have been offered the opportunity to postpone for a second year running, effectively gifting the Conservative-controlled administration a seven-year term. Now, with democracy restored, there are just 74 days until the polls, so will West Sussex still be expect…
Commons
Debate
23 February 2026
Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving
The Government’s White Paper talks about having an “expert teacher” in every room. That is certainly a problem in the profession, with one in three teachers leaving after five years of service. Chichester University has created a teacher training programme that embeds inclusivity at the root of ever…
Commons
Oral Questions
10 February 2026
Court Reporting Data
I thank the Minister for setting out the data protection issues that have been identified with Courtsdesk, but can she explain why her Department ignored the 16 letters written by Courtsdesk asking for dialogue before deciding to do away with the system? As was pointed out by the Chair of the Justic…